The Liverpool Docks 'Herb Store'

Here's a snippet of my portfolio for my final project of third year.....

‘ T  H  E    H  E  R  B   S  T O R  E ’

An educational building for the research and conservation of medicinal and food herbs, situated on the Northern Liverpool Docks. 

The building aims to start the regeneration of a disused post industrial landscape with the cultivation and conservation of wild herbs. It will fuel the global demand for herbal medicine as a new holistic approach for living. The seed archive tower relates metaphorically to the historical context of the docks; apothecary towers were used as signals to passing vessels that there was medicine in the vicinity. This also refers to a theme of the project, which is the difference of scale between the herb, the human and the industrial context.

The building facilitates the growing of herbs for distribution in it’s Medical Apothecary and Herb Garden and for research in the laboratories. There are also workshops that engage the community in the education of herbs, for food, medicine and fuel. The key space in the building is a large 6 storey ‘apothecary tower’, which is an atrium space which contains a large store of herb seeds, which are archived and processed in the adjacent laboratories. The seed bank contributes to the work of the ‘Plant Life Charity’, who focus on the conservation of wild herbs. The facility, through it form and orientation aims to maximise the views out to sea as well as to provide the right environment for the cultivation of herbs.