‍The Garden Anthrome [1] is an anthropogenic biome for soil regeneration. It is designed to enhance biodiversity in environments that have been disturbed by human activity. The impact printed soil structure controls erosion, while encouraging a cover of vegetation to increase organic content within the local environment. It provides a conducive ecological system for a root network that is host to an array of microbial life.

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The Stockpile Garden project investigates the human and ecological health benefits of remediating meanwhile sites, and the significance of ‘temporary’ landscapes as a largely unaddressed contributor to urban green infrastructural fabric. The site-based research project at Barking Riverside in London applies emerging innovations in bio-integrated design for bioremediation to restore soil health and promote the reestablishment of native plant communities.

The soil quality of meanwhile sites can be improved without the addition of aggressive chemicals, and relatively low disturbance of the site compared to conventional methods of soil rehabilitation. For instance, certain metals or organic compounds that are moderately soluble can be absorbed from soil and water, preventing their release into the Thames ecosystem. Plants and microbes can accumulate orprocess these chemicals either by locking them into the biomass via lignification, or by metabolising and transforming compounds into more benignmolecules. Plant life can increase the carbon and oxygen in the soil around roots which promotes the growth of microbes and fungi who can contribute to bioremediation by providing food when organic matter decays.

To contextualise the Garden Anthrome, adesign of the entire DC5 meanwhile garden at Barking Riverside was done tooutline boundaries areas and kerbs between pathways with compacted soil, flowerbeds with loose soil and numerous stockpiles with rubble and wasted soil from the surrounding Barking Riverside.

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The Garden Anthrome was conceived as a centrally located pile made of a cluster of planters of different forms and sizes. Wider and narrower delimitations for the different areas were considered allowing ecological boundary negotiations to happen between different plant types when colonising different soil types with harder/softer;pervious/impervious, granular/fine characteristics.

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The Garden Anthrome was impact printedwith an UR robot at the B-Made facilities at UCL Here East defining a gradientof kerb- to wall-like structures. Soil viscosity, structural integrity, curing time and bullet size were calibrated to form separate planters.

Printed components of a final smaller-scale prototype were transported and installed at the DC5 site at Barking Riverside to test the weathering of the structure and biocolonisation of planters.

The interventions aims to create conditions whereby the visible and invisible biodiversity of the site increases over time.

The installtion of the garden anthromes on site produced the terraforming of an entirely new landscape at DC5, Barking Riverside.

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Credits:

Team: Brenda Parker and Marcos Cruz

Impact printing: Pradeep Devadass, Kenneth Wilson Rozas

Collaboration (design): Ayelen Franceschini

UCL B-Made support: Peter Scully, Guillem Perutxet Olesti, YaoYao Meng

Impact printing support: Satyam Gyanchandani, Yifan Shi

Project partners: Kirsty Badenoch (UCL/Periscope Ltd), Barking Riverside Ltd

Botany: Mark Spencer

Sponsorship: UCL Grand Challenges, AHRC ImpactAccelerator Award, WCMT Activate Award

Year: 2023‍

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[1] Term coined by Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty in "Putting People in the Map:Anthropogenic Biomes of the World", 2008