Urban and rural regions are bound by shared material flows, especially of food and waste systems. However, the way most urban and rural environments are designed rarely makes these connections evident or legible. In many cases, they are actively hidden.

These images depict a fictional neighbourhood located in the fringe between the city of Calgary and the rural grasslands to its east. In this neighbourhood, the built world is designed to make the origins, flows, and disposal of food more evident in everyday life.

The development incorporates five main programs: a food hub, a waste recovery facility, public amenities, an education and outreach program, and residential units. Rather than clustering each program’s spaces together, they are distributed and interspersed. Pedestrians, vehicles, food, and waste flow between these spaces with no attempt to obscure what they are or how they move.

Visit the Symbiome Animation page for an animated view of the same digital model.