edible cities.ppt [read-only] - spatialdesign.info · represents a new idea in creating green...

June 18th 2012 Gayle Souter-BrownGreenstone Design Limited

Edible Citiesexamples from around the

world

Gayle Souter-Brown

©2012 Greenstone Design Limited

Why? For social, environmental, economic and

ethical reasons

Environmental benefits: attractingbees and other wildlife to new greenspaces.

Food produced by residents forresidents has a miniscule carbonfootprint in comparison to air or roadfreighted groceries bought fromsupermarkets.

Health education is another bigdriver to start a community garden.

Gayle Souter-Brown


What can be done? Community based initiatives work best

Council approved schemes havegreater longevity

Developer led CSR schemes providestrength and ‘faith’ to the community

Gayle Souter-Brown


Community gardens, edible gardens &pop up parks

Community gardens such as FLFIdeveloped on 2 acres urban fringe giftedland

Size does not matter, it’s what you dowith it that counts

Edible gardens such as Chippendale,Sydney fruit trees in nature strips as part ofcontinuous wildlife corridors City gardens can be life changing.

Never underestimate the power ofgreen

Pop up parks –utilise found objects such asPHS

All aim to make a difference, Moving towards a resilient future

Gayle Souter-Brown


The Cuban example Forced transition from oil-dependent

industrial agriculture to intensive local scalemodel

Building community resilience requires us tothink global but act local

Peak oil and a shortage of potable water areequally concerning

Climate change is on the WHO’s list of topten health concerns

Gayle Souter-Brown


Case study: Philadelphia Alongside one of Center City's busiest traffic corridors,

stretches a quarter-acre plot of lettuces and peppersand flowers. The vacant lot in the heart of the cityrepresents a new idea in creating green space.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society created thetemporary, pop-up garden. The lot has been vacant forover 20 years, surrounded by a high fence and filledwith trash and debris.

Now the lot has raised beds for vegetables and herbs, adisplay shed made from recycled material in the style ofmodernist painter Piet Mondrian, flower beds and evenanimal topiary.

Plant sales will donate proceeds back to PHS urbangardening programs.

Urban gardening is a fight for space and longevity in aplace designed for development. The successful onesare based on a community of neighbors who protect theland from development.

The pop-up garden acts as a stop-gap activity. Thegarden at 20th and Market may ultimately help the lot'sdevelopment.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Pop up edibles The Philadelphia Hort Society project is an

excellent example of a design that could be rolledout around the world.

Vacant lots can be humanised and theecological balance shifted back to embracenature.

Seasonal displays are great, but people needto value the pop up space for what it offers -respite from the built environment - theengage within their communities to safeguardsuch spaces on a permanent basis.

One of the advantages of the pop up garden isthat it is flexible. This needs to be rememberedwhen designing gardens - communities want to beable to make them their own, so allowing formovement and change is essential.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Case study: Berlin’s princess gardens Unused space was used to create city garden

Increased biological diversity, lessCO2 and a better microclimate.

The spaces would promote a sense ofcommunity and the exchange of a widevariety of competencies and forms ofknowledge, and would help people leadmore sustainable lives.

They would be a kind of miniature utopia, aplace where a new style of urban living canemerge, where people can work together,relax, communicate and enjoy locallyproduced vegetables.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Berlin Princess Gardens Locally grown organic vegetables

Our fresh, organic, locally produced herbs andvegetables are grown In raised compost bedswithout using any pesticides or artificial fertilisers.

Mobile GardeningWe temporarily transform unused spaces suchas building sites, car parks and roofs into urbanfarmland and green meeting places.

Sustainable LivingThe Prinzessinnengarten is a place of discoverywhere children, neighbours, experts and thosecurious about sustainable living can cometogether to about and explore alternative visionsfor our city.

Hedonism as we understand itOur garden is a place of pleasure andrejuvenation. Relax and enjoy watching thevegetables being harvested and freshlyprepared in our small garden restaurant.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Benefits of community gardens "It reintroduced the site to the neighborhood".

"Getting people to walk on the site, walk pastit, seeing the site, it makes it a lot lessforeboding than it was."

The crops may struggle, but the lot workswell as a living, organic billboard advertisingthe allure of green space to downtownpedestrians, with its decorative flowers,demonstrations of recycled construction, andhorticultural programming such as classesand tours. Only about a quarter of the lot isused for growing food.

Almost no debris was removed from the lot.Designers used as much of the accumulatedjunk as possible to build beds and planters.The rest is sitting as a heap of rubble, waitingto be used for found-object sculptures.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Case study: London What if: projects have been mapping

vacant and neglected spaces thatsurround inner city housing estates inLondon. Gaps within the urban fabric bothdetach and isolate communities.

The team has been developing a strategyfor how these unloved spaces could beappropriated to accommodate the needsof the local population.

The basic need for food and outsidespace for socialising and recreation wasdeveloped into a proposal to transformformerly fenced off and neglected piecesof land into allotment gardens.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Case study: Sydney A Sydney neighbourhood

development of 500 dwellings willhave edible street plantingeverywhere rather thandesignated community gardens.

Much negotiation had to be doneto convince the local council tohead the Urban Harvest

Pocket neighbourhoods are easierto establish due to non councilinvolvement in maintenance.

Properly designed they can addanother layer of place making thatencourages communitydevelopment quicker thantraditional street basedapproaches...

Gayle Souter-Brown


Case study Todmorden : Incredibleedibles From our beginnings with herb gardens, we’ve

taken to planting and growing veggies and treesround town. We’ve planted several orchardsand there are more to come. We’re workingwith public bodies round town to use their land– like the fire station and the railway station – orto work with them on their own Incredible ideas– like social landlords.

Every school in the town is now involved ingrowing with us and we promote food-basedlearning for the community as a whole.

We’re reaching back into local memories andknowledge with our History project.

We have also branched out to greenfield sites,working on donated land in Walsden to create amajor resource for growing and learning, andon donated land in Gorpley to develop ideasabout hill-top farming.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Incredible edibles- a local perspective Rather than leave the land barren behind hoardings or use it for car parking (which

sadly would have been popular with a few people) its in the process of beingtransformed, with fruit bushes, herbs and perennials that are good for bees. It willinclude a flower rich meadow area too. The project has been done in collaborationwith the local authority on a modest budget.

There are also well established fruit and vegetable and herb gardens throughout thetown, particularly good at our health centre, and along the main routes many piecesof land which were mown grass are now used for raised beds or herb gardens.

A larger plot of land outside the town centre is being used for polytunnels and fruittrees and ponds.

Besides the phenomenal enthusiasm of IET’s founders, I think this project has beenable to take off because it is at a small scale within a modest sized community;Todmorden has a population of about 11,000, and it has been possible to engagewith a significant proportion of the town. Not everyone may necessarily agree witheverything that is being done, but most people share many of the key aims, toreduce food miles and get food produced locally, to give people the opportunity togrow and harvest their own food, to give people the opportunity to learn more aboutfood growing and think a bit more about sustainable living.

Gayle Souter-Brown


Forest gardens & roof gardens

Home gardens, or multi layered gardens utiliseplant associations to maximise productivity of aspace

Gayle Souter-Brown


Veges on verges & Pimp yourpavements – local initiatives

Gayle Souter-Brown


Vertical gardening City landscapes have many vertical planes

green walls can provide edible, biodiverse, heat absorbing, habitat-enhancing, wildlife-attracting, rainfallabsorbing features

Gayle Souter-Brown


Case Study: Liverpool City farms –urban agriculture What if you woke up one day with a

herd of cows outside your frontdoor?

On the 18th July 2005, in the earlyhours of the morning, 5 cows, 5 calves,3 stockmen and a milking parlourarrived in Toxteth. They remained for 9days and cows grazed in various vacantsites in Toxteth.

Through engagement with the public, theperformance/event created a platform fordebate on how derelict or neglected landcould be used in the future, and suggestedurban agriculture as one way ofappropriating these spaces.

Gayle Souter-Brown


London city garden and kitchen A ROOM FOR PLANTING AND SOCIALISING

During the summer 200 terracotta pots wereallocated to 45 local residents for growing flowersand herbs. Pots were placed in shelves that enclosethe space.

This triangular shaped site was over-grown withvegetation and attracted rubbish dumping and otheranti-social behaviour. In 2008 the space wasconceived as a room, with walls created fromvertically stacked plants, protecting the inside fromthe noise and pollution of the traffic.

The garden was commissioned as a temporaryintervention and closed when the site was sold in2009.

Gayle Souter-Brown


conclusion There is a definite opportunity for

designers to assist in the communitygarden fever, and in finding universaldesign approaches that encouragepeople of all ages and abilities to growtheir own food.

Gayle Souter-Brown


ContactGayle Souter-BrownDirectorGreenstone DesignTel 04 472 7122 | 022 196 8899Skype gbrownsbrownEmail [email protected] www.greenstonedesign.co.nz

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