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Hackney City Farm — Our Roots / Website

Archive the farm’s rich
history for the
community to access

Farm’s heritage discovered in the cellar

Hackney City Farm is a vibrant farm, community hub and local food collection point located in East London. Locals and tourists can experience farming, see farmyard animals, plant vegetables and learn skills to lower their environmental impact.

In the mid-2010s, staff discovered boxes of original photos and papers in the farm building’s cellar. These document the farm and surrounding area dating back to the 1950s.

Hackney City Farm received a grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to create a heritage project to archive and share findings with the community.

Volunteers spent seven months sorting the material for an exhibition at the Hackney Museum. The full collection was later donated to Hackney Archives.
Services
Strategy
Branding
Creative direction
UX design
Web design
Development
Training

Back to our roots

Doublesided designed a website for Hackney City Farm to digitally archive the collection. We created the Our Roots concept name to reference the farm's origins and the visual metaphor of roots running deep beneath the soil to represent its timeline.

Events highlighted along the way are recorded on the timeline. Icons at the bottom right of each post distinguish between photos, audio clips, videos, sketches or written memoirs.

We used collage to unite the assortment of historical and present-day images. The resulting eclectic feel celebrates the farm’s unique history and vibrant, down-to-earth approach.

Enrich volunteers’ digital skills

Doublesided delivered a training workshop to volunteers on using WordPress and adding archive content to the website.

A few weeks later, Hackney City Farm hosted a reception at their Straw Bale building to celebrate the launch of Our Roots website.
“Doublesided supported the design, way beyond expectations – filling the gaps we had not envisaged in our plans. Always willing to share skills, enabling us to learn, at the same time as achieving our goal of creating a lasting online depiction of our history.”
Caroline Baker – Project Co-ordinator
Hackney City Farm
Visit roots.hackneycityfarm.co.uk

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