Hi, I’m Maryam. I have a background in architecture and have learnt sustainable land management whilst living at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. I hope that with Landscape architecture we can create sustainable, inclusive cities so that the future of our planet and its inhabitants is secure.
Soho Loop Park was the former site of the Birmingham City Hospital. The redeveloped space is now meant to serve as a prototype and educational resource for how Britain could combine large green spaces with movement-focused, mixed use, sustainable neighbourhoods, with organic food production at its heart.
The project reuses the original Victorian Infirmary as the central hub for a wide range of educational programmes including cooking school, offices for a variety of vital community organisational such as Soil Sisters and women’s refuge, as well as providing local food businesses and market producers with a space to base themselves.
The park layout places emphasis on equality, justice and joy, providing spaces and routes that consider ALL its users, regardless of gender, age or background, serving the multi-cultural community, bringing people together with what unites us all, food.
The park features a super-blocked neighbourhood as well as being based on the CPUL’S principles, therefore placing an emphasis on movement and routes from one place to another, via the canal ways as well as through, gardens, meadows, orchards, food production spaces, playing areas and markets as well as community allotments.
These spaces include, horticultural gardens, greenhouses and horticulture/agriculture centre, a space used for both food production and education while highlighting wildlife and biodiversity.
The park tackles food poverty by encouraging behaviour change through immersion.
It is intended as tool of urban regeneration, a place for exploration, innovation and learning for grass roots groups, neighbourhood organisations, educational institutes, businesses and citizens.
