Diggable City

A quick post of something we seem to have not covered:

An example from the always enviable Portland, Oregon, where the city's land was surveyed and inventoried to determine the portion of the city that could be utilized for urban agriculture.

http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=42793

Thailand Environment Institute

Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Year: 1993-Present
Founder:Bangkok Metropolitan Administration


TEI was founded in 1993 as an NGO to "green" Thailand, focusing on sustainable development in Bangkok. Because of the rapid growth of the city in the prior two decades over 35% of the land in the city was vacant and thus identified for urban agriculture, green space, and forestry. The projects undertaken by TEI are highlighted chronologically here. This is a completely different urban setting for large scale urban agriculture projects in comparison to developed cities because one-third of the city does not have access to water or sewage treatment. The three phases of the project were to map the potential green space in the city, involve the local community through participatory planning, and implementation through local governments. The program also used indicator metrics of 1. Establishing an Urban Green Plan, 2. Community Capacity Building, 3. Poverty Reduction, 4. Links with Government, and 5. Status of Women, 6. Developing a Model for Other Communities. Though most of these are not activities of resistance, the focus on Poverty Reduction and the Status of Women are significant gestures in the developing world, especially in a city and culture known for its exploitation. This is additionally important with as much as 60% of income in the developing city going towards food expenses.

Projects include using an abandoned soccer field for ten families to grow food for themselves and sell the excess at a street market. Others included planting along a canal and clearing overgrown spaces. The sites proved sustainable and received additional investment from the local community in terms of diversifying crops and maximizing use of the available space. These were featured in Entrepreneur Magazine.

Urban Space Station

Installation
Designed by:Natalie Jeremijenko and Ángel Borrego.

This prototype of a parasite for urban buildings was designed to "sequester the carbon dioxide emissions from buildings and return oxygen-enriched air in exchange" and is presented as the final frontier.

It addresses New York City's existing buildings, approximately 750000, which account for nearly 80 percent of New York City’s total carbon dioxide output.

Redesigning urban socio-ecological systems means dealing with the dense array of competing interests

The prototype recognizes and addresses such problems as constrained zoning requirements, and "prohibitive construction and maintenance costs that are dominated by tremendous human capital costs" and states in opposition that the energy cost in demolition, site clearance and rebuilding any (or many) of these structures costs almost 3 times as rehabilitating these.

The installation and study bases its research on the knowledge that "the world largest cities while occupying only 2% of the surface area account for 75% of the worlds carbon emission; by 2008, for the first time, more than half of the globe’s population will reside in urban contexts" . yet density, vertical population stacking coupled with mass transit is the most carbon-efficient lifestyles. "New Yorkers, produce 71 percent less carbon dioxide per capita than the average American placing the need to continue improving this type of dwelling within a complex socio-ecological realm, is worth exploring".

Therefor the USS Interprise purpose is described as a product "to reimagine and reengineer our relationship to the urban ecological systems, now; to demonstrate, promote and advance closed and coupled system design for major improvements in resources cycling (a principle that can be widely applied if it can be concretely communicated to nonengineers); to produce a glamorous highly functional new space / facility that will seize, excite and engage the public ; to exploit the environmental services and functionality of vegetation and engineering microlandscapes; to provide and maximize habitat and nutritional resources for nonhuman organism with whom we increasingly share urban space (including small mammals, birds; insects; soil microbes; and aerobiology); to facilitate urban agriculture and beyond: to facilitate our productive interdependence with diverse organisms (beyond instrumental calorie production); and, perhaps, most critically, to invite and maximize the participation and potential of a new generations of human capital for hands-on engagement with redesigning our urban environmental systems."

USS is designed as a closed approach of a space station for an urban agriculture facility for urban roof systems with an open green roof. it is designed to address the structural constraints of a roof space with specific focus on loads coupled with the use of HVAC CO2 enriched output air and capturing more radiative heat energy. Its form is designed to to maximize radiative heat and internal thermal distribution etc. in addition the space station can generate its own energy plus provide a surplus of energy to the building.

Redesign Your Farmers’ Market

Since 2006 GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits that have been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who care about health cities and the environment..

This website is an ongoing exploration of what GOOD is and what it can be. they recently ran a competition that asked for design solutions that would help food grown by local farmers to be more effectively delivered and distributed to urban residents.

the winner 'Farm on Wheels' by Mia Lehrer + Associates is a simple proposal that targets the problem effectively and creatively. It is mobile vending concept consisting of a fleet of electric trucks dispatched from three permanent markets to disperse fresh produce more effectively in Los Angeles.

The program selects fresh fruits and vegetables from local farmers and distributes the produce through a network of farm trucks. To engage more people in the consumption of fresh foods and support local and urban agriculture, Farm on Wheels creates a simplified and convenient food distribution network between farmers and consumers.

Omega Garden's

website: http://www.omegagarden.com/index.php?content_id=1500
video links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot9IVh5ysK0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCTOR6m3k9w

Omega Hydroponic Garden is a mega Garden system that can make high tech urban gardening economically feasible and actually more energy efficient than growing outdoors.

Omega Garden's Carousel system rotates the plants around the bulb and they claim "Using green power sources coupled with local consumption of the goods produced, would generate close to zero fossil fuel inputs compared to the present system of production with farm tractors, pesticides, a 1500 mile farm to market transportation statistic per food shelf item, along with packaging, refrigeration, etc., all of which are heavily dependent on fossil fuel inputs."

In addition to claiming that the process and strategy reduces water consumption by 99% and eliminates runoff.

Moreover the rotation of the plants actually increases the yield significantly. They explain this by declaring that "Geotropism relates to the effect of gravity on plant growth hormones called Auxins... if plants are continually rotated horizontally top to bottom these Auxins are evenly distributed throughout the plant aiding in plant growth and strength. The distribution of Auxins due to plant rotation increases plant growth rates by several times that of a stationary plant assuming that all other factors are equal. This phenomenon has been termed "Orbitropism" by Omega Garden Int.".

Public Farm 1 (PF1)

Location: NYC-USA

Years: 2008

Funded by: MoMA/PS1 Young Architect Program

Designed by: WORK Architecture Company

In the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center's courtyards , the temporary installation introduced a functioning urban farm in the form of a folded plane built entirely of biodegradable and recyclable materials .

In addition the farm was powered by solar energy and irrigated by a rooftop rainwater collection system that kept the project off the city's grid.

PF1 combines infrastructure with public space, engaging and challenging the users to re-imagine and question rural engagement in urban environments. The installation was grown picked and used within a commercial farmer’s market. plantings included basil, lavender, mint, rhubarb, strawberries, broccoli, watermelon and herbs. at the same time the project provided shade over pools of water with the well designed and interesting 'daisy' pattern.

The Vertical Farm Project

Location: International
Director: Dr. Dickson Despommier, Ph.D.

http://verticalfarm.com
Vertical Farm Video

The Vertical Farm Project is active in proposing solutions to the increased food demand and decreased agricultural land supply that will result from the growing population. It is a project based out of Columbia University’s Environmental Health Science department that serves as a sort of drop box for architects’ proposals on how to feed urban populations throughout the world. Their argument is that indoor farming is advantageous because it protects crops from natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts which destroy millions of tons of harvestable crops each year.


Advantages of Vertical Farming:
* Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
* All food is grown organically: no herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers
*virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
*returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
*greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural inter face
*converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of
evapotranspiration
*adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible
parts of plants and animals
*dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
*converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
*creates sustainable environments for urban centers
*creates new employment opportunities

100 Mile Diet

Location: 100 miles around you
Years: 2006-present
Founders: James MacKinnon and Alisa Smith

http://100milediet.org/

The 100 Mile Diet was a way for James and Alisa to start thinking locally. They went into the diet cold turkey and continued it for an enitre year. The guidelines were simply to eat only food produced within 100 miles of their location. It started as a personal journey, but has gained much attention in both Canada and the United States. They promote the 100-Mile Diet as a means to learning about food by doing: “Getting to know the seasons. Understanding where our food comes from, and at what risk to our health and to the environment. Sorting out how we all ended up eating apples that taste like cardboard and cakes made with petrochemicals. It was a challenge, but a good one - a genuine adventure.” In both books and their website, James and Alisa share with others their experience eating locally and give advice to others who would like to follow suit.

















They are now pushing an initiative called the 100 Mile Thanksgiving which encourages Americans to really think about where their getting their food from on Thanksgiving. Since the initiative started in 2006, tens of thousands of Americans have annually made the choice to have a 100 Mile Thanksgiving in which their entire meal consisted of food produced within 100 miles. The campaign has been so successful that readers from all over the country have written in to share their stories as well as recipes for local foods in areas throughout the country.

Permablitz

Name: Permablitz: Eating the Suburbs - One Backyard at a Time
Location: Melbourne, Australia
2006-present

permablitz.com


Permablitzes are informal events where people get together to create edible gardens in residential areas, share permaculture and sustainability skills and build community networks. The organization was founded by Permaculture designer Dan Palmer in 2006 in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. Permablitzes have since occurred in over 70 locations in Australia, France, Uganda and the Netherlands.

Permaculture design is an integral part of the process, and each Permablitz must be in collaboration with someone with a Permaculture Design Certificate. Permaculture systems operate like natural eco-systems and don’t require fertilizer or produce any waste. They do this by integrating the owner’s wants, needs, habits and skills with site limitations to create “ecologically harmonious systems” which produce most of the food needs of the residents, including fruit, vegetables, eggs and sometimes usable water.



Using Permaculture in residential areas reduces the food miles of residents who benefit from the new eco-systems, increases their self-sufficiency and independence from fluctuating food prices, lowers their carbon emissions and serves to “rewild” part of the human species.

Seawater Vertical Farm Project

Location: Dubai, UAE
Architect: Studiomobile - Italy

http://www.studiomobile.org/
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/5631/studiomobile-seawater-vertical-farm.html

In Dubai, a desert climate with little fresh water, selective conversion to fresh water, combined with farming vertically may be the solution, or so proposes Italy’s Studiomobile design firm. The project would use seawater to humidify air, and then recondense some of that water to irrigate the crops. The concept works in three phases:

Phase 01
The air going into the greenhouse is first cooled and humidified by seawater,
which is trickled over the first evaporator. This provides a fresh and humid climate
for the crops that in these conditions need very little water as they are not stressed
by excessive transpiration.

Phase 02
As the air leaves the growing area it passes through the second evaporator which
has seawater flowing over it. During this phase the humid air mix with the warm
dry air of the ceiling interspace. Thus the air is made much hotter and more humid.

Phase 03
The warm air is forced to flow upward by the stack effect that is temperature induced.
In the central chimney the warm and humid air will condense when in contact with
plastic tubes where cool sea water is pumped. In the surface of the condenser many
drops of fresh water will appear, ready to be recollected in a tank to water the crops
and for other uses.

Growing for Life

Name: Growing for Life

Location: Dartmoor Prison, Princetown, UK

Years: 2004- Present

Funded by: Bromley Trust and Tudor, Lankelly Chase

Founded by: Eden Project

The Growing for Life program is a regeneration project, which began in 2004 at the resettlement wing of Dartmoor Prison. The Eden Project, supported by Bromley Trust, has been working closely with prison staff and prisoners to create fruit, vegetable and healing gardens in the centre of an exceptionally bleak environment. It has had a marked benefit on health, behavior and outlook within the prisons walls. They worked with Cisco to provide learning in prisons (in horticulture, enterprise, life skills, and computing) and a network of social businesses outside the walls to offer extended learning opportunities and jobs. During the summer of 2007, the team harvested their first crops and delivered them to the elderly and schools in Princetown; a marginalized community with a variety of tough challenges, amongst which is poor nutrition and health of young families and older residents. The program has been a great success both inside and outside the prison walls.

Now extended to a number of other prisons, the program has become less about a simple prison activity and more of a community enterprise, concerned with resilience and prosperity. The next phase of the Growing for Life project began at Occombe Farm in Paignton in January 2009 supported by Tudor, Lankelly Chase. It set up an organic market garden; a social business created and active in the region, based on growing and food production, but involving marketing, distribution, sales, teaching, catering, construction and maintenance – creating an integrated, supportive scheme. It receives people (who choose to participate) on release from Dartmoor, Exeter and Channings Wood prisons in addition to providing training, volunteering and employment opportunities for those at risk of offending, homeless people and those on probation – including providing an alternative sentence to custody. The network of social businesses within Growing for Life is set to expand and there is potential to evolve the scheme elsewhere in the UK.

http://www.growingforlife.org/

http://www.edenproject.com/our-work/plants/growing-for-life/index.php

Isles Community Gardens and Nutrition Education

Name: Isles Community Gardens and Nutrition Education

Location: Trenton, NJ

Years: 1981- Present

Founded by: Student and Faculty of Princeton University

With 35 community gardens and 10 school gardens established on brownsites, unused lots, Isles brings the community together and provide them with fresh produce they might otherwise have difficulty getting or lack of inclination to purchase. Isles’ Community Gardening and Nutrition Education initiative fosters self-reliance and goes beyond emergency food assistance by providing residents with the skills to grow their own food and improve their nutrition. In 2008, more than 30 community gardens that Isles supports in Trenton raised thousands pounds of fresh produce that improved diets and strengthened finances for more than 3,000 residents. Many gardeners either can or freeze their produce; they also donate to members of their families and neighbors.

Isles has created their urban gardens with the intention that they Improve nutrition and health by providing exercise and fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables. Yet they have also proved that urban gardens save families hundreds of dollars per year. Low-income Trenton residents face significant barriers to healthy nutrition and food security. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 21% of Trenton’s population live below the poverty level. As a result of such poverty, more than 60% of Trenton school district students (Pre-K to 12) are eligible for free and reduced lunch. In addition, according to a recent Community Food Assessment completed by Rutgers University, there are challenges related to education and eating behaviors that contribute to poor nutrition; few people surveyed were concerned about eating healthy and many either did not know how to cook or preferred to eat pre-prepared meals.

During Trenton’s long growing season, an 800-square-foot plot can provide enough vegetables to feed a family for an entire year. By participating in Isles’ Community Gardening and Nutrition Education initiative, low-income families are able to gain greater food security, stretch food budgets and obtain fresh and nutritious produce. Studies report that every $1 invested in a community garden plot yields approximately $6 worth of vegetables. In a 2006 survey, Isles’ community gardeners reported an average savings of about $200 dollars per year, per gardener. This program strengthens the community by enhancing connections between people, making the streets more secure, and giving people a chance to share food with others. Over 70% of Isles’ gardeners report that gardening greatly improves their neighborhoods. Lastly, Isles’ urban gardens clean the environment by improving soil and growing plants that filter the air.

http://isles.org

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WX6dcsn-fc

Growing Power

Name: Growing Power

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Years: 1993- Present

Founded by: Will Allen

In 1993, Will Allen transformed his farm into a program that offered teens a place to work and provide food for their community. Allen, a former professional basketball player, grew up on a farm in Maryland. In 2008, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" for his work on urban farming, sustainable food production, and with Growing Power. Growing Power is an urban agriculture organization headquartered that runs the last functional farm within the Milwaukee city limits. It is a national nonprofit organization and land trust supporting people from diverse backgrounds, and the environments in which they live, by helping to provide equal access to healthy, high-quality, safe and affordable food for people in all communities.

Its facilities include seven large greenhouses, a kitchen, indoor and outdoor training gardens, aquaculture system and a food distribution facility. Fish, worms, bees, goats, chickens, turkeys, and ducks are also raised there. Growing power conducts workshops and demonstrations in aquaculture, aquaponics, vermiculture, horticulture, small or large-scale composting, soil reclamation, food distribution, beekeeping, and marketing. It also focuses on food distribution by providing on-the-ground demonstration, outreach and technical assistance through the development of Community Food Systems that help people grow, process, market and distribute food in a sustainable manner. It runs numerous collaborative projects and training projects, including a partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee to train city youth in gardening.

The farm grows a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, and also farms tilapia and perch through the use of aquaponics. Thousands of people tour the facilities every year. hosts 5,000 visitors and uses 400 tons of the city’s food waste in a single year.

In September 2005, Growing Power, whose relationship with Heifer began in 1997, established a 19,000-square-foot community garden in the center of downtown Chicago, from which all produce will go to shelters and soup kitchens in Chicago. It is a sort of flagship garden for urban agriculture, and for the organization’s goals of using sustainable agriculture to make communities everywhere successful, independent and self-sufficient.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/magazine/05allen-t.html

http://growingpower.org/

Portable Farms

Location: Escondido, CA
Year:1972-Present
Inventor/Founder: Colle Davis

http://www.portablefarms.com

Portable Farms is a business that has a designed aquaponic system for sale to the public. Colle Davis invented the aquaponic system after studying at UC Davis, and has spent the last 37 years perfecting the design, with the goal of fully automating the process to allow for universal usage. Portable Farms claims that a unit of theirs (patent pending) measuring only 6’x 8’ can produce 400 vegetables and 100 pounds of fish, all while using an estimated 90 percent less water than a traditional arrangement. Colle Davis’s own farm uses three of his company’s units, one 6’ x 8’, one 10’ x 20’ and one 20’ x 30’, meaning on two acres, he is able to produce 4800 vegetables and 1900 pounds of fish in a year.

In addition to the three previously mentioned sizes, Portable Farms also sells a 90’ x 120’ unit, for larger institutional applications. Portable Farms is marketing these units to large institutions like prisons and schools, where footprint might be an issue, as well as to individuals and families, where time and ease of maintenance might be an issue. The modularity and exportability of Portable Farms suggests that the company may have more success as locavorism catches on.

The Urban Aquaculture Center

Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Years: 2008-2009

http://urbanaquaculturecenter.com

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/the-urban-aquaculture-center.php

Still in a very initial stage, the Urban Aquaculture Center hopes to expand the practice of aquaculture by installing a 50,000 square feet urban aquaculture production facility, the first of its size and kind in the city of Milwaukee. Holding more than 200,000 gallons of municipal water in 20 large tanks, the indoor space will demonstrate to the public sustainable and highly productive practices such as aquaponics, where the water used in the fish tanks is filtered through edible leafy vegetable plants and then reused by the fish. It will combine this with educational facilities, sustainable farming exhibits, and a restaurant and market both selling locally raised fish, hoping to involve the community in practicing aquaculture at a smaller scale in their homes.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the practice of aquaculture “has the greatest potential to meet the growing demand for aquatic food.” One of the strengths of the Urban Aquaculture Center seems to lie in its large-scale vision of serving as a launching point to increase the popularity of aquaculture nation-wide (the United States currently only contributes to 2 percent of worldwide production) as a way of bringing fish production closer to its centers of consumption, contributing to a reduction of carbon emissions and an increased food security. The center envisions having the city of Milwaukee lead the way, capitalizing both on the presence of the successful urban teaching farm Growing Power as well as on its proximity to Lake Michigan. In spite of this exciting vision, it is yet too early to assess the impact this venture will have as it has yet to even install the center.