Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 0.1 Industrial Heritage as Armature for Agriculture Collage ,Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
2
Abstract Resurfacing historic urban patterns, revitalizing local businesses, and weaving an agriculture landscape into the expanded residential fabrics of the postindustrial city can offer a new sense of purpose and community. America’s industrial cities once were hubs for productivity and community. Now these landscapes have suffered neglect and abandonment as toxic postindustrial wastelands. Due to the exit of industry and the growing reliance on private automobile transportation, these cities are experiencing problems with vacant land, deteriorating buildings, poor public health, failing education systems, poverty, and social divides. The landscape design of community gardens and architecture of community centers, farmer’s markets, celebration spaces, classrooms, and housing can elevate the living and working conditions of long time residents and the newly arrived immigrant communities. By softening the defensive barriers between public and private space, the experience of passing through shared gardens, paths, buildings, and broadened threshold spaces of transition. The strategies explored here can be used to create bountiful moments of community enjoyment and gathering within a revitalized urban setting. Introducing an agriculture system involves adding new networks and spatial conďŹ gurations that celebrate pedestrian activity therefore creating a new range of opportunities for the lives of community members. Key Words: Urban Agriculture, Thresholds, Food Culture, Community Gardens, Landscape, Urban Patterns, Postindustrial Redevelopment, Urban Networks, Food System, Street scape, Pedestrian, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 0.2 Apple Orchard in a Row, Sholan Farms, ,Leominster, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
4
Acknowledgments The culmination of my academic journey at Wentworth Institute of Technology in the Architecture Department has always been understood as this thesis project. While I leave Wentworth with this accomplishment, it is vital to recognize the magnitude of inuences and inspirations that made this experience possible and successful. From academic to personal, all of supporters are owed a great amount of thanks. First, I would like to extend a thank you to the many educators and academic mentors who have provided tireless support and who have been vital in my evolution as a designer; Jennifer Lee Michaliszyn, Paul Fowler, Manuel Delgado, and Ann Borst. Additionally, I must also thank professor Margarita Iglesia for being my independent advisor for this process and exploration. Your guidance has challenged my thinking about urban design and community. Also, to my Fall semester thesis instructors, Dan Hisel and Chala Hadimi, thank you for providing encouragement and harsh criticism from the start. Lastly, I would like to express gratitude to my spring thesis advisor, Robert Cowherd. Thank you for teaching me to accept my failures and inspiring me to change the world. Along with academic support, I must also show my gratitude to my family. To Nana and Pepe, while you are not able to experience this accomplishment with me, I know your love and support through my life has allowed me to be here today and I could not be more grateful. To my sister, Francine, thank you for being my biggest fan and ally through my college career. The stresses of an architecture education have always been eased due to your support and love from home. Lastly, to my uncles and aunts, Al, Kelly, and Buba, thank you for always being there, regardless of the hour. Lastly, I would like to thank my incredible friends who have never stopped making me laugh and providing relentless motivation. To my forever friends, best critics, cheerleaders, and needed distractions; Jake, Matteo, Dassha, Adam, Kyle, Joe, and Danielle, thank you for helping and accompanying me on this journey through Wentworth. And to the ones who have been able to provide support and encouragement from outside the crazy architectural education; Nina, Erin, and Nick, thank you.
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Figure 0.3 Edible Schoolyard Collage, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Contents CHAPTER ONE: Introduction
12-39
CHAPTER TWO: Rethinking the Postindustrial City
40-55
CHAPTER THREE: Forming an Agricultural Pattern
56-91
CHAPTER FOUR: Community Bountiful
92-115
CHAPTER FIVE: Reflections
116-119
REFERENCES
120-125
“Cities have the capability of p ovi i fo eve ybo y o ly beca se a o ly a e c eate by eve ybo y
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and L e o
eat
so ethi he they
e can
t es
Chapte
t
cti
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 1.0 Highlight of City Slogan, Leominster, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY). Adapted from Welcome to Leominster Massachusetts. (Jimmy Emerson CC BY)
10
Introduction
A Personal Narrative Industrial history has always brought me a sense of fascination. The industrial beginnings of North American cities gave way to the creation of architecture that took on a massive scale, innovation in the way people and goods move through the landscape, and a unique social dynamic between people of different cultures and backgrounds through going to work. The combination of these circumstances has also ways encouraged my curiosity especially regarding experiencing history within a city. Given the scale and scope of operations of industrial practices its place within a city was not only incredibly vital but impactful. Now that much industry has been sourced across seas, my interests in industrial practices have only peaked. Firsthand, I have seen the implications of an absence of industry in a city where it was once it’s foundation and heart. I was born in the small city of Leominster, Massachusetts and continue to live there today. While not being a primary industrial city of Massachusetts, its relationship to the neighboring city of Fitchburg allowed it to be apart of an industrial powerhouse system in central Massachusetts. The city’s claim to industrial fame derived from its revolutionary work with plastics. Today I am welcomed into the city with a sign plastered with the phrase “Welcome to Leominster. Pioneer Plastics City. The Birthplace of Johnny Appleseed.” This sign has always represented a degree of irony and falsehood. Visiting the city of Leominster today the presence of the plastics manufacturing and cultural heritage have been replaced with bank developments and big business strip malls. Leominster’s decision to ignore their industrial heritage struck me with huge concern in respects to how other cities deal with their historic roots. For this reason, is where my thesis explorations begin, starting with chapter one, by establishing a greater historical background for postindustrial cities as well as specifically looking at the conditions of postindustrial landscapes in Massachusetts. It is also in this chapter where I make my claim that the key to revitalizing these cities not solely relies on historic preservation. I argue with the integration of a new agriculture system that not only reinvents the cities organization of landscape and city density but celebrates healthy living, diverse food palettes, community engagement, and cultural diversity can revitalize these cities that have seemed to lost a sense of purpose and identity. Growing up with having access to a backyard garden allowed me to experience something quite unique. While providing us with access to fresh vegetables, the garden also provided a space where family could come together not only to participate in growing, tending, and harvesting but celebrating through big family dinners that centered around the food. Food is such a large part of society and it helps define settings and cultures, just like history and industry.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 1.2 Collage of Postindustrial Landscape, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
12
Introduction
Introduction It is post World War Two America and there is an economic boom. A mother and daughter take a weekend trip from their New York rural village on the outskirts to the city of Syracuse. This family would board a train after buying their tickets at the local market and pharmacy. After riding for about 30 minutes the family is greeted by the city’s exciting downtown district. The street is lined with lights, well-groomed trees, dazzling front windows of department stores, theaters, food and candy shops with lines of tables outside with people enjoying what these stores had to offer. It is now the year 2019 and the same daughter revisits the city now only to find an urban wasteland. The once vibrant downtown fabric is now left in a baron and crumbling state. Most retail has moved from the city’s core to large scale suburban malls. This once prosperous hub of industrialization has now become a unindustrialized blank spot on a map. Globalization became a large issue for industrial cities as it outsourced many manufacturing operations that once provided a sturdy foundation for the fabric of these cities. With the absence of industry these cities began to empty in terms of population and job opportunities. Following this decrease in population many large commercial and public buildings created by founding community members and patrons were demolished due to lack of use. Large scale urban renewal projects attempted to relink these cities back into the national network of the country but instead created social divide and a worsened physical image. With the surge of vacant lots, dilapidated buildings, and overbearing road infrastructure, living conditions became easy to describe as a place of squalor. These physical, economic, and social conditions only led to more issues such as appalling levels of poverty, poor public education systems that were filled with neglected minority groups, and poor public health. 1 With the seemingly bleak circumstances that face many small postindustrial cities of America today, it is importance not to lose sight of the extraordinary opportunities and potential they have as being the next global city hubs. The quality of scale and industrial heritage add to the complexity of these environments while making them capable of adaption and change. These cities were formed for efficiency creating walkable downtowns, accessible residential areas, and transportation networks all aimed to aid the founding industry. Now that the industry has left most of these foundations remain. With one of the largest issues facing our society today being the threat of climate change, it’s more important for us now to challenge the way our cities are adapting, evolving and expanding. These smaller postindustrial cities are usually ignored on the national and global stage. However, they can strengthen internally while playing a central role externally by forming a model for the future city of sustainability.
1 Richard Florida,“The Death and Life of Great Industrial Cities.” in SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. (University of Illinois Press, 2012).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 1.3 Out of Work Citizen, Lawrence Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY). Adapted from photograph (Spencer Platt CC BY)
Figure 1.4 Litter Outside Residences, Lawrence Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY). Adapted from photograph (Evan Mcglinn CC BY)
Figure 1.5 Google Earth Analysis of Oversized Parking Lot, Lawrence Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Figure 1.5 Google Earth Analysis of Crumbling Industrial Building, Lawrence Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
14
Introduction
Postindustrial Urban Landscapes of Massachusetts: The Gateway City The “Gateway City” term is a way to categorize a specific group of small to mid-size postindustrial cities. These Gateway Cities can be defined as 11 former mill cities that were once apart of a prosperous network that spanned throughout all of Massachusetts, specifically these cities are noted as Fall River, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Haverhill, Brockton, Lowell, Lawrence, New Bedford, Springfield, Worcester, and Pittsfield. The grouping of these cities within this region comes from both their specific size of population being between 35,000 and 175,000 and their location in being outside the economic influence of Boston, the primary hub of the state. When the goal of promoting growth and prosperity within Massachusetts became a primary topic of discussion, a think tank began research on the needs and challenges of various cities in the state. These issues had previously been ignored and left in the shadow of the growing prosperity in the greater Boston area. This group also spawned the term “gateway” to not only market these cities but also suggest their potential to be new hubs of the state. This term also attempts to recognize and relfect their many immigrant communities. When research concluded, the primarily problems that were found lied in job lossese, rising rates of poverty, the deteriorated state of the many educational systems. However, despite these findings, these cities continue to receive little to no funding from state entities to progress programs and businesses that would provide future economic stability. Once we look past a vast list of problems found in these cities, we can find an equally long list of opportunities. Like many other past industrial cities of America these urban landscapes were sculpted during the most prosperous times in American history and this produced a great level of efficiency within the urban fabric. This can be seen in city zoning organizations, walkable downtowns, housing communities, and industrial transportation networks. Due to their industrial pasts, the key quality found within their immigrant populations offers unique cultural opportunity as well. All these aspects come together to form a unique and complex landscape perfect for innovation. After comparing and analyzing this group of cities through size, rates of people who are educated, rates of poverty, infrastructure, and history it is clear to see one of the cities that contains greatest potential and opportunity is Lawrence, Massachusetts. Industry, poverty, population growth, land conditions, and public health all our current topics of issue within the city. Currently standard manufacturing makes up to 25 percent of private sector jobs. With the changing times, standard manufacturing jobs have not been as vital to the economy as industry of the past and only targets a limited group of people for jobs. Lawrence has the needed vacant land and infrastructure to develop a new job making strategy. Lawrence’s suburban neighborhoods belong to the upper and middle classes while the poorest people and communities are pushed to the urban core. The potential to combat this can be found into reorganization of
15
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
16
Introduction
Figure 1.7 Gateway Cities of Massachusetts Comparison Matrix.(Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Jenny Kirouac
Lawrence, Massachusetts History
1853 - Lawrence is considered a city
1815
1830
Boston merchants begin to be involved in international trade. These merchants slowly became manufactures of primarily textiles. A man named Daniel Saunders starts to purchase strips of land on either side of the Merrimack River from Dracut to what is now Lawrence in order to gain control of water power rights and construction textile mills.
Population
1845
1848 - Great Stone Dam Completed
1800
1861-64 Civil War *Lawrence manages to avoid alot of damage. Lawrence stockpiled cotton from mill production.
1860 - Pemberton Mill Fire
1860 60
1875
1890
19
1892 - Water tower and re 1899 - American Woolen 1900 - Despite the docum begins to take shape 1911 - Lawrence Survey conditions and contamina among residents living in 1912 - Great Strike of 191
95,000 90,000 85,000 80,000 75,000 70,000 65,000 60,000 55,000 50,000 45,000
1890- Pop. 44,654
40,000
1880- Pop. 39,151
35,000 30,000
1870- Pop. 28,921
25,000 20,000 15,000 10,000 5,000
18
1860 - Pop. 17.693 1853 - Pop. 8,358
905
Introduction 1970 - Refugees from southeast Asia and Immigrants from central America arrive 1950 - Latino Immigration Begins They begin to work on farms and orchards
1914-1918 World War 1 *Immigration Lowers
URBAN RENEWAL
Demolition of entire neighborhoods to create interstate 495. The famous orange tree orchard was also destroyed for the major highway project. Due to these urban projects many more natives began to leave the city.
1920
1935
1950
1965
eservoir are finished. Company begins production. mented problems in the City, a very rich cultural life
1995
2010
Neighborhood Associations increase and become more active, participating in public cleaning and setting up neighborhood watches to keep an eye on local crime. Influx of immigrants move to the area. Crucial zoning overlay permits old mills to be re-purposed into retail, art studios, and residence space. Great stone dame is also being refurbished. However, while neighborhood associations are created crime rates continue to increase while public schools are also facing hard times. Jobs have also been difficult to find due to a lack of industry in the area and increase in immigrant populations.
1939-1945 World War 2 Majority of Mills Shut Down Production Natives Begin to Leave
published, showing overcrowding, working ation as causes for high rates of disease and death poor neighborhoods 12
1980
1920- Pop. 94,270 1910- Pop. 85,892 1950- Pop. 80,536 2000- Pop. 72,043 1990- Pop. 70,107 1970- Pop. 66,216 1980- Pop. 63,175
4
Figure 1.8 Historical Time Line and Population Matrix, Lawrence, Massachusetts .(Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Cropland Forest Wetland Open Land Recreation Multifamily Residential Residential - 1/4 Acre Lots Residential - 1/4-1/2 Acre Lots Residential - 1/2 Acre Lots Commercial Industrial Urban Open Space Transportation Waste Disposal Water Powerlines Urban Public Space Cemeteries
MA. Environmental Justice Criteria
Populations/Areas Meeting Criteria
Income: Households earn 65% or less
Income
of statewide median household income
Minority Population
Minority Population: 25% or more of residents belong to a minority group
Income and Minority Population Minority and Foriegn Born Population Income, Minority, and Foreign Born Population
Foreign Born: 25% or more of residents
Schools - Public and Private
are foreign born
Sites with Activities and Use Limitations
English Proficiency, Minority, and Foriegn Population
Mass DEP Tier Classified 21E Sites
All Four Criteria Are Met
Parks with npgreenspace
English Proficiency: 25% or more of residents lack english language proficiency
Figure 1.8 Zoning Map Diagram Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Figure 1.9 Environmental Justice Map Diagram Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Figure 1.10 Selected Site Figure Ground, A Vast Void, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Figure 1.11 Selected Site Building Uses Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Institutional
20
Commercial
Residential
Mixed Use
Civic
Transportation
Introduction
the urban fabric and potentially looking at land on the boarder between other towns. The population of the city continues to grow; however, it is important to consider the current demographics of the area and the role of immigration in the current and past social makeup of the city. Currently almost 40 percent of the cities’ population are immigrants or are second generation immigrants. Of that percentage 70 percent of that group is from the Dominican Republic. With such a strong presence of outside culture, an added opportunity is created adding a sense of cultural heritage to potential developments therfore encouraging interaction between communities. 2
Figure 1.11 Selected Site in City Context, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
2 John Schneider, “Gateway to the Future: Rethinking the Mill Cities of Massachusetts.”, Architecture Boston, (2009): 26–29.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
4.
5. 10.
2. 6.
3.
7. 1.
8.
9.
Historic Districts American Woolen Mill Housing District (National) Arlington Basswood District (National) Arlington Mills Historic District (National) Downtown Lawrence Historic District (National) High Service Water Tower and Reservoir District (Local) Jackson Terrace (National) Mechanics Block Historic District (National) North Canal Historic District (National) Prospect Hill Historic District (Local) Jackson Terrace (Local) Mechanics Block (Local) North Common (Local) Prospect Hill City Owned Parks
Figure 1.12 Historic Districts and Landmarks Map Diagram, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
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Landmarks 1. Great Stone Dam 2. Everett Mills 3. Merrimack River Views 4. Rollins School Clock Tower 5. Water Tower and Reservoir 6. Historic Mill Buildings 7. Ayer Clock Tower 8. Shawsheen River Walkway 9. Den Rock Park 11. City Views from Storrow Park
Introduction
Oliver School Public Library Evangalist Methodist Church School for Exceptional Studies
Notre Dame Cristo High School Church of God Hispanic
St Mary’s Church Dominican Republic Consulate Domi Campagnone Commons
Lawrence YMCA
Northern Essex Community College Parking Garage
Police Department
Lawrence City Hall
Northern Essex Community College
Northern Essex Community College
Post Office
Northern Essex Community College Court House
Pemberton Park
Figure 1.13 Site Selection Based on Urban Connections and Landmarks, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
1.14 ComponentsAGRICULTURE of Industrialized Agriculture LOCALFigure VS INDUSTRIAL
24
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Introduction
Food Culture and Systems of the 21st Century Whether it is negatively or positively, food provides the mold for our lives. The implications of the way we grow, house, and consume our food allows for the creation of cultural, economic, and ecological patterns within our society. When looking through the frame of our current 21st century society, specifically North America, food continues to consistently form our lives but is often less visible through our current food systems and culture. The old histories of cultivation in human civilization are rapidly deteriorating and the shift has been made to an unhealthy form of food production. The beginnings of this flawed system are the rapid development of urban landscape and the invention of the car. With these events, cities are central environments for human activity. This caused a large movement into the urban areas from the rural outskirts. This shift created a domino effect that had left society with a disconnect and divide between the population and the rural farmers. Independent family farms have now been replaced by large industrialized facilities and there has been a been a larger need for the urban farmer. The biggest problem that urban farmers are facing is the competition against industrial farming in terms of producing enough food. The addition of the car into urban areas has not made the path to innovation in the world of food production any easier.. Urban transportation nodes once defined by railroads became separated and spread out due to the growing reliance on the car. The direct impact that the car had on our current food systems can be seen in the centralization of our food sources. Food now is often found in large box stores often only accessible by car. This condition has not only forced people to go long distances for their food but has encouraged food to become more of a commodity rather than something that is grown by the individual or shared or traded. It is because of these reasons, that the disconnect between people and their food has grown. The culture and attitudes of food today are starting to resemble scenes from a horror film. Throughout the past decade, the amount of news headlining food contamination within the produce or meat markets has skyrocketed. These incidents are only made worse through poor methods of large-scale processing and distribution facilities. Since all different kinds of food are being shipped into one massive facility to be processed, packaged and then redistributed, if one item is sent contaminated with pesticides, this spreads to every other piece of food processed in the same area. With this questionable system still in place, trust issue between the public consumer and the food industry have spawned. Another growing issue that aids in encouraging this separation is not understanding what our food contains. Since many packaged foods are produced in huge laboratories rather than individual kitchens its not possible to provide a truly accurate ingredient list or nutrition label because not all food production companies in must disclose all genetically modified ingredients. Trust issues being formed from health concerns and blatant disregard for honest advertising have just made Americans more confused regarding food than ever before. The public can not even begin to ask questions about food and the kids of our country have an even larger disconnect. The
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 1.15 Components of Community Agriculture, Essex County, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
26
Introduction
importance of where food truly comes from is slowly being lost within society. The culture of food has become less about health, pleasure, and community but rather with simple consumption. Food in todays system is a marketing scheme aimed to sell artificial collection of particles that have no connection to the land or people that produced it. The social capital around food today is dwindling and the need for innovation is going to be necessary in order to rethink not only the physical system of food production but the social culture around it, especially in our ever growing and rapidly evolving cities. 3 Food Movement and Urban Agriculture Much like many postindustrial cities, the food system of North America has suffered from globalization. One major figure who began to encourage Americans to start a new food movement was a man named Tom Lang, a chair of the Sustainable Agriculture, Food, and Environment Alliance. Lang has spent much of his career looking to teach the world about the problems with the global food system. He exposed the ridiculously high amounts of miles most food travels from where they are produced to where they are consumed and noted that this non efficient transportation is due to an attempt to keep food prices low. This method is causing great strain in the surrounding environment, public health, and culture. In order to influence the public and bring awareness to the issue Lang looked to a television program to reach a large audience. The program focused on a visit to the Convent Garden Market, a large food hall that housed fruits, vegetables, and flowers located within the heart of London. The visit consisted of many interviews with various food vendors. These interviews were contrasted with one done with the owner of a national grocery store chain. Through these tours and interviews Lang began to suggest to the public to not just judge their food by the price or what it looks like but where it comes from and the distance it has traveled to get to their plate. Lang’s work brought on the initial wave of question and push towards thinking about redevelopment of the system. A second phase of the movement came in the 2000’s as people were slowly becoming enlightened to the status of food systems within the country. Consumers are slowly beginning to vocalize a need and want for more local access to food. From the 1970’s to the last 1990s farmer’s markets were few and far between. However, the second phase of a new food movement brought an opening of 2,756 farmers markets in the United States in the year 2000. By 2010 that numbered almost doubled to 5,274 and is suspected to keep rising. The agenda of the movement began with the main purpose of educating people about the origins of their food but then shifted to a full global movement of activism. As the end of the 2000’s approached, the second phase of this food movement ended, the term consumer has started to be re-imagined into the term “co producer” 3 Janine De La Salle and Mark Holland, Agricultural Urbanism: Handbook for Building Sustainable Food & Agriculture Systems in 21st Century Cities, (2015).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES VS BENEFITS - MATRIX FOR DESIGN TESTING
ACTIVITIES Bee Keeping
Harvesting Rain Water
Intergenerational Programs
Livestock Raising
Land Remediation
Composting
Environmental Education
Tree Planting
Job Training/Education
Cooking Classes
Special/Cultural Events
Health Classes
Growing Vegtables, Fruit, Herbs
Food Access Programs
After School Programs
Policy Advocacy
Community Research
Woman Focused Training
Farm Training
CSA
Social Justice Programs
Seed Saving
Vollunteer Oppurtunities
Farmer’s Markets
Resteraunt Buisness
BENEFITS HEALTH
Access to Healthy Food Food and Health Literacy Good Eating Habits Enchanced Physical Activity
SOCIAL
Empowerment Youth Education and Development Food Security Safe Spaces for People and Animals Intergration of Age, Race, and Economic Background
ECONOMIC Economic Stimulation Job Growth Job Readiness Cost of Food
ECOLOGICAL Awarness of Food System Ecology Conservation Water Management Soil Adhancment Biodiversity/Habitat Improvements
Figure 1.16 Community Based Agriculture Activities and Benefits Matrix (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
PR OD UC TIO N WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY
FO OD
RY VE CO RE STE WA
Cinco De Mayo
Mother’s International Day Labor May Day
Day
Easter Good Friday
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
EARTH DAY
JU N
JU
MARCH
GROUNDHOG DAY
International Friendship Day
LY
RIL
INTERNATIONAL WOMANS DAY
AUGUST
FEBRUARY
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PEACE
SEP
TEM
BER
BER EM DEC
US/CANADA LABOR DAY
ER
NOVEMBER
JA
LUPERCALLA (Roman End of Winter Festival)
B TO OC
RY
A NU
VALENTINE’S DAY
PROCESSING
MAY
AP
EATIN G AND CELEBRATING
SPRING EQUINOX
E
Passover
COLUMBUS DAY
NEW YEARS DAY
ST DI
New Years Eve All Saints Day
Figure 1.17 Community Based Agriculture System Components (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
28
VETERAN’S DAY
E
HALLOWEEN CHRISTMAS WINTER
RI SOLSTICE KWANZAA BU TIO HANUKKAH N, RE TA IL, MA RKE TING
AG OR ST N/ O I T RTA SPO TRAN
THANKSGIVING
Figure 1.18 Seasons, Celebrations, and Agriculture as a Cycle (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
Introduction
in hopes to empower the public to foster and cultivate their own food sources. 4 While today’s society has wedged a gap between the urban core and the rural outskirts. This divide may have contributed to our disconnect with our food but certainly not our need for it. The third leg of the movement and mentality will come from a rethinking towards our urban fabrics with its relation to food production, distribution, and celebration. Transportation and accessibility will be key in redeveloping the local agriculture system. Promotion of urban agriculture is becoming more and more popular however the understanding of the system is not clear with designers, community members, and civic leaders. The implementation of urban agriculture has been greatly underdeveloped as its focus has purely been on community gardens and farmer’s markets rather than a complete framework that is necessary for longevity. In order to achieve a successful agriculture system all elements must be design and carefully organized through out the city in a way that not only encourages food accessibility but community interaction and healthy living. The system must not only include various types of farming but also spaces for processing and packaging, distribution, transportation, storage, retail and marketing, celebrating, waste management, and education. By creating a new methodology, theory, and typology for a sustainable local agriculture system within a city, the effort to achieve a revolutionary sustainable community for the city of the future. 5 Agricultural Urbanism Theory and It’s Potential in the Postindustrial City Agricultural urbanism can be described as settled environments where the society within is involved with food in all its facets, from organizing, growing, processing, distributing, cooking, and eating. A primary distinction within this model is that physical pattern, framework, and organization of the settlements fully supports the agrarian society. Urban planning currently prioritizes simple actions and strategies towards urban boundaries that enforce an economically and socially bland frontier. Agricultural urbanism counters these methods by encouraging a complex that reshapes lawn mowing, food importing, suburban residents into settles that use their hands, minds, and time to food production and celebration. Agricultural urbanism rests on a specific base attitude towards urban development. This attitude consists of attributes that curate density that responds to many factors. These factors include organizing principals that allow for residents to have a short walk to amenities found in it’s center and an advanced network of thoroughfares that provide alternative routes to a majority of locations. The considerations also extend to the development of large sidewalks. Urban development must also include diversity in zoning and program and ensure that every open space is purposeful rather than leftover.
4 Jennifer Cockrall-King, Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution.(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012) 5 Janine De La Salle and Mark Holland.Agricultural Urbanism:
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Zone T1 - Natural Zone
Mainly is made up of lands of a wilderness condition. These zones are usually hard to settle due to harsh topography, water ways, intense vegitation, and wildlife habitats.
Zone T2 - Rural Zone
Mainly is made up of sparcly settled land in open or cultivated conditions. These areas can inlude farmland, grasslands, woodlands, or irrigable deserts. Building typologies usually found use consist of farmhouses, agriculture facilitis, cabins, and villas. Roads, long driveways, and trails are common connectors.
Zone T4 - General Urban Zone
Zone T3 - Sub - Urban Zone
Mainly is made up of low density residential areas and few retail establishments. Homes accompanied by out buildings are common. Plantings are natural and setbacks are large. Blocks are large and road patterns are irregular to accomodate natural conditions.
Zone T5 - General Urban Zone
Mainly is made up of mixed use and residential areas. Includes wide range of building types like shops, houses, rowhouses, and small apartment buildings. There is a range to setback length and landscape qualities. Streets have raised curbs and side help define blocks.
Mainly is made up of high density mixed use buildings. Buildings typically have taller heights. Streets have raised curbs, wide sidewalks, typical rows of tree planting, and short setbacks. Blocks may be larger to accomodate parking.
TREE FRUIT
MIXED TREE CLUSTERS
MULTI USE FARMS
SOFT FRUIT AND BERRIES NARROWS AND SQUASHES
POULTRY FARMS
FARMERS MARKETS
BALCONY GARDENS
ROOF TOP GARDENS
FOOD MARKETING
FRONT YARD GARDENS
HAND TENDED FARMS AND ORCHARDS
Figure 1.20 Agriculture Typologies along Transect (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
30
WINDOW GARDENS
EDIBLE STREETSCAPES
REAR YARD GARDENS
DAIRY FARMS
TRACTOR FARMS
RED MEAT
HERBS AND SPICES
GAME MEAT
NUTS AND BERRIES
FUNGI
FORAGEABLE WILDERNESS
Figure 1.19 Transect Diagram (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
COMMUNITY GARDENS
SMALL VEGTABLES
MICRO GARDENS
Introduction
Lastly, urban strategies must consider ancillary or support buildings being available in backyards which then fosters small home businesses and mixes affordable and regular housing programs. With the previous urban strategies creating a sturdy framework, Agricultural urbanism can be layered upon it by implementing various basic principals. The idea of the market square is vital within the society. These squares would allow for a “third” type of urban space for social interaction that are not included in the home or workplace. These squares will not rely on the public to purchase things but will act as supportive spaces to retail and civic spaces. Street frontages and marketing within the city encouraging the food system, culture, and history acts as another basic principal within the urban society. Looking past purely built infrastructure, another key element when considering the implementation of an agriculture urban landscape is instilling a social cycle of cultural and food celebration between different groups of people. Agricultural urbanism also helps reshape the conventional ideas of recreation within the city, rather than just biking and walking, farming, tending to crop, and gathering will be primary sources for exercise among the public. By thinking of these basic ideas, the Agricultural urbanism theory will provide environmental, social, and economic advantages over other city structures. A transect in the lens of natural sciences, is a cut through a geography showing a sequence of differing habitats. The transect records symbiosis the different elements of ecosystems including climates, natural elements, and living organisms. With the rural to urban transect we can begin to compare and record human living habits and organizations more closely. By applying this method to analyze human activity in terms of settlement, it also becomes useful when exploring methods of food production and movement between people. The transect of food offers specific lifestyle opportunities while also promoting fair trade through food production. The transect shows us the importance of environmental diversity, however the standard transect line has the potential to be reworked, keeping its diversity, but challenging its organization to benefit an existing urban landscape, specifically a postindustrial one. Postindustrial landscapes offer a primary option as a setting for integration of an Agrarian urban mentality. Due to their rich history and cultural diversity within its immigrant communities, potential for a successful food system is only heightened. Many postindustrial cities face problems with broken and divided physical and social fabrics and with the Agrarian methodology these issues can be mended through shared space focusing on food. 6
6 Andres Duany, Garden Cities: Theory & Practice of Agrarian Urbanism (U.K..: Duany Plater Zybrek & Co.: The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, 2011).
Introduction
31
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 1.21 Agriculture as New Image of the City (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
32
Introduction
Conclusion Postindustrial cities have special attributes such as infrastructure of varying scales, medium size populations, industrial history, vacant land, transportation routes, and strong cultural and social fabrics. These attributes provide promising opportunities to not only improve their own conditions but also relieve the problems surrounding the culture around today’s food and the industrialized food system. Landscape design, architecture, and urban planning can begin to challenge the convention of leaders, and community members of postindustrial cities. This thesis targets architects, landscape designers, agriculture activists, civic leaders, and members of the postindustrial community. This thesis focuses on designing interventions that create a complete agriculture system aimed on the celebration of food, culture, and industrial heritage. The system becomes not only the core of the community and physical urban fabric but also something with a scale that can connect the postindustrial city to the surrounding region. With the introduction of a small-scale local agricultural system, planned and rooted in the local postindustrial community fabric, these urban wastelands become revitalized giving residents access to healthy food while encouraging interaction, education, and healthy living. The city not only gains a new sense of purpose but also becomes a potential model for future sustainable cities.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 1.22 Agriculture Across Different Urban Edges. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
34
Introduction
Moving Forward The previous explorations in chapter one have highlighted the state of post-industrial cities of America and specifically the characteristics of the smaller gateway cities of Massachusetts. The context surrounding the state of 20th century food culture and production as well as the qualities of a community based food solution found in urban agriculture has also been discussed. Through research of post-industrial urban challenges and opportunities found in community based agriculture, my site selection for this thesis exploration is Lawrence, Massachusetts. Following this introduction, chapter two goes on to perform as a literature review, discussing relevant written work in the topic’s industrial history, postindustrial landscapes, role of city governments in urban planning, urban agriculture strategies and theory, and the role of urban patterns in a healthy urban environment. This review provides credibility and familiarity with the reader as well as establishing a language of relevant terms to frame future design tests and investigations. Chapter three primarily focuses on design goals and criteria while also establishing a language and methodology for design testing. Current farming organizations and typologies are tested in hopes to uncover new ways of organizing the typical system within a urban landscape. Most tests are dedicated to redefining the urban patterns found in a particular Lawrence neighborhood in hopes create a lively urban landscape that celebrates the community and the agriculture. From the rigorous design testing in chapter three, chapter four presents the current state of this thesis exploratio in the form of an outcome propoasal. Chapter four tells the narrative of a Community, Bountiful: A vision for Lawrence as a hub for activity with purpose through agriculture. A conclusion of design tests found in the previous chapter are condensed into a series of guidelines creating a base line for the final proposal. These examples of outcomes show how expanding the residential fabric, creating pedestrian paths, implementing an agriculture education network, and creating an agriculture hub through a community center and system of markets, transforms the neighborhood fabric in favor of the people. Lastly, chapter 5 reflects on the state of the outcomes and looks to the future role of this exploration. Upon these conclusions, many of my preconceptions regarding the city and agriculture are challenged. While this thesis is focused in a specific neighborhood, the final chapter explores how the thinking and methodology of this project could be applied to the whole city and region.
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“ t is ti e to c t o t hat e o ot ee so e ca live ore si ply a happily oo foo co fortable cloths serviceable ho si a tr e c lt re those are the thi s that atter - John e mo r
Chapter
ethin ing the
ostindustrial City
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Preception ofFigure Space from Facades, Projecting Oneself’s Inside Through Found onInfrastructure the Outside 2.1Exterior Merging Agriculture Production withVisuals Industrial
Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY).
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of the Past,
Rethinking the Postindustrial City
Rethinking the Postindustrial City Introduction This literature review explores planning theories, local policy, and design precedents with goals of revitalization within postindustrial cities, as well as literature on urban agriculture and food culture. This discussion informs my design research by comparing theories and projects covering postindustrial city restoration and urban agriculture. This comparison provides a basis for the thesis claim that through the implementation of a community based agricultural system that works from the periphery to the city core, a damaged postindustrial landscape can be restored with a new sense of purpose. The convergence of these two distinct topics produce an informed list of criteria for potential site selections and agriculture design testing. Urban thinkers and experts specializing in industrial history claim that preserving of the city’s historic social attitudes and physical infrastructure; collaboration between education and city planning; and a reinventing current urban organization is the solution to revitalizing the postindustrial city. Experts in urban agriculture claim that through the integration of a local agriculture system, problems found within the industrialized food system and struggling urban landscapes can be solved simultaneously. This review investigates how local agriculture can be implemented in postindustrial cities in order to bring new life to the environment. Unfortunately, there is limited writing regarding the integration of agricultural systems specifically within smaller to midsize postindustrial cities. The exception is one writer, Catherine Tumber. Tumber uses agriculture as one possible claim as to how smaller American postindustrial cities can become the next pioneers in urban design in a low carbon world. The survey of these various ideas will help to reveal the range of possibilities for designing a local scale agriculture system. Remaking the Postindustrial Urban Landscape North American postindustrial cities act as some of the largest urban archeological sites in the country. The history of one of America’s most prosperous periods is shown through these cities’ urban fabrics of industrial structures and transportation networks. As time moved forward and the age of industrial innovation passed, these cities have begun to lose sight of their industrial heritage within their built environment. Jane Jacobs, an urbanist who became a famous advocate for community-based city building, has pioneered the belief that cities must keep and use their aged buildings as they evolve. Jacobs argues the need to preserve old buildings within a city comes from a need for economic stability within an evolving urban landscape. She frames her claim by stating that with new building developments, the programmatic opportunities are limited. Since much of new construction relies on funding from specific enterprises, Jacobs states that new buildings only support uses funded by wealthy investors creating infrastructure that is not flexible and lacking character. In contrast, using aged and old buildings as foundations and envelopes for new uses, more opportunities for different types of programs are created at a smaller cost. She insists these older buildings preserve a memory of place while also providing variety which will continue to add diversity to growing urban fabrics.1 1. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Vintage Books ed (New York: Vintage Books, 1992).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 2.2 The shipping of Pinkham Co. product, inside the warehouse, Lynn Massachusetts.
(Š Smith.F.S)
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Rethinking the Postindustrial City
Paul Hardin Kapp, an associate professor specializing in historic preservation, elaborates on Jacob’s ideas of diversity and economic potential of old buildings looking at postindustrial cities. Kapp describes the potential in old industrial buildings from an economic angle. He claims preserving and adapting these structures is specifically useful in postindustrial cities because these areas already have enough density of building stock and infrastructure to be made into something new for the public to use. He also presents a challenge found in historic preservation within these cities: finding old buildings flexible enough for adaption to new uses. Kapp states the most logical choice would be found in historic factories and warehouse buildings because they capture the best of both old and new construction, offering lower rents and flexible program options.2 (Fig.2.2) Kapp and Jacobs agree that old buildings not only preserve the cultural value of the district but also reveals a new set of possibilities for redeveloping a financially struggling postindustrial city. Once realizing the potential of old buildings within the postindustrial city, Kapp stresses that adaption of these historic structures can only be done successfully by seeking alternatives to the “typical gut renovation”. He insists that by changing the existing space for a new programmatic function while accentuating historic architectural elements is the best way to adapt a historic structure and preserve its heritage. Specifically, he uses Milwaukee’s newly transformed Iron Horse Hotel as this idea being used successfully. The hotel was crafted using the foundation of an old firehouse and centered its design around the cultural and historic influence of the surrounding Harley Davidson Motorcycle business. The redevelopment highlights the original ceiling beams by restoring them with a deep brown stain and further exposes the original brick walls to provide a rough background to compliment the motorcycle patron enjoying wine within the gathering space. Whether it is adapting old industrial warehouses or old fire stations, it is clear through both Jacobs and Kapp that it is crucial to preserve old historic buildings within a city. The importance of maintaining and adapting old structures comes from a need to preserve history and culture as well as to provide economic stability, eco sustainability, and encouraging social diversity through opportunity for flexible programmatic uses. Once we consider adaptive reuse as a foundation for revitalizing a postindustrial city, we can build upon this solution by identifying opportunities found in local civic and educational partnerships. Andrew Hurley describes moving past just typical ideas of preservation in urban environment to involve local university, community, and civic partnerships to preserve histories within cities while also improving conditions. Within the world of urban rehabilitation, Hurley claims that the most promising solution seems to stem from combining community activism and instruction within an educational setting. As evidence he describes schools experimenting with programs that orchestrate traditional classroom learning with other activities in outside social settings. Hurley suggests that instilling this kind of learning model within urban school environments, helps create a future workforce already predisposed to real-life situations. A specific program at the University of Illinois allowed for architecture and urban planning students to collaborate 2. Paul-Hardin Kapp, “Historic Preservation,” in SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City (University of Illinois Press, 2012).
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 2.3 Aerial view of MacArthur Square in 1966, shortly before construction began on the parking structure. The Marquette Interchange has not yet been completed. (Historic Photo Collection, Milwaukee Public Library)
42
Rethinking the Postindustrial City
with a local neighborhood organization to run a farmer’s market for the lower income residents of the area.3 Robert Greenstreet has described how similar institutional partnerships can be vital to how postindustrial cities create out of the box ideas in order to help with revitalization. Milwaukee has taken a strong position that education can play a large role in real-world development, specifically with programs within the University’s architecture school. Greenstreet highlights many programs and projects describing the MacArthur Square project in more detail as it shows how these programs allow for students to be encouraged to think outside the box towards urban solutions. MacArthur Square prior to redevelopment is described by Greenstreet as a “sprawling, ill-used park” disconnected from the surrounding city grid on top of an underground disheveled parking garage. (Figure 2.3) As part of the program an urban think tank of students and faculty were able to collaborate to design a scheme to heal this rupture of public space. The group’s scheme consists of two ramps that connect the raised park to the surrounding framework of the city making it become more accessible by pedestrians and vehicles. Both the Illinois and Milwaukee examples demonstrate that it is possible to link roles of city planners and local educational institutions enabling them to benefit each other and the city. 4 Besides local program initiatives, the role of educational systems within the Postindustrial city must be considered in its physical organization and design within the urban fabric. Mark Robbins pioneered efforts to make the university a vital part of the city’s redevelopment. Robbins argues that Syracuse, now in a crumbled postwar and post-urban renewal state, needs a new approach; he recommends specifically strategic interventions that work at varying scales using the city’s current physical and social patterns, found in the university landscape. One of the biggest economic sources for the city is its university, but its location is separated from the core community because of highway infrastructure. Efforts to remedy this disconnect have moved to the forefront of the city’s new masterplan. Robbin’s states that this new method of urbanism, centering the urban design around a major educational institutional entity, will allow the students to help shape the surrounding public realm and vise versa. 5 Postindustrial cities once prospered due to the efforts of its industrial workforce; now students and teachers in the city’s educational institutions have the potential to be the driving force for innovation and prosperity within the city. Historic preservation and educational urban collaboration both have important roles to play in the efforts to remake the struggling current day postindustrial city. However, large scale urban reorganization is necessary within these environments to encourage new social connections and opportunities for economic growth. The patterns of 3. Andrew Hurley, “Scholars in the Asphalt Jungle: The Dilemmas of Sharing Authority in Urban University-Community Partnerships.” Beyond Preservation: Using Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities, (Temple University Press, 2010) 146-177 4. Robert Greenstreet, “Creating a Town-Grown Partnership: The Milwaukee Model.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City, (University of Illinois Press, 2012). 5. Mark Robbins, American City X : Syracuse After The Master Plan, (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 2.4 Fairfax Industrial Switching Yard. Large amount of employee foot traffic from surrounding industries, unprotected crossings, and obstructed views. (Š Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engine men and LaRue, M.H.)
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Rethinking the Postindustrial City
redevelopment and reorganization efforts in the postindustrial city have slowly started to become predictable and familiar. Paul Armstrong specializes in research around contemporary urban environments. Armstrong describes the importance of creating a new urban synergy and urban transect when dealing with redevelopment in postindustrial settings. He points out that these cities are in a unique position. Due to their history they already have diverse resources of infrastructure such as mills, warehouses, storage sheds, and railroads. (Fig.2.4) These elements make up a sturdy foundation for evolution. By combining these diverse attributes within the city, an urban synergy is created, allowing the different uses of the individual components to form together creating a whole new purpose. Armstrong stresses efforts made to reorganize the urban landscape prioritizing urban ecology and diverse ecosystems must be made in order to achieve this synergy. He outlines how this idea can be executed within a postindustrial city, using the urban transect and its principles as a planning tool. The transect contains six zones moving from rural to urban, but even though these sections are defined by density they all incorporate mixed uses to allow for easy accessibility of resources across the transect. Armstrong suggests that by using the transect as a planning tool of reorganization within these cities, synergy will be created due to the combination of its individual elements of human and natural environments. He describes the result as a “city machine” working together to create a new function that is larger than its parts. 6 Stavros Stavrides studies how the human experience works in metropolitan areas. Specifically, Stavrides has discussed how the current urban rhythms and patterns found in postindustrial cities create a disconnect between intimate human interaction and the city’s physical industrial fragments. Like Armstrong, Stavrides claims that these city’s current urban sections each have their own specific patterns and organization due to original zoning and development. In order to rehumanize the social fabric found within these cities, Stavrides describes similar ideas to Armstrong, explaining that introducing a new urban organization prioritizing multiuse public spaces that stitch together these urban enclaves, can help create a more cohesive unity amongst a landscape broken and divided from it’s past. 7 Urban Agriculture as Remedy Like the postindustrial urban areas of America, the current food system within the country is crippled with problems and needs a transformation. By forming a complete urban agriculture system within cities, concerns with poor health, food accessibility, and food security can be relieved. Steve Ventura believes that in order to create a successful community agriculture system within a city, a complete framework must be created that highlights the city’s values and goals. Ventura explains that this framework should be constructed from land access, food production, food processing, transportation, marketing and retail opportunities, capital labor, community and cultural relationships, and 6. Paul Armstrong, “Creating Urban Metabolism.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City, (University of Illinois Press, 2012) 7. Stavros Stavrides, Contested Urban Rhythms: From the Industrial City to the Post-Industrial Urban Archipelago, (The Sociological Review, 2013)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 2.5 Illustration showing ways agriculture can succeed in a dense development, based on its specific location in the Transect. (Š Andres Duany)
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Rethinking the Postindustrial City
a stable legal and political environment. Ventura makes it clear that these parts must not be realized only as parts but need to be incorporated together to be successful. 8 Janine de la Salle and her colleague Mark Holland have also discussed the vitalness of creating a complete agriculture system within a city to ensure that the system provides the maximum benefits for the environment. Both Salle and Holland have expressed concerns that urban agriculture is currently fragmented in cities, only focusing on small community gardens and farmers market, rather than a larger scale system that encompasses all aspects of food production that touches all the community. Much like Ventura, Salle and Holland have outlined a kit of parts for an agriculture system that must be installed in its entirety in order to meet the social, economic, and political needs of the urban landscape. They say the system begins with farming and production management and then moves to processing, transportation and storage, distribution, retail, marketing, eating and celebration, waste recovery, and then education surrounding all elements of the system. 9 Due to the complexity of the process of growing food, it is necessary for the system surrounding it to be equally as complex to ensure sustainability and success. This cycle of elements should be instilled as a foundation in urban planning when considering agriculture as a new intervention. When considering the complexity of the physical agriculture system, it is necessary to consider the complexities of the environment within which it is placed. Cities already contain a system of infrastructure, transportation, cultural influences, and social conditions that create a unique setting, but many lack a connection to nature and ecology. Christine Thompson describes how the inclusion of nature within in a city acts as a valuable counterpart to city-built structures. Thompson encourages urban planners to plan for diversity in dense urban environments by including landscape and natural intervention to create new urban forms that harness productivity and economic benefits. She describes the Milwaukee River Greenway project as a first step in an ecological urban strategy that creates diverse cultural spaces and spaces for recreation and leisure within the chaos of the city. The vision for the greenway draws resources from the river to the public as well as providing diversity to the urban core. (Fig.2.5) The Milwaukee greenway project is a massive enterprise that spans the entire city landscape and acts as a diverse natural environment that connects the various zones of the city.10 The previously mentioned role of the urban transect in Paul Armstrong’s studies of reorganizing postindustrial cities also has a role to play when thinking about incorporating natural landscapes and food production into urban environments. Andres Duany, has incorporated both the transect philosophy when thinking about regeneration in cities, as well as agriculture. Like Thompson, Duany sees the importance of the connection between a dense city and the 8. Steve Ventura and Martin Bailkey, Good Food, Strong Communities: Promoting Social Justice through Local and Regional Food Systems, (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2017) 9. De La Salle, Janine M, and Mark Holland. 2015. Agricultural Urbanism: Handbook for Building Sustainable Food & Agriculture Systems in 21st Century Cities. 10. Thompson, Christine. 2012. “Ecological Urbanism in the Postindustrial City.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 2.6 History of Ft. Hill Mural, Roxbury Massachusetts (Š Gregg Bernstein)
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Rethinking the Postindustrial City
rural elements of a natural environment. However, rather than the recreation and cultural space that Thompson describes in the Milwaukee greenway project, Duany focuses on using the diverse environment fabric of the transect to move and celebrate food within a city. Duany explains that through the implementation of the rural to urban transect tool, cities can start to house different habitats for human experience as well as start to organize food production with the option of diverse lifestyles for the people within the community. Diversity is not only apparent in the lifestyle of people using the system but with the transect organization, the agriculture system has a larger potential to produce more of a variety of resources.11 In order for any agriculture to survive in an urban environment, the urban environment must evolve itself by incorporating elements of rural and natural landscapes to ensure the agriculture system does not become generic and lack diversity. For a local agriculture system to ease the problems found in urban environments and the industrialized food network, maintaining and celebrating cultural and social diversity among the food must also be considered. Jennifer Sumner, Heather Mair, and Erin Nelson explore the topic of culture and its place within an agricultural system. They claim that culture is what separates industrialized agriculture from community-based agriculture. Culture can be understood as these authors describe it, “the distinctive ideas, customs, social behavior, products or way of like of a particular society, people or period.” When taking culture and human interaction out of food production you lose the opportunity for discovery, diversity, and evolution. Sumner, Mair, and Nelson state that the key to achieving an integration of culture within agriculture comes with the act of celebration. They found that many CSA farms are successful due to their installment of community celebration events like potluck dinners, festivals, socials, newsletter releases, and food demonstrations. 12 De La Salle and Holland make it a point to include the celebration of food as a key part of the design of a local agriculture system. They describe food celebration as “the cornerstone of any community agriculture system, more importantly of any great community anywhere, for it makes visible and values the opportunities of food and sustainability.” Salle and Holland offer various methods in achieving food celebration within a city. They discuss how the various parts of the system must be visibly accessible to encourage celebration; a focus on the public realm is key. By providing visibility, the agriculture system will reinforce itself over time as it becomes a tradition among community members. (Fig.2.6) The incorporation of festivals and other large events that celebrate the city over time, utilizing the seasons and the harvest, also have the protentional to ensure there is always celebration of food and culture as the city grows.13 11. Duany, Andres Duany, Garden Cities: Theory & Practice of Agrarian Urbanism, (Duany Plater Zybrek & Co. : The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, 2011) 12. Jennifer Sumner, Heather Mair, and Erin Nelson. 2010. Putting the Culture Back into Agriculture: Civic Engagement, Community and the Celebration of Local Food., (International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 2010) 54-61. 13. De La Salle, Janine De La Salle and Mark Holland, Agricultural Urbanism
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 2.7 A farmer weeds a field that has been surrounded by partial built high rise blocks. (Š Mads Nissen/ Panos Pictures)
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Rethinking the Postindustrial City
Conclusion Exploring solutions for revitalizing postindustrial cities with how local agriculture systems can be implemented to transform the current industrial food system and struggling urban environment, suggests an opportunity. Can the postindustrial urban environment be reorganized with a community-based agriculture system in order to give the city a sense of renewed purpose and make it a model for future cities. Historian and journalist, Catherine Tumber, begins to pick at this question by suggesting that North America’s smaller postindustrial cities have the potential to play a vital role in the low carbon future of cities. Tumber specifically sees potential with agriculture intervention because of these cities’ sizes and vacant land resources. Due to the complex nature of starting and maintaining an agriculture system, large populations and civic structures make it more difficult for such projects to be carried out. According to Tumber, agriculture can be implemented faster and more frequently throughout the urban fabrics of smaller cities because of their populations, vacant infrastructure and land, and industrial heritage and culture. 14 Tumber’s insights have encourage additional questioning regarding the future of the postindustrial city and it’s role as a foundation for sustainable food systems in an evolving world. Urban thinkers and historians have discussed many methods and strategies of revitalization when looking at the failing postindustrial urban landscapes. Methods discussed include adaptive reuse of historic industrial infrastructures, educational and city partnerships, and the creation of diverse program and urban reorganization. However, many scholars and professionals do not recognize that the implementation of a community-based agriculture system can be incorporated into the previous methods. Due to their flexible structures and layouts, buildings once used for manufacturing, can be adapted for growing food, specifically in environments that face harsh climates. Local agricultural systems also must be implemented with a core of education. Local educational partnerships not only can encourage students and faculty to contribute to city planning projects but specifically contribute to maintaining the agriculture system. By instilling an element of education along with the food production, distribution, and celebration, the knowledge to maintain the system will never be lost. Postindustrial cities are struggling to move on from their past and their current vision for the future is fragmented due to their urban organization. The current research done regarding strategies to revitalize postindustrial cities along with the implementation of urban agriculture show that there is a promising connection between the two that has yet to be connected.
14. Tumber, Catherine. 2012. Small, Gritty, and Green: The Promise of America’s Smaller Industrial Cities in a Low-Carbon World. Urban and Industrial Environments. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
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“ abitability is h a ecolo y i e every ecolo y it de a ds its bala ces la i by hatever descriptio st si lta eo sly e brace rba r ral a d ilder ess setti s - renton
ac a e
Chapter
orming an
gricultural Pattern
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
1. Identifiable Agriculture Community (Identifiable Neighborhood – 14) Postindustrial communities of today have lost their identity and sense of purpose due to the exit of their defining identity of industry. However, these communities within various neighborhoods still possess a rich history and culture. These neighborhoods need to have an identity and to help create a new identity for the neighborhood that encourages social interaction, activity, and celebrates the existing culture, an agriculture system can be implemented. In order to create this new identity, there must be a sense of community within the block’s residents and visitors. In order to create this identifiable agriculture community, it should have a small population, small area, dense housing, major thoroughfares bordering it, smaller streets intersecting it with ample pedestrian crossings, and an aspect of every part of the food system (growing food, processing, transportation and storage, retail and marketing, distribution, eating and celebrating, waste recovery, and education.)
2. Neighborhood Seams (Neighborhood Boundary - 15) If the boundary is weak the character of the Identifiable Agriculture Community cannot be maintained. Edges of the neighborhood should be shaped by street cafes, corner groceries, markets, and edible sidewalks. The edge boundary of the neighborhood should be defined by streets that have car traffic, bicycle paths, parking, and pedestrian paths. These edges should also have some interaction or visual connection to an element of the food system. Where there are intermediate streets or paths that cross the boundary edge into the neighborhood a gateway should be placed. The edge of the neighborhood should act as zone that acts as a seam connecting surrounding neighborhoods through common functions that can serve a larger community. A combination of public building frontages and natural edges should be considered in the design of the boundary edge to allow it to act more like a layered seam.
3. Renewal Cycle (Life Cycle - 26) The community must have the range of things within its social structure and built environment so that a person can experience the full scope and depth of life. The life cycle must be celebrated and balanced in the community in order to encourage the evolution of the people and the community. Ensure that the neighborhood includes activities for a balance of people from infants to the elderly. Every growing area should have an area for kids to run around and play while also ensuring that growing infrastructure and elements are accessible to the elderly. The collaboration between generations should also be celebrated within the community spaces, specifically allocating space for specific community run programs. Along with the life cycle of people, the cycle of the agriculture system of itself also needs to be sustainable and maintained during all seasons. Every aspect of the food system should be active during all parts of the year. Ensure that with every outdoor growing area created, a sheltered space is provided, in the forms or greenhouses, covered gardens, screened/indoor porches, covered balconies, etc. Growing spaces should also be designed in a way that corresponds to the rotation of the harvest through the year and the change in seasons. Celebration spaces should be used during every part of the year and should also include some form of insulated or covered space. The cycle of festivals and holidays should also be considered within there design.
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
A Community Bountiful Pattern Index This thesis explores how the design and integration of a community based agriculture system can restore an inactive and damaged urban fabric within a postindustrial community. Taking inspiration and guidance from A Pattern Language, a book by Christopher Alexander, this thesis will devise it’s own pattern language in order to create a handbook of design criteria for the community. This language will layout patterns and guidelines in order to plan and design an agriculture system that reworks the damaged fabric. The language will bring additional activity and encourages current activity through a celebration of food, culture, and history. Patterns are determined successful with their ability to improves quality of life for community residents, encouragement of economic growth through food and other retail opportunities, promote a network of learning, cretae a greater accessibility to food and amenities, and form a sense of community through shared spaces centered around the food system. This pattern language will be organized according to scope and scale. This language also aids in adapting and reformating the design tests and methods as a set of criteria explored through this chapter.
4. Agriculture Nodes (Activity Nodes - 26) Create many nodes of activity throughout the community that are centered around an element of the agricultural system. Nodes would best be centered around specifically growing, eating, and celebrating. These nodes should not be too far from each other. Avoid scattering community facilities individually across the neighborhood. When placing and designing these nodes it is first necessary to identify current nodes of activity. Then modify paths or add to connect added nodes with existing nodes. Each node should have a centralized public space that can be outside, inside or both.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
5. Strolling through the Garden (Promenade - 31) Connect nodes with a wide public walkway. The walkway or promenade should have the main points of attraction on either end, specifically cultural, education, or religious institution. Path should only be long and wide enough to connect nodes that allow for leisure and activity. This promenade must run through the most active areas of the community. Also, the promenade must have activities along it that are active at night to ensure the space does not become inactive and frightening later in the day. If there are points along the path that is in the interior of the block and a spot for rest, a visual connection to the main street is necessary. No point in the stroll should be 100 feet from a major source of activity. If the stroll encounters a growing space, run the path through it rather than around.
6. Growing Market Streets of Many Shops (Shopping Streets - 32) Every community/neighborhood should have retail space for the selling of locally grown food and restaurants that utilize the food system. Focus all retail on major streets to ensure the businesses are on display and can make a profit. Specifically try to locate retail opportunities on vacant corners of neighborhood. Avoid large scale shopping centers. Create a system of smaller markets that are both flexible and permanent to offer different variety of program that support the ones focused on food. The structure of the market should allow for free-flowing circulation around shops, private growing opportunities or open space for each shop, areas for cars to load or food trucks to park next to and overhead coverings to shelter when needed. With every marketplace, a larger open celebration space should be no more than a 5-minute walk. If the marketplace could begin to resemble a street that forms a right angle to the major boundary street, this is the most ideal. Store fronts and adjacent open flex should have a visual connection to these major busy streets for safety and activity. Allow enough buffer space between buildings to allow for views and loading from the street or if the buffer can not be large enough put one side of markets right up against adjacent building.
7. Bountiful Streets (Road Crossings, Pedestrian Streets, Main Gateways, Network of Paths and Cars, Bike Baths and Racks - 54, 100, 53, 52, 56) Ensure all major thoroughfares in neighborhood provide space for 2-way car traffic, pedestrian walking, parking, bike lanes, public transit stops, and green space that also acts as growing space, and pedestrian gathering space. When streets intersect or cut off parts of neighborhood add a wide road crossing that is elevated from the main road and sloped down so cars can travel over. These crossings should be easily identifiable, adding a gateway in the form of building cut through, covered canopy, or framed infrastructure can help identify these points. If traffic is low, extend side current side walks to focus on pedestrian activity along route of cars but make barrier with parking or an element of the food system. Limit secondary pedestrian paths branching from the major streets and only add major promenade to focus what activity is strayed from the street. When adding bike lane or lane of food production, be sure to allocate space for support structures like bike racks or tool areas.
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
8. Housing Cluster as a Community Workspace (Household Mix, Housing Cluster - 14, 37) During its industrial past, the city’s residents often were arranged according to their occupations and workplace social interaction and community could be continued to the home. Now with the absence of industry and torn fabric homes are private and disconnected. To relieve this, ensure all resident zones in neighborhoods are formed in clusters of an individual 8-12 households. These clusters should have both private growing and public growing spaces. One public growing area should be allocated for every 4-6 households. These public growing areas should be on ground level or if area is too dense to be located on roof of multifamily unit. Shared growing along with shared public space will unite cluster. Every cluster should include gateway to the public wherever needed and be arranged so that anyone could walk through the public space that is not for growing food without feeling like they are trespassing. These clusters also must allow for diversity in age, culture, income, and family type. Design details on houses to fit user needs in order to encourage diversity. Diversity can also be added by including workplace opportunities on the ground level of some residences.
9. Home is Public, Private, and Both (Degrees of Publicness - 36) Every housing cluster needs 3 identifiable levels of privacy. In one cluster there should be houses that are private, public, and the in between. To support this pattern there also needs to be 3 types of growing space: Public growing in the front and back yard on the ground (wide, open for activities, and spacious for variety of growth), Semi Public Rooftop Growing (Less accessible, only sharable in stacked multifamily residential), and Private Balcony Growing (Only accessible to one household, small, needs addition smaller elements like window boxes). Make sure most private homes do not face busy streets. The degree of publicness can also helped be defined by the addition of greenhouse structures that are shared. The amount of these 3 types of homes should be equal in the neighborhood.
10. Food as Seam and Food as Filter (Housing in Between - 48) Whenever there is a sharp separation creating a large gap between residential and nonresidential parts of the neighborhood there needs to be a seam that buffers the most private activity to public. When this gap is evident, ensure an element of the food system is added to ease the transition from private to public. This itself can act as a gateway between the zones. Avoid a large use of a complete physical infrastructure as edge unless adding a physical building connects from resident edge to the other building. Consider transitions be slight ground level change when open agriculture space meets another agriculture open space.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
11. Community Garden as Carnival (Carnival, Public Squares, Accessible Green, Public Outdoor Room - 58, 61, 60, 69) Set aside an area of the neighborhood for the largest growing area as a community garden that serves the immediate neighborhood but is also large enough to serve parts of surrounding neighborhoods. This space should be large, around 30,000 square feet. This community garden will act as the neighborhood’s primary celebration or “carnival” space. Half of space should be dedication to divided garden plots. The other half should include flex space for festivals, temporary farmers markets, and outdoor performance. Support structures are necessary and should help break down scale of the lot. These structures should include, tool sheds, compost areas, storage, bee keeping areas, potting tables, and communal eating furniture. Flex space should have frontage to the busiest street to the net neighborhood. A gateway or entry to the garden should also be off this street. Adding a focal point in the middle can also help break down space. Integration of an outdoor room within the growing portion of the space with some form of covering, columns, no walls can give the community a more secluded space and shield from elements. This outdoor room as the opportunity to work as a good seam between resident clusters.
12. Community Sacred Space, Food is Religion (Holy Ground - 66) In the community, identify if there is the holy/sacred space, i.e. religious center. If the neighborhood does not have one create a sacred space. If there is one, create a series of precincts incorporating the agriculture system as areas around the sacred space that move from most public spaces for community gathering to the most private and intimate spaces. Gateways can be used as the defining separators between these zones. Movement from public to private should be well defined. Public spaces to be included are communal eating spaces, trading and event space, kitchens, community group classrooms/ meeting rooms, and greenhouse and outdoor growing. Private spaces should include meditation rooms, private garden spaces, small meeting rooms, community organization/group offices. Placement of zones should relate to surrounding context. Most private spaces should be closer to the interior of the block and public on the edge. Gardens should interact with addition and to current sacred space.
13. Edible Education Network (Network of Learning, Building Complex – 18, 95) In the community, identify if there is a major educational institution. If it does not have one create one. If there is a current institution create an addition to the school that serves as the neighborhood’s hub for agriculture education. The existing school structure should act as the education anchor point, but the addition should be free to break off and form individual buildings disbursed throughout a larger portion of the neighborhood to start a network of education that can spread. Void spaces between can be used as public parks, outdoor eating areas, educational and demonstration gardens, playgrounds, edible street medians and recreation space. Connecting spaces should support use by students, families, and visitors.
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14. Elevating the Public Garden (Roof Garden -118) When housing is dense and contains multiple units that are stacked vertically the shared growing space for these residents should be moved to the roof. If there are multiple roofs attaching, adjust to be flat or terraced so that most of that building’s roof can used to place multiple forms of growing. Always make it possible to walk from a lived in a part of the building directly to the garden. This could include vertical circulation on the facade of the building. This outdoor circulation must be covered and must be accessible. Avoid placing roof gardens on houses that are more than 3 stories and house the elderly generation.
15. Recessing the Private Elevated Garden (Six Foot Balcony - 167) Private growing space should be allocated to every household. To achieve this a balcony for growing, eating, and socializing should be added to resident structures. When adding a balcony make sure they are at least 6ft deep. This allows for a table and chairs and a storage option. Growing should be focused on the periphery of the balcony and utilize the balcony structure. These balconies should be connected to the interior through the kitchen, living room, or entry of the house. If possible, placing balconies on southern facades is deal. Consider adding canopy to help filter direct sun light. If possible, try to recess part of the balcony into the building so that it is not fully cantilevered out. This helps further define the balcony as private, create added visual connections to the interior, define growing space vs. gathering space.
16. Combining the Front and Back Yard Garden (Half Hidden Garden - 111) When housing clusters are less dense garden plots can be added on the ground plane. In order to create a gradient of public to private within the cluster allow gardens to become half hidden on the ground plane. By combing the and cutting into the back, front, and side ground space that surrounds the home, garden spaces can start to knit together the housing cluster. These gardens should be half hidden to the street and half exposed. Use these gardens to frame resident entrances. Shared element will come in the portion of the garden that is exposed to the street. Help define these zones with support structures and elements of the outdoor room.
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Zone T1 - Natural Zone
Mainly is made up of lands of a wilderness condition. These zones are usually hard to settle due to harsh topography, water ways, intense vegitation, and wildlife habitats.
Zone T2 - Rural Zone
Mainly is made up of sparcly settled land in open or cultivated conditions. These areas can inlude farmland, grasslands, woodlands, or irrigable deserts. Building typologies usually found use consist of farmhouses, agriculture facilitis, cabins, and villas. Roads, long driveways, and trails are common connectors.
USES/ACTIVITIES
PRIMARILY AREA TO BE KEPT FOR ECOLOGICAL PRESERVATION AND NATURAL RESOURCES FOR FARMING SYSTEM. ACCESS TO WATER IS VERY IMPORTANT AND CAN BE INTERGRATED INTO OTHER ZONES ALONG THE TRANSECT. NATURAL CULTIVATION FROM THESE LANDS CAN BE ALSO USED TO FEED LIVE STOCK.
Zone T4 - General Urban Zone
Zone T3 - Sub - Urban Zone
Zone T5 - General Urban Zone
Mainly is made up of mixed use and residential areas. Includes wide range of building types like shops, houses, rowhouses, and small apartment buildings. There is a range to setback length and landscape qualities. Streets have raised curbs and side help define blocks.
Mainly is made up of low density residential areas and few retail establishments. Homes accompanied by out buildings are common. Plantings are natural and setbacks are large. Blocks are large and road patterns are irregular to accomodate natural conditions.
Mainly is made up of high density mixed use buildings. Buildings typically have taller heights. Streets have raised curbs, wide sidewalks, typical rows of tree planting, and short setbacks. Blocks may be larger to accomodate parking.
SPACTIAL AND SOCIAL ANALYSIS/DESIGN TEXT
SIZE/CONDITION
CAN VARY GIVEN SPECIFIC SITE LOCATION. USUALLY LOCATED ON PERIFERY OF DEVELOPED AREAS. LARGE SCALE WITH INTENCE TOPOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS
FORGABLE WILDERNESS
Farmer’s Housing
Large Gathering Space for Hosting Festivals, Parties, Food Demonstration and Exhibition. This is Adjacent to Market Buildings and Processesing Facilities
Enclosed Growing Space
Live Stock Pen Area Adjacent to Barn Area for Animal Living Space in the Colder Months
LARGE HAND TENDED FARMS AND ORCHARDS
Smaller Storage Facillities Scattered Throughout Smaller Garden Plots to Promote Accessibility
Orchard
Residential Neighborhood Section
Residences
Street
Street
Residences
Residences
Intermediate Street Turned into Parkway Connecting Backyard Gardens
Residences
Street
Vertical gardens can be moved from residence facades to fences that seperate street from yards to create edible street scapes while providing privacy Parcel Boundries become blurred through shared backyard gardening to promote resident interaction. With this storage facilities can also become shared within the community leaving more growing space
FRONT/REAR YARD AND PATIO GARDENS
k
oc ity Bl
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denc
Resi et
Stre
Apartment Buildings will utilize roof gardens as the shared gardening space for community interaction, this could also be where shared storage could be located. Also could begin to connect vertically living spaces of apartments allowing for natural light and ventillation
Apartment Balcony Gardens Provide Private Spaces for Specialty Growing for Residents
Balconie spaces become vertical on ground floor allowing more space on sidewalk for seating areas and acts as a food marketing element on the facade to promote interaction and ground floor retail oppurtunity
Apartment Unities will locat kitchen adjacent to outdoor balcoies and have interior growing oppurtunities during colder wather
BALCONY, WINDOW, & ROOF GARDENS
Figure 3.1 Testing of Agriculture Growing Typologies and Comparing Relationships of Scale.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Forms of Agriculture Production At the foundation of the urban agriculture system are the system elements dealing with the production of food. These first design tests explore forms of growing and how they fit within a larger systems of scales. Ranging from how agriculture can be produced in a wilderness setting, large hand tended farms, backyard and front yard gardens, and balcony gardens. These explorations not only focused on arrangements of food but also how it could connect to the surrounding community. The conclusions from these tests showed that the thoughts regarding connections to the urban context through the yard and balcony gardens were the most beneficial. The designs provided valuable insight into the human scale and its relationship to urban connections through edible streetscapes, fence production, and widened sidewalks. Including tests that applied to more rural and suburban settings proved to not be as useful as the specific relationships with land area and context were disconnected from the realities of neighborhoods within Lawrence, Massachusetts. This portion of the testing process has more benefits when looking at how this system of agriculture implementation is applied at a regional scale.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Production Faciliity helps provide resources to farming area
Roads are widened to allow for tractor and truck distribution with an added layer of pedestrian circulation networks
Larger Area Dedicated to
Waste Management and storage to provide resources to a larger context
Celebrtation Space and Retail is centralized between two growing areas in order to always have food on display to the consumer/citizen
Education is mixed within residential communities and have their own growing areas
Figure 3.2 Testing of Agriculture System in an Ideal Rural and Suburban Setting
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Balcony Production can be implemented in smaller scale or lower income housing buildings due to little extra construction and upkeep, roof can be used for community storage
Roof Top Greenhouse Production on top of residential apartment building to both serve residents and provide food source to below residence area
Process, Management, and Education Facilities can be moved to ground level and support residences above while also supporting surrounding public community
Street Side Production to replace old secondary street scape inorder to provide new parkway for community and growing space for ground level education spaces Celebration and Market Space can be implemented on sites of current residential parking and the parking facility be moved underground. These spaces are both central and flexable to allow for various cultural events
Figure 3.3 Testing of Agriculture System in an Ideal Urban Residential Block
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Street Side Retail to allow for interaction between community and residents and provide further economic sources
Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Ideal Scenario Testing with Hypothetical Sites Initial design tests focused purely on agriculture growing typologies within the system. Since the completeness of the agriculture system within the selected neighborhood is vital, tests need to include not just growing but also transportation, storage, processing, selling, educating, and celebrating of food. In order to rapidly test relationships of these system components, three hypothetical sites are used to test formations within a diverse group of context parameters. While these tests do not speciďŹ cally apply to Lawrence, they show how the spaces created by system elements could create basic guidelines for creating community space. SpeciďŹ cally the test along a hypothetical waters edges spawns criteria of a central celebration space being created by community, education, and retail infrastructure. The waters edge also presents another component of the criteria; retail is most valuable when placed in a linear pattern, along the central celebration space, and along a transportation network allowing pedestrians and cars.
Celebration
is centralized with close proximity to the water front with direct pedestrian access
Education has adjacent area for growing and distribution so they can be put on display to the public
Retail is extended to waterfront to capitilize on views
Figure 3.4 Testing of Agriculture System in an Ideal Urban Water’s Edge
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.5 Merger of Backyards for
Figure 3.6 River as Central Production
Shared Community Gardens, Lawrence, MA. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Network, Lawrence, MA. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Zone 1
LIVING WITH FOOD
Zone 2
Zone 3
EDUCATION
PRODUCTION, RE CELEBRATION
Figure 3.7 Agriculture System from North to South Side of City, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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ETAIL,
Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Defining System Scope in Lawrence, MA. Moving from more generalized context restraints, the following tests begin integrating the agriculture system in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The most valuable insights from these tests relate to scope of explorations within the city. Recalling ideas from the urban transect, the following tests through drawing and model, show how specific elements of the agriculture system could be designed in a way connecting different neighborhoods from one edge of the city to the other. Jumping from the urban scale to neighborhood scale is the most beneficial conclusion from these tests as it helps in defining a method of testing. The unsuccessful portions of these tests lie within the scope and area of implementation. This thesis requires a transformation in community activity and interaction, therefore by looking at numerous neighborhoods, the life and experience of pedestrian and community group gets lost. The testing across transects of the city proves agriculture can be integrated and transform urban connections found in the river, public transit lines, and streets. While this insight is valuable for future implications of this thesis, one neighborhood as a focus is the best basis for successful testing.
Zone 4
Zone 5
PROCESSING, TRANSPORATION, STORAGE
LIVING WITH FOOD 65
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.8 Agriculture System from East to West Side of City, Using River as Main Axis, Lawrence,
Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.9 Agriculture District Master Plan, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Figure 3.10 Agriculture District Master Plan Refined , Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.11 Greenhouse Addition to St Mary’s Church Alongside Community Garden,
Model Segment, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.12 Greenhouse Addition to St Mary’s Church Alongside Community Garden in Relation to
Resident Cluster, Model Segment, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.13 Integration of Local Firehouse as Agriculture Distribution Center, Model Segment, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Figure 3.13 Model Segments as a Connect Agriculture Network, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.14 Model Segments as a Connect Agriculture Network, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.14 Top View of Model Showing Community Garden and Orchard Relationship to the Fire
Station, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.15 View of Model Showing Community Garden and Orchard Relationship to the Fire Station though Physical Infrastructure, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Neighborhood Site Model as Artifact for Testing By modeling the fabric of just one neighborhood, notable characteristics become clear. The larger portion of this neighborhood is made up of parking lots or vacant land. This emptiness is juxtaposed with the significance and presence of St Mary’s Church, Notre Dame Cristo High School, and the central Lawrence Fire Department. These institutions provide a foundation for potential nodes within the neighborhood. Using the neighborhood site model as a mode of testing shows the spatial relationships of agriculture system elements. Specifically the relationships along the edge of these converging systems are a key area of focus within the design of the community. Transforming the largest vacant lot in the neighborhood into a community garden and orchard allows for a buffer between the housing community and fire station. While this offered a gathering space for the community to grow together, its relationship to the private yards of the residences remained undefined. Using the support infrastructure for the garden, storage, interior growing, and distribution, as a filtering edge is more successful. The infrastructure allows for a buffer between the workings of the fire station and community growing.
Figure 3.16 View of Model Showing Community Garden and Orchard Relationship to the
Fire station though Physical Infrastructure, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.17 View of Model Showing Community Garden and Orchard Relationship to the Fire Station though Physical Infrastructure, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.18 View of Model Showing Community Garden and Orchard Relationship to the Fire Station though Physical Infrastructure, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
The housing cluster modeled is successful in creating community and spaces to interact along one of the primary edges of the neighborhood. Similar to the transformation of the central lot into the community garden, the implementation of the housing cluster presents problems in the development along the edges. The large open space at the edge of the community offers a park area for the surrounding neighborhood to share with the residence community. The arrangement of the housing units allows for the space between to be private gathering spaces for residents only. However, the arrangement allows the private residence gardens to be seen from the street so the growing can be recognized by the public. The model of the housing cluster shows the need for attention towards the speciďŹ cs of the housing typology and it’s relation to the historic context. The housing model in these tests show a stronger relation to the industrial forms of the mills rather than the small scale apartment units already present within the landscape. By forming the housing into long rows, it creates walls and disconnections to it’s surroundings. Noting these conditions create new criteria. The residential fabric must be expanded in a way that connects and welcomes the outside community while also respecting the scale and form of the existing residential typology.
Figure 3.19 View of Model showing Community Garden and Orchard Relationship to the
Fire Station though Physical Infrastructure, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.20 Breaking up Super-block with Pedestrian Pathway, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.21 Breaking up Super-block with Shared Garden Spaces, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Forming an Agricultural Pattern The qualities of disconnection, isolation, and desertion can all used in describing the current life of this neighborhood in Lawrence. In order to transform the landscape with activity, the entirety of the neighborhood and it’s spatial three dimensional characteristics must be recognizable. By using existing imagery found in Google earth, urban patterns of the existing space emerge. With the following tests, new patterns are formed. These patterns aim to weave the agricultural system elements into a redeveloped fabric to bring life to the community. In various tests, a need for a deďŹ ned route for pedestrians to access and experience the agricultural nodes is apparent. The intermediate street separating the two north blocks is a primary gateway to the neighborhood. By beginning the pedestrian pathway at this intersection gives signiďŹ cance to the entry of the high school. With the addition of a new pedestrian network to the neighborhood, the beginning and end and the program shaping it within the urban fabric is a focus within these tests. The hierarchy of paths through the neighborhood are determined through its size, visibility, accessibility, and purpose. By allowing the pedestrian path to share the same width as the car dominated streets, it can support activity produced by the additions of agriculture. Dinning, food sales, and food production can occur alongside running, walking, and biking.
Figure 3.22 Forming New Pedestrian Path with Agriculture School Addition, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.22 Extending Spine of Church to Create a Community Center, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.23 Community Center as Edge/Barrier to Housing Cluster, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.24 Extended Crosswalk to Form Gateway Between Housing and Market Place,
Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
The following explorations examine segments of the blocks in more detail. SpeciďŹ cally methods of blurring the divisions between public community areas and private housing are tested through greenhouse additions, garden plots, fruit trees, and covered outdoor space. A key conclusion from many of these tests are the differences in formation of open space meant for circulation through and space meant for the gathering and celebration of food. The primary celebration space for the community belongs in a central location and either within the community garden or close by. When creating gathering spaces that are too narrow, they encourage passing through rather than stopping. The distinguishment between the primary path and gathering locations remains a key observations from these tests. Figure 3.25 Gardens and Attached Greenhouses Provide Edge
Between Market Community Space and Housing, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.26 Community Garden Acts as Central Celebration Space for the Community as well as Junction between Housing Community and the Community Marketplace, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.27 Restoration of the Past Street Grid, Fragmenting the Church Block and Adding Triple
Deckers, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 3.28 Restoration of the Past Street Grid, Fragmenting the Church Block Creating a
Secondary Pedestrian Pathway, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Historic Preservation through Expanding Residential Fabric and Restoring City Grid of the Industrial Past The process of historic preservation, as it was discussed within chapter two, is most typically explored in the post-industrial city through the restoration of industrial parks and buildings. A critical point within this design process is the acknowledgment of the benefits of the historic city fabric as it was before our reliance on car transportation. Through this city’s history, the core activity centered around the residents of the workforce. By replacing industrial jobs with opportunities to support local food production through agriculture, the residential community must be expanded to support it. The language of the added housing patterns allows for a structure and a specific criteria to organizing conclusions from the previous tests. The following pages refine conclusions from prior tests while using the historic typology of the triple decker to form housing clusters that help organize the patterns of program and urban elements.. By referencing historic maps and requirements of triple decker housing arrangements, the following tests are determined to be successes or failures. This is determined by the pattern’s ability to define the new pedestrian friendly pathways, gathering spaces for celebration, thresholds between public and private, support space for agriculture based activities, and space for local business to thrive.
Figure 3.29 Restoration of the Past Street grid, Fragmenting the
Figure 3.30 Restoration of the Past Street Grid, Primary and
Church Block and Adding Triple Deckers, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Secondary Pedestrian Paths are Created, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 3.31 Formation of the Agriculture Based Neighborhood Supported by the Historic Street Formation and Expansion of Residential Communities, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
84
Figure 3.32 Secondary Pedestrian Pathway Ending with Community Celebration Space that is formed by a Produce Market Place and Community Center Greenhouse, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Forming an Agricultural Pattern
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Community Orchard
Pedestrian Way Main Community Outdoor Celebration Space
Concord Street Community Greenhouse Retail - Restaurant and shop that has frontage towards Concord street but opens to pedestrian way and community celebration space to the back
Comm Event Community Group Gathering Classrooms for Community Training Programs
Figure 3.33 Section Exploration of Primary Community Node, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Forming an Agricultural Pattern
Haverhill Street
munity Center Lobby t Space
Agriculture Education Gallery Space
Demonstration and Exhibition Gardens
Notre Dame Cristo High School
Agriculture Education Classrooms and Labs, Culinary Classrooms
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“ ri people to ether a they create a collective s rpl s of e oy e t bri b il i s to ether a they ca ive pleas re hich o e ca ive separately - Gordon C en
Chapte
C
it
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Notre Dame Cristo High School
St Mary’s Church
Figure 4.1 Identifying Agriculture Community, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 4.2 Establishment of Pedestrian Pathways, Defining New Neighborhood Blocks, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful
Deriving a Language for a Bountiful Postindustrial Community Lawrence, Massachusetts is a multi ethnic and multicultural gateway with a rich industrious past. While it remains an urban center for manufacturing based companies, the city faces economic struggle creating a lack of jobs and activity. Introducing a new economic driver through agriculture holds the potential to encourage communities to interact and prosper through the growing, selling, distribution, educating, and celebrating of food. In order to establish a language to inspire an agricultural based future for the city, the exploration must begin in one centralized neighborhood. Selecting an area of intervention begins with identifying current neighborhood boundaries. To ensure the neighborhood has a strong foundation within the city, the future agriculture neighborhood must include an existing presence of an institution or prominent community public space. Within this neighborhood in Lawrence, a church and high school deďŹ ne the present activity. The agriculture system elements added through this proposal support and celebrate these institutions. Following the indetiďŹ cation of current nodes, any distressed buildings are noted and are under consideration for removal or adaption for agriculture based programming. Following the determination of the scope of neighborhood development and the new agricultural identity it is necessary to focus on the existing network of streets and access into the neighborhood. By looking to the historic framework, a new layout is proposed by identifying the past streets and the break down of the blocks within the neighborhood. To reduce the current scale of the large lots in the neighborhood, the past streets are restored as pedestrian only ways. There is a also a consideration of future urban patterns by transforming small intermediate streets that enter the neighborhood into pedestrian only ways. These act as segments of the network that could expand all the way to the downtown district and the river. After ensuring their are routes dedicated to pedestrians it is also crucial to maintain major travel paths currently being mostly used for cars. While forming a new pedestrian network, the existing transportation networks are not ignored. The streets are maintained to encourage pedestrian travel alongside the car. Where ever these new pedestrian paths intersect car trafďŹ c, large and active crossings are created.
Figure 4.3 Neighborhood within Historic Map, Lawrence,
Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY) Adapted from Historic Map (H.H.Bailey CC BY)
Figure 4.4 Historic Street Pattern, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY) Adapted from Historic Map (H.H.Bailey CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 4.5 Filling the Site with Triple Decker Apartments, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY) Addition to Highschool to add an Agriculture Education Wing, Gallery Space, Culinary Education, Education Gardens and Greenhouse, New Entry, and School Operated Resteraunt.
Addition to church toinclude new community center to host cultural events, food trading and celebrating, spaces for communityg roups and agriculture based programs to meet. This space will also be home to the primary neighborhood greenhouse and community garden that will not only serve neighborhood residents but surrounding neighborhood residents and visitors.
Addition of a Neighborhood Marketpla This will include cultural shops, resteraunts, and food mark
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Figure 4.6 Weaving in an Agriculture System, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Community Bountiful
After implementing a new network that celebrates both car and pedestrian travel while encouraging access into the agricultural neighborhood, a new community foundation is added through housing. By using the historic typology of the triple decker apartment to fill the vacant areas of the site, the site breaks down allowing it to be more accepting to activity and comfortable at the human scale. The housing clusters are formed from the existing requirements of the typology. Clusters are also dispersed through the neighborhood rather than only focusing around the existing residential area. Orientation of the homes comes from the relation to the street, the pedestrian path, and open space. By filling the site with triple deckers, areas of conflict are created. By referencing criteria, some clusters appear to be undefined and do not support spaces for the agriculture system. Homes that create an uncomfortable edge with existing institutions or public space and block potential community nodes are removed. After final arrangements of housing are made, the agriculture system is weaved through the residential patterns, creating a proposal for a new Lawrence, celebrating food and community.
Addition of a Non Profit Organization Office and Community Space. This space will be reserved for Agriculture based organizations. This campus will include facilities for growing of food by nearby resteraunts, bases for food processing, food storage, and food transportation to allow for outreach to nearby
ace. kets.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
13 13 12
14 12
8
10
1
1. Triple Decker Apartments w/attached Green Houses 2. Resteraunts/ Misc Retail 3. Greenhouse Operated by Food Project and Groundwork Lawrence 4. Cultural Market Place 5. Office and Meeting Space for Food Project and Groundwork Lawrence 6. Food Distribution, Trading Space, and Open Meeting Space 7. Food Co-Op Grocery and Cafe 8. Community Center and Neighborhood Greenhouse 9. Covered Farmer’s Market Flex Space 10. Primary Community Garden 11. Celebration Plaza 12. Demonstration/Education Gardens 13. Agriculture/Food Training Education School 14. School Quad
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Figure 4.7 Agriculture Community Master Plan Detailing Ground Patterns and Crossings, Lawrence, Massachusetts. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Community Bountiful
1
9
8 1
11 7 2 3 5
4 6
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
1
13
2 12
14
9 12
2 8
11
10
7 2 1
3 10 4 5
1. Triple Decker Apartments w/attached Green Houses 2. Resteraunts/ Misc Retail 3. Greenhouse Operated by Food Project and Groundwork Lawrence 4. Cultural Market Place 5. Office and Meeting Space for Food Project and Groundwork Lawrence 6. Food Distribution, Trading Space, and Open Meeting Space 7. Food Co-Op Grocery and Cafe 8. Community Center and Neighborhood Greenhouse 9. Covered Farmer’s Market Flex Space 10. Primary Community Garden 11. Celebration Plaza 12. Demonstration/Education Gardens 13. Agriculture/Food Training Education School 14. School Quad
Figure 4.8 Agriculture Community Program Proposal, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful
Community Bountiful: A Vision for a Lawrence Neighborhood This proposal for the community of Lawrence is a direct response to the city’s need for economic development and environmental stability within its deteriorating landscape. The arrangement found in this place encourages economic activity, social interaction, cultural expression, and environmental justice through a local agriculture system. The proposed Community Bountiful vision provides affordable housing options for the areas expanding families or new residents moving to the city. It also includes a sustainable network for a new work force in farming, agriculture education, food distribution, markets, restaurants, and other local business entities. The primary goal of the program is to employ community members and create activity with a purpose through promotion of healthy fresh food and a sustainable environment. Below is a summary of the plan’s proposed program and its role in the life of the community.
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1. Triple Decker Housing Clusters This neighborhood proposal includes three housing communities. All housing clusters have a shared outdoor space to be used for recreational activities. Every apartment building includes 3 units each with their own private balcony orientated in a way that supports balcony food production. Each building includes a space for plant production that is enclosed for year round growing. These are presented in the form of side yard or rooftop green houses. 2. Misc Retail for Small Business Infrastructure is created to capitalize off of street activity. The architecture supports many retail and restaurant opportunities. Sidewalks are extended in order to allow commercial operations to engage the street scape. 3. Greenhouse to Support Retail Entities Any restaurant operations taking place in the adjacent retail have the opportunity to utilize this greenhouse for fresh food production. If there is no food related retail occupying the shop spaces, greenhouse will be used and maintained by local community non profits, Lawrence Groundworks and The Massachusetts Food Project. 4.Cultural Market and Event Space This form of market place is larger and allows for shared retail within. This market is dedicated to representing community cultural groups. Flexible market stalls will showcase handmade goods and prepared food by Lawrence’s diverse residents.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 4.9 Roof Top Greenhouses within Triple Decker Cluster, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 4.10 Side Attached Greenhouses Running Along Street, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Figure 4.11 Shared Space within Housing Cluster, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 4.12 Street Scape Engagement from Housing Community, Lawrence, Massachusetts.
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 4.13 Market Street, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 4.14 Sectional Relationship Between Cultural Market Place, Shared Greenhouse, and Retail Market Strip, Lawrence,
Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Figure 4.15 Corner Market Attached to Triple Decker Forming Gateway to Pedestrian Path, Lawrence, Massachusetts
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 4.16 Proposed Covered Pathway Between Cafe and Grocery Market, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Figure 4.17 Non Profit Space and Food Distribution Sectional Exploration, Lawrence, Massachusetts
(Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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5. Office and Meeting Space for Local Environmental and Food Based Organizations By adapting the oversized fire station building, new operational space is given to organizations that can help aid the workings of this agriculture community. Offices, conference rooms, and lounge space will be provided so local non profits inorder for them to set up roots in Lawrence and create bonds with the neighborhood residents. The presence of these organizations also offer the youth of the area a specific outlet for activity. 6. Food Distribution, Organization, and Flexible Market Space Transforming a portion of the fire station stalls creates infrastructure for a base for the city’s distribution of the locally grown produce. Select portions of food produced in the community garden and greenhouse will be organized and then distributed throughout the city within this infrastructure. The distribution space also includes a flexible outdoor market area that opens up to the built retail square. This space allows for the local organizations to hold events and even encourage a system of food trading. 7. Co-Op Grocery Market and Cafe The grocery market will be an outlet for the community to purchase healthy, locally grown, and natural food at an accessible price. The grocery also includes a cafe overlooking the community garden. This cafe will sample food sold in the grocery and share recipes with its patrons.
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
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1. Lobby and Primary Event Space 2. Shared Community Kitchen and Dining 3. Lounge and Recreation Space 4. Group and Individual Meeting Rooms 5. Community Greenhouse 6. Community Deck 7. Central Neighborhood Garden 8. Co-Op Grocery Market 9. Grocery Cafe 10. Cafe Outdoor Deck Dining 11. Misc. Retail/Resteraunts 12. Flexible Covered Market and Gathering Space 13. Private Meditation Garden 104
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Figure 4.18 Heart of Agriculture Community, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 4.19 Pedestrian Pathway Through Community Garden, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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B1.
D1.
B7. D2. 1 B6. B5.
B2. B3. D3.
A2. A1. A1. B4.
A. Community Garden
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A1. Raised Bed Plantings A2. Gathering/Processing A3. Orchard B. Community Center B1. Lobby/Event Space B2. Kitchen and Dining B3. Outdoor Deck B.4 Greenhouse B.5 Lounge/Rec. Area B6. Meeting/Training Rooms B7. Private Meditation Garden C. Co-Op Grocery and Cafe
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A1.
C4. C1.
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C1. Grocery Market C2. Check Out and Specialties C3. Cafe C4. Cafe Outdoor Dining Deck
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D.Marketplace D1. Permanant Retail Space D2. Equipment Storage D3. Flexable Covered Market
Figure 4.20 Schematic Program Layout of Community Center and Grocery Market, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Co-Op Grocery Market
Community Green House
Community Outdoor Deck
Grocery Gathering Plaza Pedestrian Street
Figure 4.21 Community Center Section Exploration, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Lobby/Flexible Event Space
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8. Community Center and Neighborhood Greenhouse The proposed community center will become the heart of the community. The center will include rent-able event space, gallery areas to showcase activity within the city, outdoor recreation and celebration space, a shared community kitchen, dining areas, lounges, class rooms for community training programs, and lastly a greenhouse that will support a year round production cycle of locally grown food. The center also creates a private garden space to be supported by church and rectory. 9. Covered Farmer’s Market Plaza Situated between two retail operations, is a covered pavilion. This provides a sheltered area for outdoor selling. It’s placement along the main pedestrian way allows it to draw activity and generate pause in the circulation. Food festivals showcasing farmers markets or locally owned food trucks can utilize this space to create a cycle of celebration within the city. 10. Primary Community Garden This garden will be one of the primary sources of food production. The garden will contain raised planted beds, an orchard of fruit trees, vertical growing fences, bee keepers, production tables, tool storage, and lounge seating. Garden plots will be managed by the community as well as the administration of the community center and St. Marys Church.
Community Garden
Community Green House
Community Lounge/Recreation Space
Meditation Garden
Pedestrian Street
Figure 4.22 Formation of Garden with Existing Church Space, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 4.23 Education Gallery Extension, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
Figure 4.24 Engaging the Street with Demonstration Gardens, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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11. Celebration Park Formed by the community greenhouse and grocery market a park is created. This outdoor space allows for the pedestrian activity of the two new pathways to converge and engage. This space will include hard-scape and vegetation to support many types of recreation. Lawn furniture and lighting will be added to encourage ranges of activity to occur through the day. Due to its adjacency, on occasion the grocery could use this space as an extension, showcasing fresh vegetables and fruits to park goers. 12. Demonstration Gardens These gardens will line the street with access from the sidewalk and schoolyard. These gardens will be used as outdoor labs for the students learning methods of farming within the addition to the high school. These gardens will include informational plaques designed by the students informing the public of the work being done within the school. By placing the gardens along the sidewalk, engagement between the public, students, and faculty is encouraged. 13. Agriculture and Culinary Training School Using the supportive infrastructure of the existing high school, a wing is added that includes labs, kitchens, and classrooms aiming to provide an agriculture and food based education for teenagers. To prepare for jobs in agriculture, curriculum will include farming methods, healthy living strategies, culinary processes, marketing, and food science. A gallery wing will also be added to extend the high school’s existing entrance to both frame the pedestrian path as well as offer an enclosed environment to showcase student work to the public. 14. School Quad A portion of the high school’s existing parking lot transforms into a landscaped quad. This space will allow for students to engage in outdoor physical activity. Open space helps frame the high school’s second entrance and gives the students a location to gather before, during, and after school.
Figure 4.24 Pedestrian Pathway, Approaching Celebration Park, Lawrence, Massachusetts (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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“ ost of the o derf l places i the orld ot ade by architects b t by the people
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Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Figure 5.1 Exploring the Application of Agriculture, Collage. (Jenny Kirouac CC BY)
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Reflections
Looking towards the Plentiful Future This collection of work proposes a new way of thinking about the identity of postindustrial cities and how their growth and development can prioritize the community. It responds to the needs of struggling families, workers, and entrepreneurs within a neighborhood through the opportunities found in an urban agriculture system. While the final proposal could be seen as a programmatic system aimed to create a new economic network around production of fresh food, that is only the basis of the work showcased. The outcomes of this body of work show a new way of thinking about the creation of urban space by looking at historic fabrics. By adapting urban patterns of the past, a new framework is created for the future. The arrangements between buildings, gardens, parks, sidewalks, crossings, trees, coverings, paths, and streets all create space and form patterns that both enhance and encourage activity. The work within this thesis explores ideal arrangements of these patterns and refines them in order to curate a life within the community that is needed to not only support the agriculture system elements but make it a lasting tradition through the city’s evolution. The collection of urban outdoor rooms and the definition of streets and pedestrian pathways are some of the strongest results of this exploration. At the neighborhood scale, this project succeeds in capturing the vision for a bountiful community. As the project develops further, it’s role in the context of the entire city and geography of the region must be considered. With the selected site being centralized between the Merrimack and Spicket River, the potential for using the river as a supportive network for the agriculture operations allows it to aid communities outside of Lawrence. The architectural expression of specific proposal elements remain in someway like an afterthought. The proposal’s effectiveness lies in the urban space created by the formal relations designed in the master plan. Perhaps in some cases it is better to allow the architectural details of a select number of elements of the proposal to be left to the community as the development is built up over time. However, the heart of the community, the community center and grocery market place, needs the most architectural attention, specifically between the arrangement between its doors, windows, surface treatment, and roof design. The focus and detail should be spent in the transition points between the street to the lobby, the lobby to the shared dining, and the dining to the greenhouse. The agriculture application within the proposal also has the potential to be developed in a way that challenges current conventions. For example, the orchard within the community garden could extend to the street side. Fruit trees could line streets providing another source of yield but also an element to frame space around the church for gathering. Detailed explorations found in the first design tests of Chapter three showcase detailed methods of designing agriculture growing typologies. These tests could be used in developing some elements in the final proposal to reinvent the typical forms of the balconies and roof gardens to become more engaging at the human scale. 115
Community Bountiful: Cultivating Activity with Purpose through an Urban Agriculture System
Bibliography Armstrong, Paul. “Creating Urban Metabolism.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press, 2012. Cockrall-King, Jennifer. Food and the City: Urban Agriculture and the New Food Revolution. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2012. De La Salle, Janine M, and Mark Holland. Agricultural Urbanism: Handbook for Building Sustainable Food & Agriculture Systems in 21st Century Cities, 2015. Duany, Andres. Garden Cities: Theory & Practice of Agrarian Urbanism. U.K..: Duany Plater Zybrek & Co. : The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, 2011. Florida, Richard. “The Death and Life of Great Industrial Cities.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press, 2012 Greenstreet, Robert. “Creating a Town-Gorwn Partnership: The Milwaukee Model.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press, 2012. Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1992. Kapp, Paul-Hardin. “Historic Preservation.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press, 2012. Robbins, Mark, and Mark Robbins, eds. American City X: Syracuse after the Master Plan. First edition. New City Books. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2013. Schneider, John. “Gateway to the Future: Rethinking the Mill Cities of Massachusetts.” Architecture Boston 12 (Summer 2009): 26–29.
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Stavrides, Stavros. “Contested Urban Rhythms: From the Industrial City to the Post-Industrial Urban Archipelago.” The Sociological Review, no. S1: 34, 2013. Sumner, Jennifer, Heather Mair, and Erin Nelson. “Putting the Culture Back into Agriculture: Civic Engagement, Community and the Celebration of Local Food.” International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 2010. 54–61. Thompson, Christine. “Ecological Urbanism in the Postindustrial City.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press, 2012 Tracey, David. Urban Agriculture: Ideas and Designs for the New Food Revolution. Gabriola: New Society Publ, 2011. Thompson, Christine. “Ecological Urbanism in the Postindustrial City.” In SynergiCity: Reinventing the Postindustrial City. University of Illinois Press, 2012. Ventura, Steve, and Martin Bailkey, eds. Good Food, Strong Communities: Promoting Social Justice through Local and Regional Food Systems. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2017.
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Image Sources *All Images, unless noted below, have been created by author Figure 1.0 Adapted from Emerson, Jimmy. Welcome to Leominster Massachusetts. 2018. Digital. Leominster, Massachusetts, https://www.flickr.com/photos/auvet/42008622705. Figure 1.3 Adapted from Platt, Spencer. August 2019. Digital. Lawrence, Massachusetts, https://www.npr. org/2019/09/10/759512938/u-s-census-bureau-reports-poverty-rate-down-butmillions-still-poor Figure 1.4 Adapted from Mcglinn, Spencer. 2012. Digital. New York Times. Lawrence, Massachusetts, https:// www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/us/a-massachusetts-city-tries-to-change-its-im age.html Figure 2.2 Smith, F. S. (Lynn, Mass.). n.d. (circa 1910-1935). The shipping of Pinkham Co. product, inside the warehouse, and out on the truck. photographs, gelatin silver prints. https://library-artstor- org.ezproxywit.flo.org/asset/SCHLES_130733452. Figure 2.3 Overhead view MacArthur Square. 1966-03. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://content.mpl.org/cdm/ref/collection/HstoricPho/id/11779. Figure 2.4 Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLF&E), LaRue, M.H.. 1960. Union Pacific Railroad Yards, Fairfax District. b&w photograph, Images. Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University, http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/EAD/ htmldocs/KCL05003p.html.
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Figure 2.5 Duanny, Andres. Intra-Urban Agriculture: The Diversity of Places. In Garden Cities: Theory and Practice of Agrarian Urbanism. U.K: Duany Plater Zybrek & Co. : The Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment, 2011. Figure 2.6 Bernstein, Gregg. History of Ft. Hill Mural. 1997. Latex on concrete. Roxbury, Massachusetts, https://library-artstor-org.ezproxywit.flo.org/asset/AHERI TAGEIG_10313261829. Figure 2.7 Mads Nissen. 2007. A farmer weeds a field that has been surrounded by partial built highrise blocks.. https://library-artstor-org.ezproxywit.flo.org/asset/ APANOSIG_10313578771. Figures 4.3 and 4.4 Adapted from Bailey, H. H. (Howard Heston), Hazen, J. C., J. Knauber & Co, and C.H. Vogt. Lawrence, Mass. Map. 1876. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:wd376024m
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