Cheese grater site set to be city farm
Mitchell Taylor Workshop has won the competition to transform Richard Rogers’ stalled “cheese grater” site into public space, BD understands
The young Bath practice’s city farm proposal has been selected from an invited shortlist of 13 (News October 30) to find a new use for the site on Leadenhall Street in the City of London for up to four years.
Judges were charmed by the practice’s innovative ideas, which include a wild flower bank and the Square Mile’s first-ever allotments whose produce will be sold to City workers from a series of kiosks.
They were impressed that the project met developer British Land’s tight £125,000 budget.
Schemes by Carmody Groarke and AY Architects also proved popular. The developer still has a veto on the judges’ decision.
A source close to the judges said: “A lot of the practices took a very formalised approach with a space for people to sit in their Hugo Boss suits and eat their sandwiches. But [Mitchell Taylor’s] was a much more interesting idea, to have a garden where people could grow their own fruit and veg.”
The practice has been in talks with potential operators. They were surprised to discover mediaeval City planning laws would allow the farm to have sheep, goats, pigs and a cow.
Piers Taylor said: “It looks bold and ambitious but it’s deliverable for £125,000. It’s also quick to install — and to remove should the market change significantly.
“It’s exciting in terms of what it might offer other vacant sites and opportunities to engage the public realm.”
Meanwhile, Peter Rees, one of the judges of the Leadenhall competition and the City’s head of planning, said more developers should bring in architects to carry out temporary makeovers of recession-hit sites.
Speaking at a debate at New London Architecture last week, he said the local authority was determined to make sure derelict sites did not blight the Square Mile.
“We don’t want them lying fallow for a decade and we don’t want them to bring down the value of the surrounding land,” he said.
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Readers' comments (7)
Sam | 13 November 2009 6:06 am
how cliched...
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the drewfus | 13 November 2009 2:13 pm
tramps are going to own that place
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sam | 13 November 2009 2:19 pm
umm... why is it clichéd to radically improve a derelict open space in the city? frankly this looks amazing and for tar too long our cities have been planned by bureaucrats and corporate greed. this proposal is what the city needs
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jenny page | 13 November 2009 3:06 pm
What a breath of fresh air for the city!
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abigsmellyholeinthecity | 14 November 2009 6:35 pm
Did we really need 'architects' to come up with this? Simply open it up to the public. I am sure the response would be more productive. Not sure I would eat produce or pet any of the animals in there, how do you monitor pollution, contamination or prevent stressed out office workers from liberating their pint glasses into the hole after a late night out? What's wrong with people in suits - ie: most of the users of the city! and where else to go for lunch? lol, could be easily removed should the market change' poss read : "after we saw some of the great designs, we thought that we don't actually want to do something half decent or people may like it, use it, and it will hold us up from developing the site, also if it is there for more than a few years it will 'aquire' planning through retro lawfful development and we may need to get a change of use to build Rogers scheme!" Shallow and misguided (even though the hole is deep).
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mike | 15 November 2009 10:38 am
What is so f**king amazing about allottments? What a waste of the potential of a new public space. Watching a few tomatoes grow isn't a project.
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anonymous | 15 November 2009 1:38 pm
As one of the 13 practices invited to enter this competition we are very disappointed to have found out that a winner has been chosen, via BD. We were not informed despite submitting designs two months ago. When asked to bid for work for no fee we feel that the minimum respect we would expect to be given is to be informed of the result directly by the organisers.
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