Street Farm was a London-based collective active in the early 1970s, with its origins in the Architectural Association (AA). Its core members were AA students Peter Crump, Bruce Haggart and Graham Caine. [1]
Street Farm was discontinued in around 1976, although Graham Caine and Peter Crump continued to work on sustainable architecture projects in the Bristol area in later years. The group's ideas and projects proved influential as renewable energy and concern for sustainability in architecture became more mainstream in subsequent decades, with leading green architects, including Paul F. Downton and Howard Liddell, citing early encounters with the Street Farmers as important inspirations for their careers.
In 1971-1972 the group produced a Situationist-inspired magazine called Street Farmer, which combined witty graphics with ideas about what they termed the 'transmogrification' of the urban environment. Attacking the complicity of architects in state and capitalist control of cities, Street Farm advocated communities self-organised on anarchist principles, making use of autonomous housing and the kind of liberatory technology favoured by social ecologist Murray Bookchin.
In addition to the alternative-press publication Street Farmer, they pursued other agit-prop media projects, touring throughout England and Wales to present multimedia shows at schools of architecture and beyond, and participating in events in the Netherlands and Italy. Street Farm's ideas were also promoted by appearances on two BBC television programmes. The first was aired as a part of the documentary series Open Door produced by the BBC's Community Programme Unit (broadcast 18 June 1973). Melvyn Bragg presented the second documentary, Clearings in the Concrete Jungle, as part of the 2nd House series (broadcast 24 January 1976). [2]
In 1972 Street Farm applied their political aspirations and visions to the practical project of Street Farmhouse, in Eltham, London, the first intentionally constructed ecological house. This was designed and constructed by Graham Caine with the assistance of Bruce Haggart and other friends in 1972, sited on Thames Polytechnic's playing fields. [3] The ecological house's objective was to create an autonomous home that exploited reused materials and alternative technology, harnessing microgeneration and sewage recycling in order to liberate the occupants from dependence upon services provided by the state or private suppliers.
Following a front page feature in The Observer by Gerald Leach the experimental house attracted considerable attention, chiming with emerging concerns about ecological sustainability and energy security. [4] Lord Holford commended Caine's efforts in a debate in the House of Lords during a reading of the Protection of the Environment Bill in 1973. [5] Despite such attention, however, Street Farmhouse, was relatively short-lived. A request to extend the structure's temporary planning permission on behalf of Graham Caine and his partner and daughter was refused, leading to the dismantlement of their home in 1975. [6]
SOM, previously Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, is a Chicago-based architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings. In 1939, they were joined by engineer John O. Merrill. The firm opened its second office, in New York City, in 1937 and has since expanded, with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seattle, and Dubai.
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with drama and production arts. The school has students from over seventy countries. It was ranked first in both the Guardian's 2022 League Table for Music and the Complete University Guide's 2023 Arts, Drama and Music league table. It is also ranked the fifth university in the world for performing arts in the 2024 QS World University Rankings.
Urban studies is the diverse range of disciplines and approaches to the study of all aspects of cities, their suburbs, and other urban areas. This includes among others: urban economics, urban planning, urban ecology, urban transportation systems, urban politics, sociology and urban social relations. This can be contrasted with the study of rural areas and rural lifestyles.
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Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd CBE was an English architect, town planner and landscape designer. He is particularly known for his work in Harlow, Essex, and for the BISF house, a design for a prefabricated council house that was widely adopted in post-war Britain.
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Imre Makovecz was a Hungarian architect active in Europe from the late 1950s onward.
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This page is an index of sustainability articles.
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Geraldine Houser is a British former film and television actress and the mother of video game producers Sam and Dan Houser. She has roles in a large number of British TV drama series in the 1960s and 70s and is best remembered in films for her role alongside Michael Caine in the gangster film Get Carter (1971), set in and around Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.
Ecological art is an art genre and artistic practice that seeks to preserve, remediate and/or vitalize the life forms, resources and ecology of Earth. Ecological art practitioners do this by applying the principles of ecosystems to living species and their habitats throughout the lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, including wilderness, rural, suburban and urban locations. Ecological art is a distinct genre from Environmental art in that it involves functional ecological systems-restoration, as well as socially engaged, activist, community-based interventions. Ecological art also addresses politics, culture, economics, ethics and aesthetics as they impact the conditions of ecosystems. Ecological art practitioners include artists, scientists, philosophers and activists who often collaborate on restoration, remediation and public awareness projects.
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Lydia Kallipoliti is a Greek architect, engineer, architectural historian, action researcher, and scholar. Her work examines interdisciplinary studies involving architecture, technology, and environmental politics.