Capsicum Perfugium

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Capsicum Perfugium

Urban farming / Housing

In order to ease the current housing crisis, the municipality of Csepel, Budapest aimed to renovate unused buildings. They were looking for ideas; how to create a housing unit from an old school.

My concept plan suggests to reuse the brick core structure of the school building units and to build a greenhouse replacing the old wooden house on the side. Therefore the old school would set a ground floor of establishing a dormitory-like housing combined with a “URBAN FARM” in the area.

The “FARM”, as an integral component of urban fabric, is not a new proposition. Prior to modernist urban planning, urban farms were indispensable elements of many cultures.The economic policy of our time, as well as endless consumption and then disillusionment with the movement of goods, both strengthen the validity of locally grown products.

An Urban Farm not only has economic benefits but also has a society-building power; think of Semiramis ‘hanging garden, Ebenezer’ s Howard Garden City plan, or the Huertos popular movements in Havana.

Capsicum Perfugium would thus represent a microcosm in Csepel; a mixture of people with different social backgrounds, but common interests. Together creating a contemporary – but not new – community of “URBAN FARMERS”