New Haven Seed Centers
ACADEMIC | DESIGN STUDIO
Fall 2017 Yale School of Architecture | Core I Studio | Half Semester CRITIC | David Moon STUDIO COORDINATOR | Joyce Hsiang
The seed vault is a relatively unstudied typology with unique nuances and consequences. Seed saving has the potential to operate at scales from the intimate to the vast, from one person with one seed to terrestrial landscapes and environments. Inspired by flooding at the “doomsday vault” in Norway at the edge of the Arctic Circle, this project prompts questions of the process and product of how humanity sustains itself.
This design explores in-situ seed saving, in which the process of planting, cultivating, and sharing seeds is used to keep knowledge and biological diversity alive. Unlike the ex-situ form of seed saving demonstrated in the “doomsday” vault model, in-situ methods require access, flexibility, and visibility to successfully spread both knowledge and material.
The project takes the city of New Haven as a site in itself, using a historical lens to identify sites for potential intervention. It deploys a site-reactive yet cohesively identifiable typology across the city, creating a system of units that work together to transform the city into a laboratory for growing and sharing food.
The units’ geodesic language is inspired by Connecticut’s active geological history. It is sowed in areas cleared during New Haven’s active urban renewal period in the midcentury—to heal long-standing and unjust rifts in the urban fabric and catalyze community-based development.
The project seeks to explore how physical interventions can manifest and more broadly impact both the natural environment and the social landscape of cities.
City as Site
Three sites are identified across New Haven, hugging areas of environmental potential and filling in missing teeth in the city’s urban fabric. The three sites are The Oak Street Connector, where an entire neighborhood was raised during urban renewal; Fair Haven, where the historic waterfront is dotted by harbor infrastructure; and West Rock, which overlooks the city.
Fair Haven Site
This site design places a greenhouse on an existing landing site in Fair Haven, in close proximity to the Mill River and John S. Martinez School. The intervention is intended to serve as an educational space for the school, stitching it back to the water.
Oak Connector Site
This site design is intented to stitch the city together. On land originally cleared for an unrealized highway, this particular project seeks to offer a healing program to spur life back into the site. Serving as a hub for talks and exchanges from community seed saving groups across New Haven, the small crystaline seed center and patch based site design prioritize procession and views of the nearby marshland habitat.
Transverse sections show a basement for mechanicals and additional storage, a grand combined stair/seating/workspace area for lectures and seed distribution, a monolithic column for seed storage, and a long pathway connecting the intervention into the landscape. In the future this pathway can be used as a circulation spine for additional phases of urban acupuncture development.
West Rock Site
This site serves as an isolated yet highly visible center for the seed-saving program. Directly overlooking West Rock Park and the City as a whole, this seed vault is an icon for the project. Embedded in the cliff’s sandstone face, it is serviced by a new trail through the forest up the ridge, creating a holistic experience for scientists, gardeners, and school children alike.