Reimagining sustainable retail
Project Type - Retail market
Client - Hyprop
Architect/Project Manager - Hoven
Year - 2021
Location - Johannesburg, South Africa
Project Size 4,000 m²
Sprout is a conceptual design for an ethical and sustainable community based kitchen that focuses on revitalising knowledge and skills across cultures in the creative production of food. Sprout offers unique and immersive tasting experiences, demos, and food based education within a regenerative agricultural garden.
The Rosebank Sunday Market has become a landmark for an authentic South African cultural experience. Every Sunday, the upper level of the Rosebank Mall undergoes a transformation to offer a sensory experience of local art, crafts, live
music, entertainment and gourmet food.
While the Rooftop Market has become an institution within the Mall, there are many forms of creative entrepreneurism in and around the area that offer the opportunity to breathe new life into the Mall. Artists, artisans, urban gardeners, carpenters, shoemakers, metal and woodworkers, clothing designers and others, live and work in and around the area.
By developing partnerships and mobilising a network of informal and formal sectors, can we recreate pockets of vibrant business development within the Mall?
Through this process, can we build a community through purpose driven initiatives and encourage innovation and participation to mutually support sustainable positive change?
The success of Sprout involves an urban participatory approach with designers, makers, chefs, gardeners, local business, institutions, community, neighbourhood and urban policy makers in order to establish a resilience network. This will enable a more circular approach and a shift towards a wellbeing economy that has a positive impact on our human and natural systems.
The regenerative agricultural garden is an experimental micro-farm and community garden that offers the public and micro-entrepreneurs the opportunity to play, engage and learn through various activities ranging from urban rewilding, companion planting, beekeeping, birding, composting, hydroponic horticulture, rainwater collection, productive roofscapes, and solar energy with the aim to support a local market from ‘farm to table’ and beyond.
The success of Sprout involves an urban participatory approach with designers, makers, chefs, gardeners, local business, institutions, community, neighbourhood and urban policy makers in order to establish a resilience network. This will enable a more circular approach and a shift towards a wellbeing economy that has a positive impact on our human and natural systems.
By re-appropriating left over and vacant spaces on the upper level of the mall combined with a curated programme we propose to initiate a social and cultural platform to support multiple activities.
A shared, conscious kitchen for affordable, healthy food, demos and lab-like learning, sensory tasting sessions, a pantry for purchasing
produce, shared gardens, thought provoking workshops and talks on sustainability, ‘fridge and freezer sessions’ and events with an outdoor
cinema for film screening.