Revisiting Memu Meadows

In the Memu Meadows research centre, the Nest We Grow “Productive Garden” from the University of California, Berkeley, celebrates agricultural landscape, with deeply rooted connotations to its cultural and personal consumption of food.

College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley: Nest We Grow, Memu Meadows

On the continuous and organic process of cultural maturity, German historian Oswald Spengler has written that “Every culture has its own civilization.” Traditional techniques that developed over centuries can often take precedence over the latest technology, particularly in remote regions, but one is never exclusive of the other. The intersection of cutting edge technology and the local cultural tradition is a realm that is progressively crystallizing through the process of refining themes.

Surrounded by a vast agricultural landscape and exposed to the extreme weather conditions of Hokkaido, less than 200 kilometers away from its capital Sapporo, lies in the southeast of the island the small village of Taiki. It has been more than 5 years since LIXIL Foundation established Memu Meadows, a Center for Research on Environmental Technologies. Memu, which means “a place where the fountain springs”, resonates with the flourishing spirit of the Center to materialize year by year a new experimental project with the support of the Foundation.

It is not only particular to Japan that the global agenda related to sustainable design and research owes much of its achievements to collaborations between industry and academia, without necessarily implementing the resulting technologies contributing to local communities. The Center’s initiative aims to create a mutual benefit between the site and innovative architectural proposals. The projects are then reshaped by local knowledge and develop into what ultimately strengthens its own community in return.

In addition to Même Experimental House by architect Kengo Kuma (see: Domusweb, 7 February 2013) the Center also saw, in 2011, the construction of the first experimental house from a student competition, “Recipe to Live”. Designed by Nobuaki Furuya Laboratory from Waseda University, the proposal responded to the topic of post-Tohoku disaster, with a house wrapped in hay-grass, a local product of the town. The following year’s winning project was designed by co+labo Radovic from Keio University, selected from twelve invited international universities. Using horse manure as its main source of energy, their proposal Barn House envisioned the coexistence of human + horse and brought Taiki’s prior equine-breeding culture into the human domestic realm. Last year Harvard University won the competition with Horizon House, responding to the theme of retreating in nature. Their design achieved a dialogue between private living space and the rural environment of the site, emphasizing the tension between ground and roof while creating a continuous space inside with a 360 degree view of its surroundings.

The winning proposal Nest We Grow: A house of food, for food (Nest) for the 2014 competition for “Productive Garden” comes from the University of California, Berkeley. The agricultural landscape with deeply rooted connotations to its cultural and personal consumption of food is celebrated in the Nest project. While the climate is distinct from California – annual average temperature is 5.3 ºC in Taiki-cho compared to a temperate 14.5 ºC around Berkeley – the grasslands and wetlands of Taiki-cho has also fostered farming of wheat, vegetables and fruits, in addition to catching of salmon and venison in the fall. Rituals surrounding food, with respect to its locality and preservation methods presented in the Nest, have undeniable resonance with the city across the Pacific Ocean – Berkeley is an epicenter of the local and seasonal food culture movement, encapsulated by Alice Waters who stood to counter the dominance of industrialized food.

Environmental consciousness, which is a shared foundation to all projects at Memu Meadows, takes a new twist in this project: The Nest becomes sustainable through its functional operations of producing, harvesting, storing, preparing, consuming and composting food, and as such the degree of sustainability is far more dependent on the user than the designer. The building itself serves as a potential stage for the celebration of gathering, the basic human act of sustenance.

Nest is an experiential space that brings the flux of water, light, air, food and people into focus. Surrounded by portieres of carrots, daikon radish and salmon, the playful spirit drives the project’s ambition. Rather than highlighting tranquility of nature, the relationship of food and the community in NEST is a festive one; nature is presented here as neither precious nor simple commodity, but lies somewhere in between. This reinterpretation of food production into a built form, an infrastructure activated by vegetation and people, reemphasizes the spirit of communal festivity.

College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley: Nest We Grow, Memu Meadows. Photo Shinkenchiku-sha

Hovering over the landform near the entrance of Memu Meadows, the lightweight enclosure of the corrugated polycarbonate panels gently heat the inner space with sunlight during the day to extend the growing season in the colder months, while turning into an inviting beacon at night in the dark, quiet landscape. Within the 85.4 square meter area, there is no space that is entirely enclosed: Relationship of inside and outside is fluid and occurs in zones with changes in elevation, its own micro-topography marked by the central ‘tea house’ space with an open fire pit for a group to gather around.

Concrete foundation walls rise above ground to mitigate the prevailing northwest winter wind, while also growing into cooking surfaces, stairs and planters. Locally sourced laminated larch was used to fabricate nine composite columns made of four 150 x 150 mm sections connected by steel plates, which are also linked to steel cross bracing. The columns, clustered into a small forest in the center, are notched to allow moment connection for two pairs of 75 x 250 mm beams. Peripheral catwalks double as lateral bracing for the entire structure. Structural openness encourages the edible vegetation to compose, and possibly even take over, the elevations of the building that change seasonally.

The inverted funnel shaped roof helps harvest rain water and snow melt, which are then diverted into water tanks and rerouted to irrigate plants in the concrete walls. Operable skylight in the roof accommodates the releasing of heat during the warmer months.

House for Enjoying the Harsh Cold is theme for the next competition, challenging the participating universities to think beyond the notion of architecture as shelter. Transitioning from the house model to one where the program itself is open to interpretation, the relationship to site and its local culture also becomes increasingly critical: What defines a local culture in a remote town far from metropolis, beyond their community based festivals and traditions, or their climactic and environmental data? The accumulation of building processes and their collective materiality in Memu provide various insights to such a question.

Research rarely culminates in quick physical implementations that are simultaneously experimental, at least in the totality of architecture. At Memu, constructed environments are monitored and modified in the years to come, open to examination through the lens of succeeding projects added to the landscape. The challenge is enhanced by the unique chance given to students to physically experience what they have conceived, preserving the highly experimental spirit of the projects.