Audrey Thébaud
Inoculation
Audrey Thébaud
Inoculation
Inoculation
→ ARCH 293
About
Inoculation acts as a threshold between City and Escarpment to renew the link between upper and lower Hamilton. Merging architecture and landscape practices, the project provides pedestrian access to the Rail Trail, a lookout, three flexible buildings, and native plantings interspersed with gathering spaces. A preliminary site study exposed the economic disparity between upper and lower Hamilton, the gap in access to green spaces and quality food. Inoculation acts as a land trust and community garden of sorts to introduce all users to the Escarpment’s ecology, inter-species connections, foraging, and foster stewardship over this natural landmark. Strategic planting of, mostly edible, native species engenders ecological succession, allowing the Escarpment to reclaim this environment. Its organization and morphology are inspired by fallen logs, which, left untouched, guide us through the forest, allowing new life to grow as they decay. Natural reclamation and temporality further define the design’s function, system, and materiality: enter, mushrooms. The site purposefully facilitates the growth of mushrooms to favour a cyclical, autonomous design. These architects of decay encapsulate the aspiration of this project: to encourage a broader urban community that invites nature in, maintains it and a building style that celebrates the weathering of its materials.
About
Inoculation acts as a threshold between City and Escarpment to renew the link between upper and lower Hamilton. Merging architecture and landscape practices, the project provides pedestrian access to the Rail Trail, a lookout, three flexible buildings, and native plantings interspersed with gathering spaces. A preliminary site study exposed the economic disparity between upper and lower Hamilton, the gap in access to green spaces and quality food. Inoculation acts as a land trust and community garden of sorts to introduce all users to the Escarpment’s ecology, inter-species connections, foraging, and foster stewardship over this natural landmark. Strategic planting of, mostly edible, native species engenders ecological succession, allowing the Escarpment to reclaim this environment. Its organization and morphology are inspired by fallen logs, which, left untouched, guide us through the forest, allowing new life to grow as they decay. Natural reclamation and temporality further define the design’s function, system, and materiality: enter, mushrooms. The site purposefully facilitates the growth of mushrooms to favour a cyclical, autonomous design. These architects of decay encapsulate the aspiration of this project: to encourage a broader urban community that invites nature in, maintains it and a building style that celebrates the weathering of its materials.
