Urban agriculture and factory conversion, Bangkok, Thailand

Urban Farm Urban Barn – Return Farming to the City

Holcim Awards Silver 2011 Asia Pacific
Isavaret Tamonut, TTH Trading Co., Ltd, Thailand
March 2012

Project description
Located in a mixed use urban zone in central Bangkok, the Urban Farm Urban Barn aims to return green areas to the booming city. A former textile factory and abandoned farmland on an adjacent block shall be transformed into a 1.4ha agricultural production site and retail outlet. The atrophying rural economy is reactivated in the context of modern urbanity, and elaborated in a remarkable way. The factory building is converted into an eco-supermarket, additional buildings, such as a restaurant and marketplace are integrated into the crop production by becoming agricultural structures themselves.

Crops and their sequences are carefully selected and balanced, aiming to maximize harvest without exploiting the resources, while providing a habitat for local fauna. In a larger context, this concept aims to counterbalance the ongoing spatial separation of food production and consumption. A number of such units are intended to be established in the metropolitan area, reintroducing elements of self-sufficiency and reconnecting food production and consumption.

See the complete project design here.