-
Architects: JXY Studio, Office for Roundtable
- Area: 12 m²
- Year: 2024
-
Photographs:Leyuan Li
-
Lead Architects: Leyuan Li, Jiaxun Xu, Yue Xu
Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen is a pavilion sited amidst an urban garden in Guangzhou, China. An architectural device that amalgamates the roles of a greenhouse, an outdoor kitchen, and a living room, it speculates on the medium of food as a catalyst for agricultural and social engagements, proposing new forms of domesticity and collectivity that reframe the intricate relationship between the body, land, and city.
The pavilion is characterized by an assembly of modular elements that underscore its inherent simplicity and lightness. Constructed primarily with angle steel and encased in polycarbonate sheets, the pavilion is moderated at varied heights through adjustable cables that stabilize the panels. In its flexibility and indeterminacy, this temporary structure allows for reconfiguration through its movable and operable furniture, animating the surroundings with vegetable growing racks, kitchen counters, and folding tables—all made from the same material palette. The boundaries and connections between nature and the artifacts are constantly at play in determining the role of the pavilion. When enclosed, it serves as a greenhouse, reflecting the change of seasons and the growth of leaves on the translucent exterior; when opened, it transforms into an outdoor living space, encouraging new forms of sharing that conflate everyday activities.
The pavilion embodies a microclimate of care for both plants and humans. It fosters the remediation of contaminated soil sourced from the adjacent urban farm, which is stored in portable pots designed for cultivating plants and facilitating the exchange of products among community members. Rainwater, harvested and filtered through the metal reservoir overhead, circulates in the pavilion for gardening and cooking activities. Owing to spatial tactics that mitigate the challenges posed by extreme weather in a subtropical climate—such as strategic gaps between panels for passive cooling—the structure is permeated with proper wind and sunlight that foster a conducive environment for plants, providing the visitors with balanced conditions of ventilation and shading to co-inhabit the space with plants and other species.
Your Greenhouse Is Your Kitchen emerges as a spatial manifestation of food that proposes new sets of social norms and spatial politics. By facilitating the interplay between farming and preparing food, between delivering and consuming food, and between caring and sharing food, the pavilion is a place to get together on a sunny, breezy afternoon, where the hustles of activities, the shadows of trees, and the silhouettes of birds and other living beings, all slowly blend into the tranquil background of nature, after the last ray of sunlight.
