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ARCH 402A: Architectural Design IV Gallery: Off-Grid and Off-Site: Strawberry Fields Forever

Berri Colonies for OVAC

Migrant Farmworkers in Ojai Valley, CA have the unique opportunity to gain experience in the growing ‘Agro-tech’ industry as these Berri Colonies serve to both provide dwelling needs as well as integrate high tech solutions to challenges that come with dense living and working conditions with COVID-19. The language of expansion and contraction is utilized on a geodesic grid with the octagon as its main form and utilizing the diamond shaped negative space between join modules to act as a circulation or utility core. With a footprint resembling an industrial complex bordering the edge of the west Citrus fields and Maricopa Hwy, the Migrant community becomes the membrane through which goods and services interact with residents of Ojai. The octagonal utility pads, vertical gardens, wind turbines, and grey water reuse along with signal boosters throughout allow for each Berri-Coloni cluster to become an agrotech producer of food that offers a direct “farm-to-table” experience all year round.