notch collective recycles hackney into sill to sill shop

‘sill to sill’ by notch, london, england
image © millie harvey
all images courtesy of sill to sill

the hackney city farm in london offers a fun, interactive and educational experience for children and adults to learn about agricultural practices. local design collective notch realized their first project with ‘sill to sill‘, a competition-winning entry for a new plant, fruit, and vegetable shop commissioned by the hackney city farm. with the groups hands-on approach, they took to the streets to absorb the vernacular and consider each of the points that were to fulfill the brief: considering the company’s environmental ethos through the use of recycled materials, upcycling urban waste, and environmentally responsible construction methods. with the current gentrification, much debris is discarded on a daily basis from the existing victorian-style homes. the large sash windows were the first salvaged materials and were creatively re-adapted as apertures along the timber facade- their deep sills offering new uses as light shelves, benches, shades, or displays. they also pose a potentially great resource for the growth of plants, as there is an estimated 600 acres of window sill ‘space’ in the united kingdom. the walls, loosely based on the surrounding industrial brick buildings, consist of stacked layers of reclaimed scaffolding boards, planed and painted, and assembled using a very simple technique that does not require skilled labor. the result is an organic structure built from the discarded artifacts of the surrounding neighborhoods, inviting and insightful, taking up only a small unused space along a street.

image © millie harvey

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project info:

project title: sill to sill, farm shop,
location: hackney city farm, london, uk
client: hackney city farm
design team: benedetta rogers, lucy paton, julian bond, sigrid bylander.
structural engineers: built engineers
volunteers: robert hindle, anthony staples, seainin passi, david hood, ricarda wolf, sara mellone, luke jones, anna mill, geraldine holland, madiha ahmad, garbiel warshafsky, tom borsay, joe brimson, johanna ibbotson, lilli hoikka, jessica clements, amanda rashid, tierney lovell, mina gospavic, nadia wikborg, georgina walker, wai ching, kamil konca, steve goodey, james, miguel, chris watkins, jane lambert, dan, richard, hackney laces, artsadmin make space project, corporate volunteers from ubs, rbs, bank of england.

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