BLOOM
an experimental blended greenhouse environment
Blandy Experimental Farm, Virginia
Putting together a seed bank and a greenhouse, as a form of diptych relationship reveals how both spaces display aspects of each other, and how they may bleed into each other. Conceptualizing this project and its site as a diptych, we can perceive two moments in active conversation with one another, with a stepping landscape into the building, grounding it to the site. The boundaries of the site used for learning and experimenting activities with the library on one side are mirrored with research and fieldwork on the opposite end with the proposed greenhouse.
As you approach the main building when entering Blandy, it’s clear that there is already an axis established with a path that guides you through a planted promenade towards the terraced landscape. The idea of the greenhouse is to step outwards just as the landscape does, as well as increase in roof slope to accommodate low-rising plants to taller trees. The seed bank acts as an anchor to it all, being the most closed-off, materially dense, enclosed, and controlled space, while with every step of the terrace, the greenhouse expands and becomes increasingly lighter and more open.
Due to the capturing of the sun and exposure it will receive due to its design, the greenhouse also needs to meet certain controlled standards, offering both exterior and interior thermal curtain systems for the most effective control of the interior climate, while also offering the freedom of balancing between the two, as well as ventilation systems and drainage control both in the base layer of soil and where the water will be collected due to the slope of the roof. The plants grown inside would be able to be properly cared for within the greenhouse, made strong enough to be replanted on the terrace as was its original intent, and be able to integrate the surrounding landscape for visitors to enjoy the species grown within the greenhouse, and provide an overall sensory experience through wellbeing, color, and scent brought about by the medicinal plants planted in the greenhouse.
