Unsung Hero
Seeking to remind us of the time and effort that goes into producing a humble loaf, London-based designers Studio MICAT created an outdoor gym that makes bread, located at a children’s camp in the United States.
Titled Brawn & Bread, the structure is built primarily from brickwork, cast concrete, timber charred using shou sugi ban and steel.
Brawn & Bread caters for up to 150 campers and staff members. It functions as follows: a cable winch hauls a wheeled carriage loaded with grain sacks to the top of a steel frame. Then, the grain is loaded by hand into a hopper which feeds two pedal-powered grain mills. The resulting flour is then fed, by way of custom 3D-printed parts, to glass jars where it is collected and added to a sourdough starter. The dough is prepared, kneaded, proved, shaped and finally baked in an oven fuelled with hand-split wood. A retractable canopy shields the young bakers from bad weather.
“[Brawn & Bread] relinks effort and reward, requiring a whole body workout [from] its users and in so doing [providing] the sustenance to refuel afterwards,” Studio MICAT explains.
