physics

Street Farm

Street Farm is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Street Farm rather than just read about it. In short: Street Farm was a London-based collective active in the early 1970s, with its origins in the Architectural Association (AA). Its core members were AA students Peter Crump, Bruce Haggart and Graham Caine.

Key takeaways

Street Farm belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Street Farm to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Street Farm from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Street Farm was a London-based collective active in the early 1970s, with its origins in the Architectural Association (AA). Its core members were AA students Peter Crump, Bruce Haggart and Graham Caine. Street Farm was discontinued in around 1976, although Graham Caine and Peter Crump continued to work on sustainable architecture projects in the Bristol area in later years. The group's ideas and projects proved influential as renewable energy and concern for sustainability in architecture became more mainstream in subsequent decades, with leading green architects, including Paul F. Downton and Howard Liddell, citing early encounters with the Street Farmers as important inspirations for their careers.

Street Farmer In 1971-1972 the group produced a Situationist-inspired magazine called Street Farmer, which combined witty graphics with ideas about what they termed the 'transmogrification' of the urban environment. Attacking the complicity of architects in state and capitalist control of cities, Street Farm advocated communities self-organised on anarchist principles, making use of autonomous housing and the kind of liberatory technology favoured by social ecologist Murray Bookchin. In addition to the alternative-press publication Street Farmer, they pursued other agit-prop media projects, touring throughout England and Wales to present multimedia shows at schools of architecture and beyond, and participating in events in the Netherlands and Italy. Street Farm's ideas were also promoted by appearances on two BBC television programmes. The first was aired as a part of the documentary series Open Door produced by the BBC's Community Programme Unit (broadcast 18 June 1973). Melvyn Bragg presented the second documentary, Clearings in the Concrete Jungle, as part of the 2nd House series (broadcast 24 January 1976).

The First Ecological House In 1972 Street Farm applied their political aspirations and visions to the practical project of Street Farmhouse, in Eltham, London, the first intentionally constructed ecological house. This was designed and constructed by Graham Caine with the assistance of Bruce Haggart and other friends in 1972, sited on Thames Polytechnic's playing fields. Their objective with the Street Farm House was to create an autonomous home that exploited reused materials and alternative technology, harnessing microgeneration and sewage recycling in order to liberate the occupants from dependence upon services provided by the state or private suppliers. Following a front page feature in The Observer by Gerald Leach the experimental house attracted considerable attention, chiming with emerging concerns about ecological sustainability and energy security. Lord Holford commended Caine's efforts in a debate in the House of Lords during a reading of the Protection of the Environment Bill in 1973. Despite such attention, however, Street Farmhouse, was relatively short-lived. A request to extend the structure's temporary planning permission on behalf of Graham Caine and his partner and daughter was refused, leading to the dismantlement of their home in 1975.

See also Autonomous building Brenda and Robert Vale Ecological Building Stadthaus

References

External links Mother Earth News - The Ecologic House - 1973 - An in-depth look at an ecologic house designed by British architect Grahame Caine Article by Bruce Haggart and Graham Caine and photos of the 'Ecological House' in Undercurrents UC04 - Spring 1973 - pp39-46 Peter Crump interview by Lydia Kallipoliti in 'Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196X to 197X' & Street Farmer entry Lydia Kallipoliti, From Shit to Food: The Eco House in South London (1972-1975) in Buildings and Landscapes, (Spring 2012), Vol.19 Paul Downton - Sowing the Seeds of Green Urbanism: 'Spring is Here and the Time is Right for Planting in the Streets'- December 14, 2015

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Street Farm

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Street Farm claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Street Farm before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Street Farm ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Street Farm

In research: Street Farm appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Street Farm in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Street Farm is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Green anarchism, Intentional communities in the United Kingdom, Low-energy building in the United Kingdom, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Street Farm outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Street Farm” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Street Farm in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Street Farm means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Street Farm out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Street Farm in simple terms?

Why does Street Farm matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Street Farm?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Street Farm.