Title: Appleton [Harvest]
Location of Proejct: Anderson, South Carolina
Project Completion Date: 4/29/20
Firm Name:

Short Description: The Appleton [Harvest] proposal is located on a brownfield site in Anderson, South Carolina, formerly occupied by the Appleton textile mill. The collapse of the mill in the 1990s left an abandoned site that divides a neighborhood. Over the years, the scar has grown: the once-thriving mill village now lacks affordable food options. Through a design that explores exposure, transparency, and reciprocity, the project will stand at the crossroads of education and high-tech production in the solar panel industry, while promoting healthy living in the Anderson community.

Architect's Statement: The Appleton [Harvest] project combines high-tech design and site planning to transform the Appleton Mill site into a Productive Landscape - a concept that integrates agriculture into the fabric of a city, which typically focuses on repurposing deserted sites to connect the urban to the rural.

The project proposes the integration of an agrivoltaic system - a new concept that harvests solar energy and crops on the same land, maximizing land use while improving the harvest capacity for both crops and solar energy. The shade provided by the solar panels results in cooler daytime temperatures and warmer nighttime temperatures compared to traditional crop fields.

The proposed site is designed to reconnect the neighborhoods with a wide pedestrian path that establishes new community nodes and a new added bus stop on Glenn Street. The new site design extends the existing streets of the neighborhood to promote connectivity and accessibility of the site to the neighborhood. The existing slab material will be repurposed into gravel to be used for new pedestrian paths. Four acres of agrivoltaics will replace the plateau left by the slab.

In the 75,000 square feet building, Appleton [Harvest] includes a variety of much needed programs for the community. The ground floor features the production space, where solar panels will be assembled and sold in a tiny home initiative. Adjacent classrooms will be used to train locals for operator jobs in the solar panel industry. The second level houses the business operations including office space for tech startups, the solar panel business, and local non-profits, with conference and meeting rooms. The split level on the West features the public bike shop and cafeteria spaces. The bike shop serves as a component of the city-wide bike-share program and provides repair services. The Food Hub features a 100-seat cafeteria that has a commercial-grade kitchen with flex space for culinary classes. The ground floor on the North houses the public amenities including an interior/exterior market space, a laundromat, and storage space that houses tools and vehicles for use on-site and serves as a community toolbox.

The building’s structure takes precedent from agricultural center pivot irrigation structures, and is designed to inspire a feeling of lightness. The major spaces feature cable assisted beams that perform as trusses in a lightweight manner. The top chord is a steel flange, while the bottom chord is reinterpreted into thin tension cables. The cable assisted beams are featured throughout the project, using the same structural language to solve both interior and exterior conditions. The secondary structure consists of a cable truss curtain wall rigidly attached to the primary structure, reducing the steel clutter of a typical curtain wall system. Lastly, the Agrivoltaic array uses the same cable assisted beam language for its structure with the addition of cross bracing stiffeners to stabilize the system.

The building is clad in a galvanized steel rainscreen that is selected for its durability, long life, and aesthetic that evokes historical industrial architecture. The curtain walls are adorned with a perforated corten steel screen that accents the galvanized cladding and protects against solar gain in the hot summer months. Perforated corten is selected because it is also long-lasting, durable, and maintenance-free. The materials work together in a contemporary manner to create a building that acknowledges the past, glistens during the day, illuminates at night, and can last for decades.

The Appleton [Harvest] project invests in high-tech systems to create a sustainable loop of energy on-site.The Agrivoltaic Solar Field will produce 20 million kWh per year, half of which will be used to power developments on other mill sites in Anderson, while the surplus will be allocated to power homes and infrastructure in the Alphabet Streets neighborhood.

Overall, the site will employ over 100 people. Community members in the technical education program will be trained to work as operators on Solar Panel Assembly lines. The Food Hub will generate positions for cooks, dishwashers, and service staff. In house tech start-ups and non-profits will offer intern positions for the local youth. Volunteer positions will also be available on the Farm, Bike Shop, and Laundromat.

Appleton [Harvest] will unite the community through food and learning. By coupling hi-tech energy production and agriculture, the site will supply the community with a space to cultivate a sustainable network to navigate a rapidly advancing industry. By investing in sustainable design and technologies, the Appleton [Harvest] project will improve education, employment, accessibility, health, and connectivity in the Anderson community.