Lea Valley Super-Farm: Institute of Failed Fruit and Vegetables in London

Kin Bong Yeung

Hongkong, China

Professional Group

Born in Hong Kong, Kin Bong Yeung studied architecture and graduated from the Bartlett in 2011. Acquiring Dean’s List for “Distinction in Design” and Merit in Thesis during his final year, he had been selected by Blueprint magazine as one of the “Best of the Student Shows”. He had worked on a few projects in London, Oxford and Exeter and became an UK Registered Architect in 2014. He is currently based in Foster + Partners Hong Kong office responsible for a few high profiled projects in Asia such as the Murray Building Hotel, Ocean Terminal Extension and Wuhan masterplan.

He has also taught part-time in a design module at HKU Space and acts as a guest critic at CUHK. Recently, his work has been selected by the Drawing Prize and will be exhibited at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin and Sir John Soane’s Museum in London in 2017-18. The work has also got a special mention of the jury in ArchiGraphicArts Drawing Competition 2016-17 in Russia. Last year, a team of three from HKU Space led by him has also gained an honorable mention for the Flexible Housing Society Contest in Spain.

《Lea Valley Super-Farm: Institute of Failed Fruit and Vegetables in London》

Category | Spatial Design : Architectural

Group | Professional

The architecture is designed to turn failed (by not passing EU Marketing Standards) fruit and vegetables into sustainable energy for London. At the same time, an extensive super-farm running north and south of the architecture was also proposed to make London self-sufficient in fresh produces.

From London to the east, Lea Valley has been chosen as the site. It has been a socially and economically deprived area, but also has a remarkable history of horticultural industry in the last century. The proposed super-farm will be an urban regeneration project through urban strategies, which could generate self-sufficiency at 43.7% in 7,933 hectares of land.

I have explored the potential agricultural technologies that can boost the levels of productivity and environmental performance: hydroponic farming and the closed-glasshouse system. Thanet Earth and Sky Farm provide examples through which I have examined and analyzed the technical data of hydroponic farming.

The core architecture in the center of Lea Valley will be responsible to distribution and the use of anaerobic digesters to convert “non-standard” failed produce into biofuel, suggesting that 400,000 local households could have energy provision from this source in London. After all, the project attempts to response the challenges of food and fuel supplies that the UK faces from the environmental, social and economic aspects.

This work has been selected by the Drawing Prize and will be exhibited at the World Architecture Festival in Berlin and Sir John Soane’s Museum in London in 2017. The work has also got a special mention of the jury in ArchiGraphicArts Drawing Competition 2016-17 in Russia.