Waste to Wealth：a circular neighborhood for responding social needs in Grangetown
Cardiff is experiencing some significant social needs, such as high housing demand and high employment demand, these problems are particularly evident in Grangetown. Nowadays Grangetown has a serious problem of poverty and healthy.
This project aims to respond positively to these problems by planning a circular neighborhood. Through introducing a circular system into the community, wastes are given potential to be a source of wealth for residences thereby alleviating poverty in the area. Meanwhile, a management hub in this community has been designed for maintaining the circular system, where shared things and repair support can be obtained, individuals and organizations can learn about applied sustainability and how they can make an impact in their own communities and organizations
Issues in Grangetown
Grangetown was built for housing the workers who work in Penarth dock, with the development of variety factories such as former gasworks and chemical factory, large amounts of workers came to live in Grangetown. However, when these factories closed in the second half of the 20th century because they were no longer needed, workers lost their jobs. Some of them left away, some of them are still here, living in poverty. There are no longer as many jobs opportunities for them as there used to be, which means Grangetown’s poverty is hard to be changed.
Circular system
A circular system is incorporated into the community to support the community’s move towards a circular economy to solve the poverty issue in here. The system encourages residents to exchange, share or repair their own furniture or materials to minimize waste and maintain material value and every part of this circular system has potential to create job for people.
Mobility system
Through the analysis of urban space, new transportation corridors are built to encourage residents to live in low-carbon ways
Strategies for building
The circular economy principles have also been brought in to the building design, it aims to reduce the wastes of building materials by using various methods such as Building in layer, design for disassemble and select materials carefully.
Contact: wuj48@cardiff.ac.uk