North Texas Food Bank
Collaboration: Nick Cooper, AIA and Nahal Sharifi
The North Texas Food Bank is a place to promote health and wellness in the community that is rooted in its vernacular and built from its very own soil.
The Project takes shape from physically breaking down the building’s program and typology of a food pantry into something that is more familiar, both in terms of scale and identity. Our design concept is driven by the simple and iconic front porch. NTFB will promote pride, embody comfort and unify the community through an outdoor classroom, orchard, playground, shared kitchen, bike trail, and community garden. The building components are designed as simple 30-foot A-Frame modules that can be offset and rotated in order to break down the overall building scale. Rammed Earth serves as the basic building block becoming a symbol of a place that is built from its very own soil. The two-foot-thick Rammed Earth walls, operable windows and garage doors on the North and South facades will be a catalyst for passive heating and cooling of the spaces. A water collection component that will serve our gardens and integrated PV panels into the roof components will respect its ecosystem and start to give back instead of taking away. The future growth of the site is driven by an urban boulevard and bike trail that weaves along the edges of the adjacent neighborhoods further promoting health and wellness.
