3 – HARVEST by Mads Pålsrud

3. haRVEST Platform

Participants

Freeware

[the result or consequence of any act, process, or event.]

In “Seeding” I explained that I have been working with the food crisis, and how communities and design can be tools to change this. In “Farming” I showed the ways that I cultivated this information into my master process. In “Harvest” I will present Growlab, a platform and community for design and urban farming in form of an enterprise. You are welcome to participate. I call it an output rather than an outcome, because it is something that is not concluded and finished, but rather an activating entity I insert into society. This manual is in two parts. The first is describing how Growlab works and what it offers. The second part contains freeware tools that you as a participant are free to explore, use and develop. Enjoy the growing!

ABOUT GROWLAB This century is going to be the century of food! Growlab is a design office, experimental playground and open community that aims to enable more people to grow food in the city of Oslo. We want to bring people together around creative solutions for food and urban farming, through practical DIY design tools, workshops, courses and other fun and creative activities. We believe that everyone have good ideas for the future, and we will make these come true!

Contact: growlaboslo@gmail.com www.facebook.com/growlaboslo

SERVICE - garden setup - design consulting

MEETING POINT - network - community - exchange of knowledge and experience - experts and nonexperts Freeware

GrowLab

URBAN FARMING TOOLS - open collaboration - developed by Growlab -donate your ideas

EXPERTISE - design - farming - internal - external

ACTIVITIES - self-initiated projects - open workshops - creative gatherings

WHAT WE OFFER The future involves social responsibility and responsiveness, so we offer businesses how they can create win-win situations with their locality with food as the medium. At the same time we want to give everyone the possibility to work on solutions for a sustainable future.

Pre-fabricated parts. (launching soon)

Growlab offer the service of setting up a garden for you and your community. We believe in co-creation, so we usually arrange design and building workshops, providing required materials and tools. If wanted we bring in experts for more extended learning during the workshop period. We can also make it open to the public. (see MESH workshop on page 21.) We focus on the design and sharing of urban farming ideas (page, We are offering these for free, and you can stop by our pop-up club house or visit a Growlab workshop to get access to them. The core of Growlab is based around open collaboration, this means that if you want to donate your idea to us, we will integrate it in our freeware archive. We would also like you to experiment with the ideas that we already have. Growlab is also doing self-initiated projects, many which are open for participation. We arrange creative gatherings and workshops. Stay updated on this on our Facebook page. We are collaborating with a range of other actors like Velg Sunt, Majobo, BjĂ¸rvika Utvikling, Restaurant Day Oslo and many others. Growlab wants to be as open as possible. Do you have crazy ideas for a project, let us know! 11

PAR HOW W

RT I: WE WORK

OMSTILLING SAGENE Community of practice Input: food knowledge and experience courses and projects Output? knowledge, tools, expanding community

ergie Poss ible syn

GARDEN Community of practice Input: experienced people, local fruit & vegs, physical learning platform Output? help from Growlab community, unknown.

ART ACADEMY Input: young, creative community, workshop tools and space Output? unknown GROWLAB STARTUP MARKET+DRIVHUSET Platform for food experts and non-experts Input: design tools for urban gardening meeting point Output? growing community, knowledge.

MATHALLEN Market hall/restaurants+cafĂŠs. Input: food interested participants, knowledge about food production Output? locally grown food, unknown.

HOW IT STARTED Growlab started as the master project in design of founder Mads PĂĽlsrud in 2012. He wanted to explore how design could contribute to the field urban farming, and how he could work with solving environmental challenges. He started to engage people into his project, and a community was starting to take form. The first meeting points were tested out down by Akerselva, a river that runs through Oslo. First it took the form of an Urban Farmers Market in collaboration with the community garden EgeberglĂ¸kka. Second the club house we know as Drivhuset was raised on the same spot. Collaborators in the first period was the transition town initiative Omstilling Sagene, EgeberglĂ¸kka Parsellag, the Art Academy and individuals that are not shown on the map. The area is also housing the new food hall Mathallen, that did not have the possibility to collaborate at the time, but is a possible partner in the future. Through this synergic period, actors had different inputs and got different outputs from the action happening down by the river. Unfortunately the strategy and goal was a bit unclear, but as we learnt from this we are eager to start similar processes elsewhere, and possibly also at the same spot, another time.

DRIVHUSET One of the main ingredients of Growlab is the little house called Drivhuset. With it we want to explore local potential in the places vi visit, and see if new synergies can evolve. A greenhouse is the symbol of growth. And we want to explore what relations, knowledge and new ideas can grow in our greenhouse. We want to bring in our network for various workshops and other collaborations that are open for anyone to participate in. We will also invite to movie screenings, lectures, network meetings and other events. Follow us on Facebook to get the recent updates! Right now Drivhuset is on the move, but it will the summer of 2013 be located in Bjørvika in Oslo at Herligheten Parseller. More about this in the section «future projects». Because of public regulations in Norway we will set up the house two months at a time, mainly focusing on the summer period. We don’t know how far we will continue the nomadic way of using this great tool, but we see the possibilities of letting it root itself in specific places, where it in the future can expand and develop and perhaps become a center for urban farming in Oslo.

Abels café - Abels hage - ByBi - UrbAct

Geitmyra - Omstill - Geitmy

Biologisk-dynamisk forening

Egeb

Epleslang

Framtiden i Bymiljøet. Grønn Hverdag MESH - Velg Sunt - Restaurant Day

a skolehager ling Sagene yra matkultur-senter

Rodeløkka kolonihager

GrowLAB startup bergløkka (my garden) Mathallen Food Studio våre hender DogA - Norsk Form - Majobo

Rodeløkka småplantelag

Tøyen Senter - Tøyenkontoret - Tøyenkampanjen

Herligheten Parseller

The map shows the network of urban gardening stakeholders in Oslo that Growlab has been in contact or collaborating with so far.

WORKSHOP AT MESH Growlab was spring 2013 invited by the community at MESH to arrange a co-creation workshop for a garden at their tiny 10 m2 roof terrace. Because of our working philosophy we offered MESH to make the design process open to anyone. The two workshops took place on the Sundays of 7th and 14th of April. Totally around 30 different people came. Gardeners, architects, engineers, musicians and other engaged people gathered to explore the potential of urban gardening in small urban spaces as well as working together to come up with good ideas for a garden at MESH. The first workshop focused on envisioning a garden future at MESH. Secondly we thought about what could be the first step towards reaching these, with help from Growlabs urban farming tools. Many very good ideas and prototypes came up in the first one. Between the workshops Growlab developed the designs into three main concepts. Further prototyping and collaborative designing led to three prototypes that will be tested out during the summer. Another output was a garden group that now counts around 25 members (and still growing) from different backgrounds and competencies, and from inside and outside of the MESH community. They will work on, with a start support from Growlab continue developing further solutions for the space as well as towards the visions that was imagined in the first workshop. They have also started sowing and planting what they wish to grow here. Collaborators: Idun Bjerkvik from Biologisk-dynamisk Forening, Ă&#x2DC;ystein Dreyer from Velg Sunt and Adam Scheuring from MESHâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new workshop concept MESH Makers. 21

PARTICIPANTS/GROUPS Mads: Growlab Co-designer and Urban farmer Adam: MeshMakers Technological ngineer

Idun: Biologisk-dynamisk forening Urban farmer, leader

Øystein: Velg Sunt Graphic designer, business manager

Mesh Café

Mesh Thea: designer/journalist Anouk: Eli: architect/engineer architect

Ylenia: Landscape architect Douwe: Dennis: Permaculture designer Art director/advertising

Michelle: Singapore Maren: Marie: Norway Blogger/social media Administrator Katraina: Interaction designer Start-up Italy Grew up on a farm Architect Curious about urban farming Vidar: Want to work with urban farming Green engineering Megan: Graphic design Natural healing Nutrition

Lene: Stina: Musician Architect Olga: Business skills

Anna: Owner of small garden Nurse/teacher Garden designer Builder Volunteer

Laura: Architect Johan: Architect Son of a farmer Handyman

KNOWL Mads: Design processes Basic building Basic gardening Adam: Engineering Basic building

Øys Graphi Coo He

Designing Concept building Constructing Chicken houses

Organize Window gardening Construction details Urban gardening at limited space Singapore

Busin Socia Mar Gar Small gard Org Handyma Drawin Stru Nu Tea Graphic des

TOOLS

Adam: Makers space Tools Helping hand Inspiration

Mads: Ideas+ Building materials Some tools Fuel food Process material Inspiration Guiding

Idun: Radical gardening book Contextual information Guiding Ă&#x2DC;ystein: Smoothies Ideas/inspiration Guiding

Measuring tools Permaculture book 2 inspiration pictures

String + Paper Magazines Scissors Homegrown Chili Egg carton

Camera

2 Macs full of ideas Permaculture book 3 Brain power Sketch book Sketch pen Architectural references Enthusiasm

Mobile phone 2 Sketch paper Knives 2 Measuring tools Seeds Paper for pot making Tools Watering spray Saw

LEDGE Idun: Gardening Historical

stein: ic design oking ealth

Designing Manual labour Ideation Social media Film/photo

ness skills al media rketing dening den solutions ganizing an knowledge ng/design uctural utrition aching sign/marketing

Engineering 2 Designing Urban gardening

A model showing the participation model with all the participants, their skills and tools in the first workshop. The groups filled it out one each to get to know each other.

1. Preparing to prototype. 2. Adam from MESH talking about their new workshop space that we were going to use. 3. What could a MESH garden be in the future? 4. Tour at the garden site. 5. Envisioning and planning. DIY model of the terrace developed by Growlab.

6. Prototyping tools hand picked for the workshop. 7. Introducing the workshop space and urban farming tools and principles developed and curated by Growlab. 8. Prototyping materials. Use your imagination! 9. Groupwork contiuned before prototyping. Guiding.

2nd workshop. 10.Group working with developing prototype. Pre-cut parts by Growlab. 11. Testing prototype on the roof. Rails or just wheels? 12.Exploring the potential of PVC tubes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; leftovers sourced from a construction site in Oslo. 13. Presentation.

After...

Snapshots from the process after the workshops with support from Growlab. Groups continued to build and prototype. 1. Sowing seeds in DIY newspaper. 2. Boxes got handles! 3. A green wall prototype is finally getting ready. The group also wants to explore a self-watering system in this one.

ÂŤThe manifest is a tool for working that can give certain guidelines and restrictions in the process that will make the outcome sharper, more rigorous and consistent. It can also restrict and limit the process.Âť â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Mats&Steinar

MANIFESTO DO. If you don’t do it, you’ll never know. DARE. No risk, no gain. JOIN. Work with others, the more the merrier. TEST. Always prototype and implement. Fast! GO PUBLIC. Reclaim the city! That’s where people are. SHOW OFF. Always take good pics. Maybe also make a video? Spread it! PLAY. Have fun! FLY IN THE DARK. Uncertainty brings you places you never knew you’d know. DONATE. People are going to use your design, give it to them! ACTIVATE. Make some fuzz! Activity creates activity. MORE OUT OF LESS. Reuse. Rethink. Reprogram. What is needed, and what can you make it from? COOK. Food brings people together. NICE. We all like it when things look nice. DREAM. Reach for the future, don’t just wait for it! 33

PART FREEWARE

T II: MANUALS

DONATE

YOUR IDEAS

TODAY! GROWLAB

URBAN FARMING TOOLS Growlab is constantly developing new tools to help urban farmers with growing on places where there is no land. We like to develop our freeware designs and new solutions together with people in the urban farming community. Donate your ideas today! If you want to donate an idea to Growlab we will credit you as a designer in our freeware manuals. Let us know! If you develop an already existing freeware, we will also credit you in the same way. You can do this in two different ways: 1: At home. You can at any time stop by Drivhuset, contact us by e-mail or through our Facebook site to get access to the freeware designs we offer. Feel free to build and experiment with these at home. Either with materials you get yourself, or we can help you with sourcing both the materials and give you access to a workshop. If you find any problems, or new smart solutions, please give us feedback. In this way we can develop the design and give you the help that you need. 2: Workshops. We also want to arrange workshops with our freeware designs. Here we want to challenge the participants to come up with new solutions. The aim of a workshop can be to do a garden setup or just to experiment where you can bring home your own growing module. Urban nature. Our designs are to a high degree based on materials that for others are waste, and many of them are sourced from construction sites and ordinary household waste products. But we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think that waste materials alone can provide optimal solutions for the future, so we mix them with new materials.

GROWTUBES

YOU NEED:

HOW-TO:

This simple construction principle has a lot of potential and can be made into different vertical and also horizontal and modular constructions. It can be mounted on a wall, or be free standing as on the illustration. In the workshop we also experimented with putting it on wheels. Updates will come soon. There are much PVC tubes left overs on construction sites in Oslo, just contact one, and you probably get them for free, in a variation of colours and sizes.

GEOFABRIC BEDS

used with permission: Growtest.com

YOU NEED:

HOW-TO:

This is a smart way of making connected, self-watering grow beds. The geofabric also lets water through if it rains. By making holes in an ordinary hose the water will spread in the soil. Connect it to a water source like a tap or a roof drainage. Connect together, put on the ground or maybe hang?

LEANING SHELF

YOU NEED:

HOW-TO:

A leaning shelf is a simple way of growing vertical. Here you can use whatever growing containers youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like, for instance used packaging, milk cartons, flower pots and so on. Feel free to play with dimensions and materials.

PLANTBAGS

YOU NEED:

HOW-TO:

This is a nice way of making a simple, but strong growing bag out of a reused tarpaulin. They are also cheap to buy in the store. Feel free to experiment with size and colour of the tape.