Members from Stride Treglown reflect on our Breakfast Talk, Nourishing Communities, where they explored climate-related initiatives from a wide range of sustainable practices.

The Nourishing Communities event was a valuable opportunity to explore climate related initiatives from a wide range of sustainable practices. The talks highlighted how each practice took a unique approach, yet all contributed to the broader goal of shaping a vision for the future.

A key takeaway was the realisation of the vast number of people-led initiatives in London, emphasising the need for mapping this network. This would help strengthen connections and create a sustainable support network to further advance these efforts.

London produces nearly two million tonnes of food waste every year. As an architectural assistant at Stride Treglown and a media tutor at Central Saint Martins, I saw both organisations share a similar ethos in their approach to design and social justice. Due to this, we at Stride Treglown organised a student-led design sprint which sought to champion sustainable food practices. The result is the Circular Kitchen, a flexible outdoor space built from reclaimed materials that will support Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses’ (BPCG) outreach programmes on food growing, food waste, and healthy eating.

The Circular Kitchen will allow BPCG to take teaching out into their garden, where school children, families, and garden visitors will be able to pick produce, prepare healthy meals, and learn about the full lifecycle of food. There’s a unique magic to watching a seed grow from soil to plate—especially for young learners seeing these cycles for the first time. Circular Kitchen seeks to emulate that magic. Food scraps will be composted on-site to help grow the produce used in these very workshops, and by using reclaimed materials, we’re showing that both food waste and construction waste can be turned into valuable resources that serve the community.

When we set out to design this project, we wanted to involve as many voices as possible. The BA Architecture students from Central Saint Martins were a critical part of that. We hosted a design week in the Stride Treglown studio, and seeing the students contribute, get involved in the day-to-day life of the practice, and present Circular Kitchen at their final show was an incredibly fulfilling experience, and we hope they’ve taken as much from it as we have.

The project has also opened our eyes to other food initiatives in our area. We’re drawing on the expertise of BPCG’s team and partners like BIFFA who bring a unique perspective on sustainable living, from offering affordable meals to sharing insights on what makes a successful community-driven food initiative.

From a design perspective, London is seeing a major shift towards retrofitting. Yet even at this small scale, Circular Kitchen highlighted a key challenge when working with recycled materials. How can you design something when you don’t know what materials will be available when it comes time to build?

By working with local reclamation and salvage yards, we’ve since been able to develop the technical design based on the materials identified during those visits, allowing us to design a durable, future-proof structure, with the ability to swap in other materials if needed.

With the design in place and Public Works as our chosen contractor, we’re planning a series of “Build Days” next spring, where local residents, students, and volunteers help bring Circular Kitchen to life. The intention is to give the community ownership over the project, while promoting a culture where waste isn’t seen as an endpoint, but part of a cycle that can benefit everyone.