Circular Exchange: From Delivery to Renewal

My project explores the relationship of the food cycle and the food delivery industry through the adaptive reuse of an existing industrial structure on Cambridge Heath Road. The proposal reimagines the building as a spatial and visual diagram of the system, reconnecting the people with the process of what they consume and exposing systems that are usually kept hidden. The design aims to expose and connect the public to the process through openings in the structure, externalising usually internal services and creating spaces for the delivery drivers that usually do not have physical urban infrastructure. Overall, the design becomes an intermediary between the food process, distribution and consumption, making the public hyper-aware of each stage while consuming their food and making them an active participant in it. The project also prioritises the reuse of the demolished materials of the original structure, further strengthening its circularity message and reducing the embodied carbon of the building. This approach ensures that the existing is not a restraint but a resource, embedding the themes of the building directly into the architecture. The proposal aims to be a civic infrastructure that reveals the hidden labour, movement and waste of the modern food system. This project encourages the return of a more reciprocal relationship between the consumer and the people making the food, and pushing for a circular and regenerative cycle.