Category — Landscape Architecture

The growing interest in urban agriculture means we need to think about the city in a whole new way.

By Dorothée Imbert
Architecture Boston
Published by the Boston Society of Architects
Vol 13 No 3
August 4, 2010

Dorothée Imbert is the chair of the Master in Landscape Architecture program at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University. She is the author of Between Garden and City: Jean Canneel-Claes and Landscape Modernism (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010)

Excerpt:

The contemporary enthusiasm for urban agriculture presents a paradox: zoning regulation, olfactory and sound control, and moral opprobrium have erased almost all traces of food production within most Western cities. This contradiction reveals the difficulty of integrating agriculture into urban systems and the need for landscape architects, planners, and community activists to tackle policy. The perception of urban agriculture as a temporary land use for disenfranchised inner-city populations is also likely to hinder its potential to form a new type of open space.

[Read more →]

Public Farm 1 (PF1) was the winning entry for the 2008 MoMA/PS1 Young Architect Program. Built in the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center’s courtyards, the temporary installation introduced a 1000m2 fully functioning urban farm in the form of a folded plane made of structural cardboard tubes. PF1 combines infrastructure with public space, engaging the visitor to re-imagine the city’s infinite possibilities.

Built entirely of biodegradable and recyclable materials, PF1 was powered by solar energy and irrigated by a rooftop rainwater collection system that kept the project off the city’s grid. Throughout the summer, the farm produced over 50 varieties of organic fruit, vegetables and herbs that were used by the museum’s café, at special events, and harvested by visitors.

[Read more →]

PHOTO BY KAREN LANDMAN. In Milwaukee, the Growing Power organization offers tours of its urban farm to give people, especially children, a chance to see where their food comes from.

Yes in My Backyard

Landscape architecture professor Karen Landman hits the road to see how people in Canada and the United States are bringing farming to the city

BY TERESA PITMAN
University of Guelph

Prof. Karen Landman, Environmental Design and Rural Development, grew up on a dairy farm, but she says her father wouldn’t recognize as farmers the people she met this summer when she travelled more than 18,000 kilometres across the western United States and Canada to study urban agriculture. They were growing food commercially in the city.

“I met with academics, social advocates, people who train others in the techniques of urban farming and, of course, urban farmers themselves,” she says.

[Read more →]

Fungi and Rhubarb Garden – The north facing end of the site will be in shade most of the day and most of the year. Large logs would be impregnated with fungi spores, the rhubarb and mint would be grown beneath them providing interesting food and creating am exotic and educational lunch time destination.

Leadenhall City Farm
By Mitchell Taylor Workshop

“Parks, allotments and markets are set to spring up across Britain on the sites of building projects that have been mothballed in the recession.

“Piers Taylor, of Mitchell Taylor Workshop, one of the practices shortlisted for the Leadenhall site has proposed a city farm, populated with colour-coded chickens. He wants to create grassy banks to picnic on and plant blackberry bushes amid the surrounding steel, granite and glass.”
– from The Times Oct 30, 2009

[Read more →]

Trengwainton House, near Penzance, Cornwall. Gardens are open to the public. All photos. NTPL/Andrew Butler

Kitchen garden crops are gradually being reintroduced into the productive area. Visitors can climb on to a raised platform to take in the scale of the walled gardens and their unique raised beds, built to the dimensions of Noah’s Ark, as described in The Bible.

See photos of the Kitchen Garden. Follow – “Read More”.

[Read more →]

More than 45,000 individual plants, shrubs and trees have been planted by Franklin Park Conservatory staff members and volunteers on The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Community Garden Campus. Forty individual plots are available for community rental on the campus. Photo credit: Franklin Park Conservatory.

Franklin Park Conservatory Unveils The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Community Garden Campus in September

(August 25, 2009 – Columbus, Ohio) – Franklin Park Conservatory announces the opening and dedication of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Community Garden Campus on September 9, 2009. Located on the grounds of Franklin Park Conservatory, the campus will serve as a national model for community gardening development, education and outreach.

“In communities across the country, Americans are experiencing the pride associated with the renewal of community gardening,” said Jim Hagedorn, chairman and CEO, ScottsMiracle-Gro. “At ScottsMiracle-Gro, we are equally proud to support this growing movement through the establishment of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Community Garden Campus, a national resource for community gardening.”
[Read more →]

2nd International Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture Bologna, Italy, June 9-13, 2009

Session 1 – Food and flower production in/for the cities: urban horticulture in developing and developed countries, for food and flower production.

[Read more →]

How does your backyard garden grow?

By David Colker, Los Angeles Times
September 14, 2008

Marta Teegen, who owns Homegrown, a Los Angeles-based garden consulting company, will come to your house and install a vegetable garden with your choice of plants. She generally puts in about four 4-by-6-foot raised beds.

The average cost — $2,000.

At that rate, and because this is Los Angeles, it’s no surprise that several of her clients are celebrities (whom she declined to name) with private chefs.

[Read more →]

Tasha talks to Mike about natural lawn care at City Farmer. A push mower makes no noise, uses no gasoline and does not pollute the atmosphere. See what else you can do to become a green ‘Lawnranger’.

Visitors learn about alternatives to lawns at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. How about a waterwise native plant garden or replacing your lawn with a variety of classy ground covers?

[Read more →]

Photo of Boston Commons

Desk of Jac Smit
August 21 2008

Prior to the industrial revolution every village town and city had a commons for food production and marketing. In the 21st century the commons is regaining popularity and applications. My personal experience of the spatial commons is the Boston Common and Garden, a both glorious and cordial public space. My second is the Calcutta Maidan, from Hooghly River to the New Market. It incorporates fishing, goat grazing, horse racing, religious festivals and much more.

[Read more →]

See a short-documentary on guerrilla gardening starring Richard Reynolds, the author of “On Guerrilla Gardening.” The piece basically shows the process, preparation and troops needed to go out on a gardening mission.
From Current TV.

Link with comments on Current TV here.

Report Published by the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands
July, 2008

“Currently, land being farmed in British Columbia produces just over half of our food requirements. There is, therefore, tremendous potential to expand agricultural production so that it plays a greater role in feeding our growing population. However, a major challenge we face is to effectively manage urban growth in a manner that protects existing farm operations and provides opportunities for the agriculture industry to continue to grow. Part of this challenge in ensuring urban and agricultural land uses can successfully co-exist will require that the interface between these land uses is effectively planned.

[Read more →]

Publisher: New Village Press
(January 1, 2008) 376 pages

Places of peace
Gardens of green
Standing together, we’re growing
Visions of wholeness coming.

Friendship can be a reality
Harmony can be for you and me, Oh!

Places of peace
Gardens of green
Standing together, we’re growing.

[Read more →]