COMMUNE

[ fungiculture refuge ]

The Hellgate Fungiculture Cooperative is a housing complex founded on the concept that survival on the urban fringe in the next century will depend on resilient independence in both self-sustaining food production and the formation of urban tribes. The site itself is hostile, located on a desolate edge of a violent waterway, distant from existing public transportation, and unlikely to appeal to the target market of commercial real estate developers currently consuming the waterfront perimeter with disposable condos.

Fungus, ideal for humidity and requiring little to no light to flourish, is offered as a more likely counter to the typical urban farm proposal, an idea often inhibited by climate and inappropriate vegetation choices.

Beginning with a temporal analysis of the life-cycle of edible mushrooms and a spatial diagram of the mechanical, chemical, thermal, and storage requirements of a crop, the fungicultural program becomes the literal and conceptual foundation for the flood-prone complex.

The initial attempts at form-making in the studio were determined by use of an animation software called Houdini, intended to emulate a generative method of production. By focusing on particle systems emulating spore diffusion, I attempted to maintain a conceptual bridge to the notion of fungal growth. Additional manipulations centered on siting and the massing of individual housing units, allowing both the permeability of ground-level water and a concentration of living units further away from the infiltration of possible floodwater.