As our office is located above Hackney City Farm, Denizen Works  has volunteered and developed designs to build small structures on the farm. These include projects of unusual typologies – and equally unusual “clients” – such as a pig pen, fly farm and a wood and plant store, and a plant shop.

For the plant store, we envisioned an expanding form that could open up during business hours and easily tuck away in the evenings. An inner leaf within the main shell rolls out to extend the length of the shop, designed to be easily operatable by an individual. With an additional large swinging door, visitors are welcomed inside the “expanding” shop.

Shelves of planting around the exterior enable the opening junction to be hidden when closed between the foliage. We drew an option that continues the planting to the internal side of the door, or reserving this for hanging plants instead.

The overall budget directed us to research alternative materials which could be sourced locally and reused. To additionally save on costs, we proposed integrating the already strong community involvement at the farm to help with elements such as finishes to finalise the build. For example, simple and cheap ceramic tiles could be designed and painted through workshops for children, fired and varnished at the farm’s existing facility, and fixed as cladding.