San Francisco competition – Design a physical or social urban agriculture product/system

Video above: An in depth problem statement and call to action delivered by Astrid Haryati, the Greening Director for the Office of the Mayor of San Francisco. She explores the obstacles to, and overarching importance of Sustainable Urban Agriculture for education, health and community development in the context of personal, community and city wide scales.

Urban Agriculture Design Competition

All entries due by midnight Jan. 31st 2010

The SF Chapter of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA) and the Interaction Designers Association (IxDA) would like to introduce you to this year’s Digging Deeper, Building Blocks for Sustainable Design – A multi-disciplinary design competition addressing real urban needs.

Problem Space:

Within San Francisco and many urban areas, the potential for using community gardens, backyard gardens, vacant or under-utilized lots, parks, greenhouses, and rooftops for food cultivation is significant. Urban agriculture is known to encourage community wide benefits in urban neighborhoods as well as wellness and business opportunities on an individual scale.

Practicing urban agriculture promotes health, creates gathering spaces for cultural exchange and recreation, revitalizes and beautifies abandoned areas, and provides opportunities for entrepreneurship and active work. What seems to be an obvious opportunity with a multitude of benefits has not brought in the level of interest, support and complimentary application that it could be. The City of San Francisco and several non-profit organizations have instigated efforts to increase available spaces and services but have not been able to sustain them with their limited resources. Support for urban agriculture, or its intervention into our daily life, has not shown a sustaining promise. The complexity lies on its’ simple nature – it hasn’t gained universal appeal, nor has it been easy. And yes – that we’ve been talking about it as if it has to be a massive effort, or done by a green thumb, but it should not require either.

Design Brief

Design an urban agricultural product, system, retrofit, service model or communication campaign / platform that is simple to set up / manufacture / produce / and/or implement / sell / distribute and maintain within the context of the urban environment with existing neighborhood, city and state regulations. It must be scalable and should support wellness and opportunity within communities.

Some Key Areas of Need:

• Traceability: Ways to Create awareness about the origin of food sources for any and all stakeholders – distribution centers, grocery stores, consumers etc.

• Seasonal Food Education: Ways to educate people about what grows in each season so they can make educated purchasing decisions

• Access to Food & Growing Site: Ways to enable individuals, communities and cities to access a place to grow edible food

Successful entries will be clear, compelling, innovative designs that demonstrate three criteria:

• Scalability – Must be able to be implemented in small pilot programs / proof of principle prototype format and then scaled up

• Minimize Trade Offs – Solution must embody sustainable values and be conscious of all phases of the life cycle – extraction, manufacture, transport, use and disposal / recycle / upcycle

• Simple to Use – !

Your entry should be an original concept. Commercially sold products are prohibited. The design need not have been built, and all entries should be submitted digitally (as renderings, photographs, diagrams, and /or interactive tools). The competition is open to any designer, architect, student, or interested person anywhere. Judging will be anonymous.

Entry Categories:

Urban Agriculture Physical Product / System:

This category is for physical products. Products may be part of a larger system or plan, and may be as large as a building or as small as a pin.

Urban Agriculture Social Product / System

This category is for systems that involve on or offline communications, interactions and behaviors. The scope of these systems may be communication between as few as two individuals but must be scalable to be considered viable.

Prizes

A set of prizes for each category will be offered. The main prize is the knowledge that you’re helping make the urban environment a better place to live.

• 1st prize: $1000

• 2nd prize $500

• 3rd prize $250

Digging Deeper: Building Blocks for Sustainable Design is an exciting competition that partners designers with the City of San Francisco to tackle real urban problems and find viable solutions.

On the afternoon of Sunday Sept. 27th the Digging Deeper 2009 program began with two informative and inspiring presentations. A leading systems ecologist teamed up with the Greening Director of the Office of the Mayor of San Francisco to deliver a design brief. They describe issues around urban food supply, health and agriculture relevant to the City of San Francisco and all urban areas. The presentations were specifically formatted to be the foundation of this competition, bringing industrial, graphic and interaction designers, architects and urban planners together to help solve real urban problems. This is a call to action for all design communities.

In the first presentation Gil Friend, acclaimed systems ecologist and CEO of Natural Logic, works through proven techniques on how to break apart complex problems and devise sustainable implementable solutions. The second presentation is an in depth problem statement and call to action delivered by Astrid Haryati, the Greening Director for the Office of the Mayor of San Francisco. She explores the obstacles to, and overarching importance of Sustainable Urban Agriculture for education, health and community development in the context of personal, community and city wide scales.

Part 1: Approach and Inspiration by Gil Friend

Part 2: Competition Problem Statement by Astrid Haryati

Link to the digging deeper website here.