The purpose of this project was to investigate an existing space, the pitch at Highbury Stadium once it has been abandoned by The Arsenal, through the introduction of a particular given activity, cow milking.
A small co-operative dairy farm is introduced into the stadium itself. The pitch provides summer grazing for two cows, while in the winter, sheltered accommodation is provided in the nature reserve. On 'cow day', twice a year, the cows are driven across Gilespie Road to or from the nature reserve. Maybell can be milked in the north goalmouth by local residents twice a day, at 7am and 7pm, on the way to work and on the way home. The milk could then be pasteurised using the 'flash pasteuriser' that is concealed in the goalpost, a process that would take under a minute. The milk, produced from the hallowed turf of Arsenal FC, will then dramatically improve the football skills of local children meaning they can surpass 'Accrington Stanley' in terms of speed, agility and control.
The cows are tethered to 'grazing posts', which have a mineral salt lick attached and also collect rainwater to fill the drinking trough, and moved between these twice a day after milking. There are 20 grazing posts and from each post the cows, tethered to the rotating grazing arm, can graze in a circular area of radius 7.5m, as recommended by Val Spreckley in Keeping a Cow (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1979). Tether grazing enables the pitch to remain unfenced and accessible as a public park. Between the grazing circles the pitch is allowed to become completely wild. Paths would appear both from the regular walk of the cows to and from the goalmouth and from public use of the space. In the winter, the off-season, while the cows are on the nature reserve, the grazing posts become redundant, their machinery rusting or perhaps failing completely. The next summer, at the start of the new season, they are returned to life again.
UNDERTAKEN: 2004 | TUTORED: Jose Estavos de Matos, Zac Monro, David Appleton