What Do Designers Like Us Have to Offer the Local Food Initiatives?

What Do Designers Like Us Have to Offer the Local Food Initiatives?
Nov 12, 2009 20:57PM
Craig Applegath

As the Grand Prize winners of the recent ResilientCity.org Design Ideas Competition, we were asked to contribute a blog posting that expanded upon or further developed some of the ideas that we explored in our competition entry.

To do so, we thought that we would reflect on what we learned from our presentation of our competition entry “From the Ground Up”, at a benefit for a youth farming program. Our co-presenters included other Brooklyn residents involved in local food initiatives. The event gave us the chance to consider what urban designers can offer people who are already making viable agriculture projects happen in our city. We saw three basic possible contributions a proposal like ours can make.

1. From Urban Agriculture to Food Systems

Designers can help by creating a framework for urban agriculture at scales bigger than individual project sites. Urban agriculture systems include food production, processing, distribution, and consumption as well as waste management. Individuals involved in urban food initiatives necessarily tend to understand and manage small parts of this process as they relate to operations. Urban planners and designers have the opportunity to consider the system as a whole – how resources flow from one process to the next, and how to match that flow with local needs. Our proposal imagined how neighborhood spaces could systematically welcome various food programs.

2. Putting Food Systems into Design Language

Designers can use the tools of architecture and planning to advocate for urban food systems to decision makers. This is a service designers offer every day to clients of other sorts. We were surprised to find very few official planning or design documents addressing neighborhood food systems comprehensively. Design language is a common and persuasive vocabulary used to communicate ideas about systemic change – to agency officials, funders, community developers, and the public. We expect and believe design language should become a well-deployed tool in the development of urban food systems.

3. Connecting Food with Neighborhood Systems

Leveraging an understanding of local concerns and infrastructure, designers can connect urban agriculture to other neighborhood systems. How can urban agriculture be a part of energy generation, waste management, transportation, or job creation? Our proposal suggested, for example, how food production could improve the public realm. Crime and safety are major concerns in Newark and affect perceptions of the city. We think by activating neighborhood spaces and buildings with food initiatives, we can create a safer network of active public spaces. The more connections established between food systems and local infrastructures and institutions, the more resilient urban agriculture will become. The capacity of food systems to withstand changes – including displacement by higher value land uses – will grow.

A visit to Brick City Urban Farm in Newark gave inspiration to our proposal. The farm is located on a 15,000 square-foot vacant lot on loan from a non-profit affordable housing developer. Two residents of Integrity House, a nearby rehabilitation center, are paid to maintain the farm daily. Neighborhood residents drop by to pick fresh vegetables – collards are most popular – and the farm supplies several suburban restaurants. The farm is surrounded by a simple chain-link fence, and nothing has ever been stolen.

Brick City Urban Farm is unplanned from a design perspective, but even so, the farm has improved the neighborhood public realm, responded to community needs, and connected the neighborhood to the regional economy. As designers and planners, we can help give form to these kinds of activities, and assist their organizers by strategically aligning them with neighborhood and city-scale development.

Michael Haggerty and Raj Kottamasu