General 3 — S.Y. Emily Tse

FUTUREMARKET

The translucent roof introduces sufficient sunlight for plant growth, as well as brightening the store, making experience more friendly and comfortable. The environment aims to enrich customers’ life by elevating their shopping experience, making grocery shopping feel less like a chore but a moment of enjoyment.

MANIFESTO

Project 1 (Introductory Project) revolved the idea of “symbiosis”, where various and dissimilar organisms affect one another to either help each other grow into a more biodiverse environment - a part of ecology. The idea of ecology can also be applied in the artificial environment since they are constantly evolving to adapt to the economy, technologies, and inventions’ changes. They are continuously reinvented, reformulated, and reshaped to keep up with the most subtle changes in society.

Few activities unite us as human beings in the way shopping does, it is a way of expanding communities and flourishing cooperation, allowing surrounding services to act as a joint orchestrated delivery of goods and experiences, and creating harmonious synergy around the area. Throughout the evolution of architecture for shopping, from arcades to supermarkets to department stores, the space is increasingly divorced from the outside with the introduction of appliances such as HVAC and artificial lighting. As shopping is now an ingrained part of our lives, citizens’ lifestyles are also gradually divorced from nature and its origin.

Since supermarket is a constantly visited place, it is a suitable starting place to create a new type of ecology in the urban area. Project 2 (Main Project) takes its starting point on the chosen Grimshaw building - Sainsbury superstore (Camden Town), with the consideration of revitalising the building itself and its surroundings. The renovated building could become a new supermarket model that can grow and expand to become a food department store, where it is not only the act of shopping but allowing other activities that grows the community.

The idea of horticulture has been used in past shopping places, such as the Crystal Palace, which is a place where people are willing to visit more frequently and stay longer. A natural chance on site is the canal where it can be used for horticulture to not only provide fresh vegetable and fruits but leaving a potential increase in job opportunities and social interaction.

Joining the coppiced area in Flimwell for a provision of curved timber (grown in Project 1), the timber are used in complement to the existing structure. The matured growing structure can be transported to Camden, either used as structural support, or replace the old parts of the superstore with a similar or inovating structure.

This project will treat Sainsbury as the client, using architecture to express its brand value and strength its recognition to the public. Moreover, this project seeks to challenge the traditional model of supermarkets, engage and using the current technology growth’s tendency to create a supermarket that informs the future way of grocery shopping.

The space is designed to have more open space and visual connections among each floor. Having a transparent and dynamic space, with exposure to natural building material (coppices) not only helps the customers directly grasp the brand's value but also introduce a sense of inclusion in contributing to an environmental improvement by knowing where the food they are buying comes from, such as the aquaponics vegetable growing system.

The grown vault-shaped sweet chestnut coppices can be directly used or mildly altered and used in the renovation of the Grimshaw building. The project aims to use every part of the tree to prevent excessive waste of material.

Column units made from vaults grown in Flimwell (details in Introductory project)

Aquaponic scheme for growing fresh food and treating polluted canal

PLANS

Final Proposal

INTRODUCTORY PROJECT - SEEDING CITIES

This is a project carried out before the main project (Futuremarket), for which rethinks the concept of habitats. It involves a design of an apparatus - wardian case, which lays down a foundation for discovering possibilties and inspirations for innovative design appraoch to the main project.

*This section present final design first then supporting information on how the design came together

MAIN PROJECT - BACKGROUND RESEARCH

To renovate the Grimshaw Sainsbury Superstore, this project research into the evolution of shopping space, the camden site and architecture analysis to discover areas that need improvement.

With the facade being marching down the streets, while its architectural feature is significantly presented to the passerbys, its base structure has taken up some space of the street level, leaving a relative narrow pedestrian street (especially with the bus station) and the entrance half hidden around the corner. The layout characterised the building to be efficient and linear, giving the space a more functional purpose than social.

Level of liveliness in areas around the superstore

The project aims to connect the two streets next to the site by opening up and making the building more public, therefore creating a sense of communication and interaction through this connectivity. The highlighted part on the site plan is a potential area that can be redeveloped along with the renovation of the superstore. Regent’s canal associated with industrial build- ings and run-down factories in Islington area.

Sainsbury’s floor plan is the patch which allows large interior area for richness and population, and suitable for gathering, however this patch shape has least interaction with adjacent patches and matrices. The project aims to challenge the tradition and efficient layout of a typical supermarket, turning it into a space that is more human oriented.

1:75 Outer facade and inner space study model

Technology usage such as QR codes are becoming more and more significant. A new form of supermarket such as Amazon go, sees the potential of involving more computer deep learning and AI in the shopping systems. People are able to scan the QR code and simply grab what they like from the store and walk out without the usual mundane of queuing and paying.

Original ground floor plan and interior layout

One of the noticible design features of the Sainsbury Superstore is the tapered plate girder. They are the most important structural components that give the superstore its unique characteristic.

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS - The connections between the tapered girders and the curved trusses allowed a big open, column-free space un- derneath for the flexibility of the store. The tapered girder takes the weight of the truss at its tips. It is wider around the pole to counteract the bending moment caused by the weight of the truss.

The front facade is shaded by the extending structure of the roof and the upper level. With small window to ratio at the South facade of the building, the space inside does not get enough daylight. With the entrance less open to the streets, the architecture and space feels more private than public. It will be beneficial to bring in more day and sunlight while keeping the facade facing the public more transparent and vast.

Physical Model 1:50 & Structural capacity analysis

MAIN PROJECT - PROGRAM

Highlight Sainsbury’s brand value; Bring fresh food to areas within 15 minutes radius; Introduce aquaponics system to grow fresh food and cleaning polluted canal; Reduce timber waste