Category: agriculture
-
The Beauty of Dirt!
I caught a screening of the documentary Dirt! The Movie last week on Oregon Public Broadcasting as part of their Earth Day series. Worth checking out for a number of reasons – those with some background will be inspired by some of their eco-heroes like Wes Jackson, Majora Carter and Alice Waters. Others will be…
-
Garden to Go
An interesting proposal from Marie Hermansson entitled Garden to Go takes the concept of small-scale vertical farming and vending as a method of providing fresh food in cities: “G.T.G. is a self-contained mini hydroponic greenhouse the size of a vending machine; in fact that’s exactly what G.T.G. is—a very green vending machine. The purpose behind…
-
PICA Coop Design Competition
Based on the work from last year to create the Chicken Cube – I was recently asked to serve on a design competition jury put on by SERA Architects to design the perfect chicken coop. The competition was aimed at benefitting the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) for their upcoming TADA 2010 Annual Gala…
-
Perils of Urban Chickens
An amusing proposal from Vancouver BC, which recently allowed urban chickens for single- and multi-family owners after a long-standing ban. Via the Vancouver Sun: “Anticipating a wave of buyers’ remorse, city staff are recommending the city build a special shelter for hens they expect will be abandoned by owners having second thoughts.” I assume this…
-
Take Back the Streets 2
A follow up to the story from Korea and the daylighted stream that was realized upon the removal of a highway, this ephemeral project from San Francisco (via Streetsblog SF) takes the same idea of remnant roadway and thinks of it in terms of gardening: “A few weeks ago in San Francisco, a number of…
-
Food City
Via ArchDaily, this study by MVRDV, The Why Factory and Stroom Den Haag looks at urban farming in the relationship to global food supplies. As David Basulto adds: “…urban farming goes more in the direction of the last phrase of the video: “could it (urban farming) help bringing some agriculture into the cities to bring…
-
Urban Ag Infographic
The previous post on the ‘branches’ of urban agriculture made me think of a recent graphic that I created for a local project with Oregon Solutions that investigated approaches to expanding the availability and reach of community gardening in Portland. Read more on the process here. While less expansive than the previous example, a vital…
-
Branches: Urban Agriculture
I found an interesting and complex graphic on the many facets and interrelations of urban agriculture via the site Urban Agriculture Worldwide, which is published by David Mason and tracks his journeys investigating UA examples around the globe from 2006-2009. The site has immense amounts of information (and is frankly frustrating to navigate) so I’ve…
-
Urban/Rural – Helvetia Part 1
Another recent piece ‘Pushing the Limits’ comes via the ‘Slow Issue’ of GOOD magazine and looks at the anti-growth policies of which we are well known regionally. It’s a good piece about the current ‘dialogue’ about urban and rural reserves and relevant to the work we are doing for the ‘Urban Edge’ class. :: image…
-
From Mowing to Growing
Via BLDGBLOG, a competition announcement about one of the most intriguing competitions recently. This one investigates the ideas related to food and urban agriculture, the hot topic of the last year. One Prize is Organized by Terreform 1 with a subtheme: “From Mowing to Growing is not meant to transform each lawn into a garden,…