Architecture &  food

BIA 01 : BIA Enabled Redesign of Typical Victorian Terraced Housing

 

London Victorian terraced house transformed into a photon harvesting “grow your own” sanctuary.



Retaining the same number of bedrooms, volume and general dimensions, BIA 01 is anchored in the familiar London vernacular. A&f proposes an energetic re-orientation to solar income, reinventing the solar-facing roof and facade as a generative interface for electricity, food and biomass.



The staircase enclosure doubles as a greenhouse and stack ventilation chimney. Orientated to the south, the landings are made deeper, allowing the southernmost portion to be committed to hydroponic growing along the entire vertical plane.

The lightweight, perforate staircase permits the free movement of air through the volume, exploiting the height to induce natural ventilation currents.

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The ground floor is designed to incentivise communal cooking and dining, opening directly onto the back garden with a full width bi-fold door system.

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Each bedroom has its own dedicated balcony, framed with a planter at its foot and a PV panel to the top, both arranged to capture direct light in the summer while allowing indirect light in throughout the year.



The roof terrace is framed in plan by a snaking perimeter planter defining property boundaries and surrounding users with productive plants which help insulate in the winter and mitigate urban heat island effect in the summer while harvesting rainwater year round and committing it directly to use.