It’s was both extremely good and bad to be back in london over the weekend. The people there are just brilliant. You can’t find them just anywhere else in the world. Which is good, but obviously really bad when you’re not there to hang out with them.

Amongst all the socialising antics, Nico and I managed to pop over the the Dalston Mill on Dalston Lane, part of the Barbican’s Radical Nature Exhibition. It was set up by EXYZT Architects and is one of those briliant east london-esque creations thats all about community and current topics.

[EXYZT Architects] conceive and organise each project as a playground in which cultural behaviours and shared stories relate, mix and mingle. Their projects, which could be defined as participatory architecture, always strive to involve different constituencies of the local community in a social network that is invited to inhabit a temporary space.

For Radical Nature, EXYZT have created THe DAlston Mill. Inspired by the possibilities afforded by this abandoned railway line, they have turned the disused site into a functioning windmill producing electricity - which powers the site’s lights and sound system - as well as flour for making bread.

It wasn’t the electricity generating windmill, or the cycle-generated music, but the field of wheat that had been planted slap bang in the center of this derelict space. It smelt amazing, it was beautiful to look at, and of course, was being milled, by the electricity generated by the windmill, into bread and pizzas.

They’d also cleaned up a local grafitti hotspot, so that it became a sort of architectural outdoor gallery space. You can see more photos of it here.

The branding was also really nice - simple tape on slatted wood.

Quite soon after this, I came across the term ‘urban agriculture’ and the efforts of Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen to turn london into a partly self-sustainable allotment city. Mapping has been used to show that London has an immense amount of arable space.

When I was little, my Dad had an allotment where he cultivated many a veg. Leaving his brussel sprouts aside, I can say he taught me a love of growing your own food. It is a hearty thing, and gives you a surprising amount of satisfaction. And where there is food, there is community, which is perhaps the root of the idea.