☉ A Castle in the countryside is an academic project by Studio Narra for Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio in 2020. It is located in Bellinzona Switzerland in a countryside setting. Its scale is large with a surface of 10.000 sqm. Key materials are glass and metal.
Food hub hybrid as a learning device.
The project lands in Bellinzona, noticeable for its castles and a place seen from transportation devices. A case study of (sub)urban palaces, castles, objects in the city of simultaneous living, working and agriculture. A question of large scale territorial management. Devices of autonomy in the midst of the light city – bigger than a town but not yet not the density of a city while everything is somehow in reach.
Food defines who we are and where we come from. It is one of the biggest global industries but it still has its local importance. Historically, the development of cities has been inextricably connected to its production, supply and distribution, yet with the migration of rural communities to urban cities, the human population has become increasingly removed from sites of agricultural production and less aware of how their food is made. The direct relationship between producer and consumer is now separated by an everexpanding line of middle-man entities including distributors, processors and retailers.
This Food hub has the potential to alleviate this bottleneck of inefficiency by consolidating supplies into shared facilities for local farmers and locating them strategically within cities. The aim is to create shared facilities for local farmers to distribute their food to more consumers and global entities. It is a hybrid typology of combing working+ living+ food. The object becomes a learning device, in this case by the means of food.