Over the next 40 years, the world is expected to build over 230 billion square metres of new construction, adding the equivalent of Paris every single week.  Today, we are operating at a global rate of consumption that requires the resources of 1.75 Earth’s.  Simply put, the planets raw materials are finite and they are running out.  We need to find alternative ways to source construction materials; could agricultural waste be an answer?

In essence, this project aims to achieve two things; reduce natural resource deprivation, and provide a pathway for farms to manage their waste more efficiently.  In the context of Brexit and veganism, the farming industry is at a tipping point and new ways of thinking and are needed. The UK’s 2.73 million cows collectively produce over 36 million tonnes of manure every year, enough to fill the shard 78 times over.  Safely disposing of this vast quantity of toxic waste is a serious and expensive challenge for farmers.  I am proposing to first, convert excess cow manure into electricity, and then to transform the secondary waste by-product, digestate, into a building material, used to construct the Centre for Alternative Farming (CAF), an open-source educational facility.  The site, Worthy Farm within Glastonbury Festival, acts as a test-bed and global platform to showcase an alternative vision of the future of farming.  A local solution to the planets prodigious poo problem.