Food is our Inspiration

This project has been designed under the supervision of Sammuel Hunter & Danielle Peck - RMIT University.

The ways of food production, distribution and consumption has a great impact on the infrastructural and systemic assets of civilization. Nowadays, the challenges in sustainability, accessibility and equality of food suply chains that our contemporary context is facing could be solved through the reconsideration of the way we humans eat. In this order of ideas, Food has become the inspiration for this project. More specifically, the personal and cultural perspectives of my own personal Colombian background drive the holistic and surreal redevelopment of The Queen Victoria Market Site in Melbourne. The project emphasises on production, landscape, community engagement and sustainable crop systems.

Queen Victoria Market

The Queen Victoria Market (QVM) is Victoria’s largest retail-based food distribution centre in the state. Farmers, suppliers and customers gather in here to commercialize farm products, clothing, crops and other first necessity items. The heritage listed site is currently under redevelopment considering the everyday greater demand of goods and services of Melbourne’s growing population.

Site Mapping

The proposed intervention in this project is defined by previous consideration of the site’s condition, such as foot and transit traffic, landscaping, Heritage listed structures, Sunlight access (Among others).

Market Experience

The authentic market experience of QVM is a reference point in which this project has been created, It acknowledges the historical importance of the site and works along aside with the already existing herritage listed built environment.

Masterplan

This Project composes a re-development of the QVM masterplan based on the 5 stages of the food supply chain (Production, Distribution, Preparation, Consumption & Waste)

The Dish

This is Colombian Hot Chocolate, The projects muse, a hot beverage proudly consumed country wide and which attributes have been the inspiration to the overall design scheme for this project. This illustration showcases the distinctive way in which chocolate is consumed in Colombia. It particularly focusses the attention on how Colombians enjoy deepening mozzarella cheese on the mug for a later elastic dairy treat.

Overall Design Redevelopment

Cacao, chocolate’s main ingredient is the crop in which this intervention to QVM is based. As a tropical fruit, naturally produced on warm and humid environments, is impossible to imagine how a region like metropolitan Melbourne could host a infrastructural master project dedicated to cacao plantation. However, this project proposes a 4.7 Hectares site dedicated to the sustainable production of chocolate for a population of 250.000 people (Approximately Melbourne’s CBD population).

This project is mainly about landscape and states the importance that green patches will have in the configuration of futuristic urban spaces. It creates a canopy of interaction between the existing built form and newly surreal spaces dedicated not only to the production of food, but also to the spreading of cultural knowledge and allowance of mass gatherings. It invites the future consumer, farmer and supplier to think beyond the commercial aspect of food supply chains and opens the boundaries towards educational and communal perspectives of food production.

The way in which this masterplan has been designed is based on the liquified properties of Colombian hot Chocolate. They give form to the final landscape by draping the sheds of QVM as if a great explosion of chocolate had fallen from the sky. Consequently, a series of parametrically designed greenhouses imitating the elastic capacity of melted cheese, rest on top of the hill hosting the plantation of cacao trees on a carefully curated environment that replicates the conditions needed for these plants to grow.

Design Scheme

Consumption

The consumption aspect of this project relies on Colombian culture and creates outdoors spaces where Colombian hot chocolate can be consumed. It provides environments that celebrate mass gatherings like parades and conventions where art and food get together to perform a unique expression culture.

Production

Due to the specific environmental setting that Cacao trees demand for their production. This project imagines futuristic greenhouses that replicate the ideal weather to successfully grow tropical plants. In this scenario, Parametric glass and steel sheds convey the main infrastructure for this intervention.

Preparation

The collective aspect that implies the preparation of a meal reflects on the importance of community and gathering, more specifically to the intimate or personal connections that are developed through the action of cooking. Whether is parents cooking for their family, or a 5 stars hotel chef, the memories and dedication relying around food preparation are what makes the experience of food culturally relevant. For this reason, preparation is deeply connected with the personal spatial perception of the most memorable places of my life where Colombian hot chocolate was prepared. They proposed communal gathering venues inspired from deep aspects of my personal life.

Distribution

Distribution of food relies on a methodical organisation of produce. It demands the necessity of a rigorous plan and site that would facilitate the constant demand of a product as well as maintaining its quality and preservation. This project proposes an organise system to distribute Colombian Hot Chocolate to Melbourne’s CBD taking advantage of the already existing storage and distribution facilities on QVM site.