YUM+ME COMMUNITY FOOD SPACE

The project aims to enhance community cohesion and change the current unsustainable management of food waste. The continued arrival of large groups of visitors and international students into Edinburgh has made many communities into temporary settlements. With large communities made up of individuals or families with loose or fragmented relationships, each one is an island. There is a need to stabilise neighbourhoods and to create transitional spaces between home and public space: a community space. The project uses the design of interior spaces to generate warm neighbourhoods and promote wider communication and understanding between different cultures, creating a sense of community belonging.

Bringing families and individuals together, my project explores a community food space which gives a chance to change the situation of nearly expired food, accelerate food consumption and reduce food waste through a series of instructional cooking activities in the community kitchen, where an open atmosphere of and generosity in sharing will be established.

The main spaces in the project will include a free food market (sharing food that is about to expire but is in good condition), a community kitchen and dining area. The process of selecting food - cooking - eating will take place here. The community kitchen will bring the residents closer and promote neighbourhood harmony through cooking teaching and using the power of the community to tackle the issue of food waste at the same time. It will support closed-loop food systems through food sharing, and promoting interaction between the foreign population, the international students and the locals.

BY JUDY ZHU INTERIROR DESIGNER

The site used to be used as part of an office building before being built as a restaurant space and becoming a Swedish-style bar, with the shop now permanently suspended due to the impact of the epidemic.

Features of the site

1. This site is very accessible, with the nearest bus stop located within 50 metres.

2. there are a large number of student flats and residential areas in the vicinity of the site.

3. The site is flanked on both sides by pedestrian routes leading to the river.

4. The southern side of the site is very scenic and the riverside walkway is used by many local residents for walking.

1:2500 SITE LOCATION

The diagram shows the areas around the site for accommodation, eating and drinking, commercial services, retail and transport.The information on these factors is important for my site, as it relates to transportation and the surrounding services.

I searched for people living alone around site using digimap, the data is from. The darker the blue, the higher the proportion of people living alone, so it is clear that in 2011 there were relatively more people living alone around my site.

The graph shows a relatively high proportion of young adults around my site in 2011. I have also searched and found that around my site there are fewer people aged 0-15 and 65+ . More people aged 16-34 than 35-64. 16-34 is the largest proportion of the age structure in this area.

As online technology continues to develop, online takeaway services in the cateriing industry are on the rise. Takeaway services have a great impact on social life and are one of the major influences on the young people of today to cook. I tried to search for the distribution of internet users in Edinburgh. There are a large number of e-Cultural Creators and Youthful Urban Fringe around my site.