ST James' Farm
MMAS
Where the terraced streets of St. James’ in West Belfast meet the Bog Meadows nature reserve, a piece of vacant, publicly owned land was identified by local people as a potential community resource. This proactive group of residents decided to put the space to use as an urban farmyard, cultivating some crops and introducing a few livestock. The group was initially offered funding from the council for several shipping containers, at which point MMAs offered initial pro-bono time to help develop a more appropriate vision to spend the money on.
With the blighting presence of the M1 motorway immediately adjacent, the design intention was to use a simple mono-pitch form to shelter a central garden, protected from the noise and fumes of the fast-moving traffic, yet opened to surrounding terraced streets and the wider aspect to Belfast Hills and the setting sun.
The outside edge of the typical galvanized agricultural portal frame is clad in corrugated, reflective metal to make a robust and secure ‘shell’ to the harsh environment of the motorway, while the inner facade to the main farm and garden is softer and more tactile, clad in timber gifted to the farm by a local builder’s yard and painted in the familiar agricultural 'red oxide' coloured oil stain. A playful ‘colonnade’ of ‘V’ shaped galvanized steels supports a projecting roof to enhance enclosure, while giving a heightened expression to the humble building as a hint to its civic role. These columns are to be planted with trellised creeper species, allowing the buildings to embed within the garden as it.
Within a central bay of the linear galvanized portal frame, a covered space is left open between the animal stalls and workshop and orientated to the sun setting over the hills. This is the farm’s heart, a space for events and gatherings - but also about everyday farm functionality - with large sliding gates to open to grazing ground and passing public in the Bog Meadows to enable an interaction between intimate community space and wider city.
St James’ Community farm has become a much–loved aspect of the neighbourhood, with inner city dwellers waking to the stirring sound of a cock crowing, while a growing collection of animals graze adjacent Bog Meadow grassland given over to the group by Ulster Wildlife. Local children learn about life and food and gain new skills and interests within the peripheral space between city streets and landscape.
Photographs © MMAs