From soil to soil
Stitching the Food Cycle through Landscapes and Cultures
University College London
The Bartlett School of Architecture
Group Project: Zeynep Igmen & Fernando Sanchez R
2025
Food is more than sustenance; it is a story of relationships. From Soil to Soil traces the journey of food from planting to disposal, mapping the interconnected cycles of agriculture, cooking, eating, urban environments, and cultural identity in Somers Town. Through these practices, the project examines how diverse communities interact with land and food systems.
How do the histories of different cultures and settlements shape urban gathering spaces? How does the journey of food, from soil to soil, reveal the intersections of culture, urban farming, cooking, and eating in Somers Town?
From Soil to Soil merges research with action through a sequence of nine operations, planting, growing, harvesting, transporting, preparing, cooking, presenting, eating, and disposing; each framing a moment in the continuous cycle of food and gathering.
The project explores the multicultural dimensions of the urban ground through the Surrealist drawing method of Exquisite Corpse, a collaborative process where participants contribute sequentially to a shared composition without seeing the whole. Applied here as a spatial and conceptual method, it allows collective authorship to emerge from partial knowledge and chance encounters, encouraging unpredictability and shared creativity in design.
To understand the scale and spatial interactions of our proposal, we translated the concept into a 1:1 taped installation on-site. This full-scale intervention revealed how people navigated, gathered, and responded to the proposed design. By embedding the work within the everyday urban fabric, we observed movement patterns, engagement, and unexpected uses, refining the design through direct social and spatial feedback.
Ultimately, the proposal reimagines fragmented food systems by creating tactical spaces of growing, preparing, and sharing, where communities engage directly in the collective act of making and sustaining life, from soil to soil.
The Bartlett School of Architecture
Group Project: Zeynep Igmen & Fernando Sanchez R
2025
Food is more than sustenance; it is a story of relationships. From Soil to Soil traces the journey of food from planting to disposal, mapping the interconnected cycles of agriculture, cooking, eating, urban environments, and cultural identity in Somers Town. Through these practices, the project examines how diverse communities interact with land and food systems.
How do the histories of different cultures and settlements shape urban gathering spaces? How does the journey of food, from soil to soil, reveal the intersections of culture, urban farming, cooking, and eating in Somers Town?
From Soil to Soil merges research with action through a sequence of nine operations, planting, growing, harvesting, transporting, preparing, cooking, presenting, eating, and disposing; each framing a moment in the continuous cycle of food and gathering.
The project explores the multicultural dimensions of the urban ground through the Surrealist drawing method of Exquisite Corpse, a collaborative process where participants contribute sequentially to a shared composition without seeing the whole. Applied here as a spatial and conceptual method, it allows collective authorship to emerge from partial knowledge and chance encounters, encouraging unpredictability and shared creativity in design.
To understand the scale and spatial interactions of our proposal, we translated the concept into a 1:1 taped installation on-site. This full-scale intervention revealed how people navigated, gathered, and responded to the proposed design. By embedding the work within the everyday urban fabric, we observed movement patterns, engagement, and unexpected uses, refining the design through direct social and spatial feedback.
Ultimately, the proposal reimagines fragmented food systems by creating tactical spaces of growing, preparing, and sharing, where communities engage directly in the collective act of making and sustaining life, from soil to soil.