Apex serves to gather and enhance the operations of Long Lane Farm. By creating a gateway to the farm, a locus for social gathering, and a courtyard for staging compost, the project organizes Long Lane's activities around three spaces.
Long Lane Farm is used to sustainably grow produce, support student farm workers, and engage with the greater community through events. Responding to the complex nature of its site, the triangular structure physically frames the larger landscape, welcoming all that enter the farm and facilitating an appreciation for the site's natural beauty.
A designed set of material systems form Apex. Together, they represent a series of case studies in the reconciliation of local materials and salvage practices with standardized hardware, off-the-shelf components and construction waste. In turn, the careful integration of these materials into demountable, renewable, and loose-tolerance systems represents a commitment to both the maintenance and care of the project and the circularity of the farm's operations. The assemblies produced by each of these material systems are deployed in the collective service of the project's three spaces: a sheltered gateway with storage, an expansive tiered seating area for gathering, and a composting courtyard.
Apex provides a welcoming point of entrance to the farm, offering a sheltered threshold from which to transition to farm operations. Though it appears as an asymmetrical gable without walls, the project's primary form is the byproduct of reconciling a series of four material and structural systems: a ground, a frame, a rainscreen, and an interactive surface. Working with a strictly limited materials budget, each system relies on the integration of salvaged or industrially standardized components with locally available raw and customizable materials. Small groups of 3-4 students worked to design, resolve, and coordinate each of the various assemblies, while the studio worked collaboratively to carry out the project from inception to completion.
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