The studio theme of ‘Last Green in Town’ encouraged us to engage with La Friche Josaphat, an urban wasteland that has grown into a greenfield in the middle of the city. The lack of human engagement has allowed biodiversity to naturally take over the wasteland, creating a wilderness, unknown to the city beyond its borders. Around the Friche, nature exists mostly in conventional forms (parks, gardens, sports fields etc.) which are products of narrow utilitarian approaches, with few exceptions of human-nature synergies. These make it evident that different perceptions of urban nature have produced diverse urban cultures of nature, few of which validate the interdependence of nature and humans while most treat nature as a distinct entity needing a functional purpose.
The thesis roots itself firmly in the ‘as found’ conditions and delves into site-specific research, in an attempt to understand the evolution of the existing urban culture of nature over time. Using this research, the thesis attempts to develop a project that validates the past, sensitively deals with the present 'as found' conditions and situates itself within the site for a symbiotic evolution of humans and nature in the future. The programs evolve from the site, responding to the urban conditions and mediating between the urban and the wild. The community centre brings the urban closer to the wild friche, while the research and education centre undertakes the task of creating and imparting knowledge of the biodiversity within the friche to the people beyond the borders. The programs work in tandem to create a flow of energies between the friche and the city, while carefully allowing sensitive accidental and incidental micro engagements between humans and nature.