URBAN DEVELOPMENT-along Bergen light rail:

Viser innlegg med etiketten :: urban gardening. Vis alle innlegg

torsdag 30. september 2010

URBAN AGRICULTURE HIGH SCHOOL IN NEW YORK!!!

Today a new school is born and important change is rolling forward towards our alternative legacy!!!!

from http://farmtogethernow.org/2010/09/30/urban-ag-high-school/
September 30, 2010

We just got this press release about an exciting development in education out in New York:

Just Food and Partners Announce Launch of Farm School NYC:
The New York City School of Urban Agriculture
Just Food and an alliance of local horticultural and food justice organizations are pleased to announce the official launch of Farm School NYC: The New York City School of Urban Agriculture. The school will offer a unique, community-based certificate program with enrollment beginning in January 2011. The mission of the school is to provide comprehensive professional training in urban agriculture, while spurring positive local action on issues of food access and social, economic and racial justice.
Community gardens and urban farms throughout the city will serve as outdoor classrooms, and their neighborhoods and gardeners as inspiration for a vibrant, fair local food system that nourishes bodies and minds. Training programs will be accessible to adults of all educational backgrounds and income levels. In particular, Farm School NYC targets New York City residents unable to access traditional agricultural education and for whom skills in urban food production can contribute to reduced hunger and diet-related diseases that disproportionately affect low-income city residents.
“For the first time, New Yorkers and city dwellers from all over will have access to agricultural training that directly relates to the unique setting of urban agriculture,” says Karen Washington, a nationally-recognized urban farming pioneer from the Bronx, and a member of the school’s Executive Board. “We grow it so we know it, and we’ve shown that city farming can make a huge difference in the health and nutrition of low-income urban communities.”
Farm School NYC will offer instruction in sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurship and food systems management. “Our goal for the school is to build and share knowledge within our communities and improve local access to healthy food throughout the city,” said Jacquie Berger, Executive Director of Just Food. “By bringing urban farming skills to a much broader population, Farm School NYC will magnify the impact of urban agriculture on community health in New York City and beyond.”
Learn More: Visit Farm School NYC’s website: www.justfood.org/farmschoolnyc
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Molly Culver & Eric Thomann
Interim Co-Directors
Farm School NYC, Just Food
212-645-9880×224
farmschoolnyc@justfood.org
www.justfood.org/farmschoolnyc

tirsdag 21. september 2010

ALTERNATIVE LEGACY RECIPES BOOK

This is a small introduction to local food; the seeding, planting and caretaking of the vegetable garden and the harvest possibilities within the 100-mile diet circle
of Bergen city, on the West Coast of Norway. The book is a result of photos taken of the plants followed from seed to fruit during the diploma period, and the investigations concerning production of food on an artisan level and nutritional facts and numbers that become relevant on this level of planning, education and action.Enjoy!

Altenative legacy recipes e book-laura ve

View more presentations from Laura Ve.

tirsdag 3. august 2010

URBAN FARMERS SAN DIEGO_2

San Diegans are demonstrating one can produce a fair portion of their food. And it doesn’t have to be for a vegetarian diet. Fish, poultry and eggs can be harvested straight from the yard.
“It’s pretty hard to grow all your food, but you can grow a percentage of it,” Paul Maschka said, an urban farmer at City College’s Seeds at City.
Aside from growing vegetables, Maschka makes cheese, sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, honey wine and honey at home.
“Part of food production is the preservation, drying and canning of food which is becoming a lost art,” Maschka said. “It’s uncommon to Americans. But it’s so easy to make, and it’s healthy and delicious.”

URBAN FARMERS SAN DIEGO

(from the san diego news network.com)

"About a year ago, Karon Klipple, a mathematics professor at San Diego City College, took a long, hard look at the campus lawn.
With all the talk about global warming, the benefits of eating local and organic food, not to mention San Diego’s drought worries, it seemed the land and resources might be put to better use. So Klipple, who is chair of City College’s Environmental Stewardship Committee, founded Seeds at City, a thriving sub-acre farm smack dab on the downtown campus.
“Industrial agriculture isn’t going to support us indefinitely because it’s unsustainable,” she said while walking in between rows of oak leaf lettuce and Chioggia beets on a cool Tuesday morning. “There’s no way we can continue to use more resources to create fewer.”

tirsdag 27. juli 2010

WINTER GARDEN GALLERY FOR BAS (and my exhibition)

My conservatory / gallery for the green growing things is up!

mandag 26. juli 2010

FROM GREY TO GREEN

Check out this fantastic project!

under the concrete : green

THE IDEA OF ARTISAN AGRICULTURE

Conventional agriculture does not integrate easily into the urban fabric. It is space consuming, requires large machinery and heavy spraying of fertilizers and pesticides is "normal". Risking dust and chemicals to drift into residential areas will always be a concern and therefore conventional agriculture becomes incompatible with modern city-living.
In the urban landscape of Bergen, stuck between mountain walls, the artisan model can work better as it is more flexible and adaptable.

Artisan: from Italian: artigiano, is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewelry, household items, and tools. The term can also be used as an adjective to refer to the craft of hand making food products, such as bread, beverages and cheese.

Manufacture by hand and with hand tools imparts unique and individual qualities to artisanal products, in contrast to mass produced goods where every one is nearly identical.

Artisans were the dominant producers of goods before the Industrial Revolution. Artisans employ creative thinking and manual dexterity to produce their goods. (wikipedia.com)

When speaking of building communities upon an artisan economy one can assume that the food produced is of good quality and worth celebrating simply because of the knowledge, skills and concern put in the effort of making it.

Other plus words relating to an artisan agrarian economy are;

# low toxicity farming, agroecological farming practices with a minimum of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

# high value products, for urban markets comes from smaller parcels. A community will focus on high value products. (You know your neighbor will suffer if you produce bad sugarpeas or rhubarb.)

# vertically integrated economy, the focus of artisan agriculture is on finished food products. The local community benefit from transforming the raw foodstuff into final products.

# integrated infrastructure, water, waste-water, energy and solid-waste management systems offer opportunities to both integrate with urban infrastructure and turn waste into shared resources. ( Composting food waste for soil improvement, treating urban runoff in ponds using it for irrigation (water source), using waste urban heat for green houses.

# diverse education, the urban farmers education, or training of skills, covers agroecological farming practices and possible a range of small-business management strategies (to support the vertically integrated business opportunities).

# economic diversity, mixing agriculture with processing, retail, restaurants, agro-tourism and education greater economic diversity is achieved in the community, new opportunities for the inhabitants.

Skills and knowledge are of high value,which appeals to us and inspires us.

PLANNING WITH FOOD

The illustration shows the cycle of food. In the modern city making food visible in all its processes 'from field to fork' can be an important tool to develop more resilient communities. Glassed galleries on buildings, green houses on roofs and conservatories in the gardens for people to have extended production seasons. Children at school seeding and planting in their gardens and green houses. Grocery stores, cafes and restaurants in the streets selling local produce. Production fields for the new urban agrarian businesses and urban farmers to supply restaurants, grocery stores, kindergartens, schools, canteens, institutions etc. Clover covering the fields resting until next season. Festivals celebrating the seasons and local food, farmers markets, and people enjoying their own produce in their backyard with the neighbors. Organic waste composed and used directly in the vegetable gardens and production fields.

lørdag 10. juli 2010

LANDSHARE - connecting grower to people with land to share

This is a sharing-program from the UK. Basically it is farmers or others with growable land left over, sharing it with someone who doesn´t, put into system.

check this out : www.landshare.net

onsdag 7. juli 2010

IMAGES FROM la CHAPELLE : COMMUNITY PARK PROJECT IN PARIS

See also my paris experience blog-post from city as biotope

"....the everyday park between the rail-lines of Gare de l´Est and Rue d´Aubervilliers, Jardins d´Eole that almost lost the 12 year long fight for its right to exist to the plans for extention of a storage hall. Now it is a beautiful addition in peoples life in this aera; people working out, playing, talking, growing vegetables and fruits in the parcel-garden, having coffe and crèpe and talking, and the children experience to see how a sunflower grow, or how a turnip they planted taste when it is finished (school project)."

rue d´Aubervilliers - Jardins d´Éole

Permeable surfaces, natural seeding straws and surface water management

Parcel gardens

Garden produce

MORE IMAGES FROM aaa PROJECT IN PARIS / Le 56 : Eco-interstice

Photos from aaa´s Urban gardening project in Paris : Le 56 / Eco-interstice

"This project explores the possibilities of an urban interstice to be transformed into a collectively self-managed space. Initiated in 2006 in St. Blaise area, in the East of Paris, the project engaged a partnership between local government structures, local organisations, inhabitants of the area and a professional association which run training programmes in eco-construction. The management of the project gives space and time to construction, the construction site becoming itself a social and cultural act.

Parallely with the construction of the physical space, different social and cultural networks and relationships between the users and the actors involved are emerging. The project has an important take on the notion of proximity and active borders. Neighborhood walls transform the boundaries of the site into interactive devices, which rather than separating, multiply exchange and connections. Another strong take is on the ecological aspect: energetic autonomy, recycling, minimal ecological footprint, a compost laboratory."
http://56stblaise.wordpress.com/

Entrance with small office on top.

The neighborhood garden

And sales of harvested products every Wednesday and Saturday

EcoBox by aaa

From the same TIMELINE from design act

EcoBox

by Atelier d’architecture autogérée
(FR) 2001
Self-managed eeo-urban network

The EcoBox is the initial project within a series of self-managed projects in the La Chapelle area of northern Paris which encourages residents to gain access to and critically transform misused or underused spaces. These projects actively involved municipal stakeholders to emphasize a flexible use of space and aim to preserve urban 'biodiversity' by encouraging the co-existence of a wide range of life-styles and living practices. Atelier d'architecture autogeree (aaa) began this process by establishing a temporary garden constructed out of recycled materials. The garden, EcoBox, has progressively extended into a platform for urban criticism and creativity, which is curated by the aaa members, residents and external collaborators and which catalyses activities at a local and trans-Iocallevel. EcoBox's principles of self-management have been furthered developed in the project Le 56/ Eco-Interstice by aaa. –NL

Image

EcoBox_1.jpg

Click image or title to play

Video: Interview 1/10 Previous Next

Context and Beginning

LINKS
http://www.urbantactics.org/

Atelier d'architecture autogérée (aaa) was founded in 2001 as an inter- and extra- disciplinary network with a multiplicity of viewpoints : architects, artists, students, researchers, politicians, unemployed, activists, retired, inhabitants, and all concerned users. Members of aaa involved in EcoBox were: Constantin Petcou, Doina Petrescu, Denis Favret, Giovanni Piovene, and Giada Mangiameli, in collaboration with Borderphonics, Bordercartographe, artists, activists, students, and inhabitants of the La Chapelle area. aaa projects are embedded in their local contexts, reactivate everyday practices and initiate translocal platforms for cultural production. Other projects include: Le 56 / Eco-interstice (2005-2008), Mobile Geographies of Skills (2004-2005), and Cuisine Urbaine (2003-2004).

URBAN PASTORAL

I found this project in design acts TIMELINE

Urban Pastoral
by eskyiu
(CN) 2008
Architectural proposal for urban farming and garden structure

Urban Pastoral appropriates interstitial urban space to create landscapes and greenery in the city of Hong Kong. These designs lower ambient air temperature while also reducing air and noise pollution. All structure are made with 1OOPERCENT^TM, a material made entirely from discarded milk and detergent packaging, and Ecoglass ^TM, a 40% post-industrial recycled material by 3form materials company. The existing density of Hong Kong relates back to the 1895 British Law that declared control over all local lands except for villages native to the territory. As a result, areas of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon grew dense and vertical whilst other areas such as Sai Kung and Tai Po remained rural. Urban Pastoral is an attempt to redress the over-development of colonial legacy, and also reclaim the city through agriculture. The project has been developed with support from companies (3form, Hunter Douglas Asia, 3form US, 3form International, 3form Asia), the government (part of the Venice Biennale representing Hong Kong), and academia (Hong Kong University Cultural Humanities Fund). –NL

Image

Urban-Pastoral_1.jpg Photo credit: eskyiu

LINKS
http://www.eskyiu.com/urbanpastoral/

Eric Schuldenfrei and Marisa Yiu founded eskyiu, a design collaborative integrating culture, community and technology. Their interest lies in examining the ways in which the built environment and constructs of labor shape social relationships by forming connections between civic engagement and sustainable design. Art and technology are utilized to engage the viewer and the larger public. Previous selected projects include: Chinatown WORK 2006 an interactive public arts installation sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC and 3form material solutions; SINO a video installation shown at the Brooklyn Museum; Nutritious: An Aeroponic Farçade exhibited at the Architectural Association in London funded by 3form and Greenfingers. Based in both Hong Kong and New York, they do research and teach in addition to their design practice. Currently, they are teaching a studio at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation titled On Greater China.