Bureau for Open Culture projects To Whom Do You Beautifully Belong and Dewey Decimal Days collide as Tongsue Ly and Matt Flegle, the plot of land founding artists, participate in a crossover project called Reference Collection. As part of this project they drew portriats of their favorite moblie tool librarian. You can find those images here.
A little while ago (so maybe a long while ago), I spent a few hours lounging at the Plot of Land. It was an unexpectedly calming and relaxing experience. I took the time to look for pictures and even did a wee bit of painting. Now that it's getting cooler out, this would be a perfect time to go and spend some time there yourselves! Especially when the leaves turn to their fall colors.... (oh how pretty that will be!)
These are some of the pictures I took while I was there.
It's greener than tailgating, and just as fun. Join the Trust for Public Land and Rebar group on Friday, September 19, in creating a temporary parking park.
The objectives of the project from Rebar's site:
Providing temporary public open space in a privatized part of town. One of the more critical issues facing outdoor urban human habitat is the increasing paucity of space for humans to rest, relax, or just do nothing.
For example, more than 70% of San Francisco's downtown outdoor space is dedicated to the private vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm. Feeding the meter of a parking space enables one to rent precious downtown real estate, typically on a 1/2 hour to 2 hour basis. What is the range of possible occupancy activities for this short-term lease?
PARK(ing) is an investigation into reprogramming a typical unit of private vehicular space by leasing a metered parking spot for public recreational activity.
We identified a site in an area of downtown San Francisco that is underserved by public outdoor space and is in an ideal, sunny location between the hours of noon and 2 p.m. There we installed a small, temporary public park that provided nature, seating, and shade.
Our goal was to transform a parking spot into a PARK(ing) space, thereby temporarily expanding the public realm and improving the quality of urban human habitat, at least until the meter ran out.
San Francisco City Hall with an edible garden.
What we envision and aspire to in our community garden is amplified here in SF Victory Garden 2008 project led by our fellow artist friend, Amy Franceschini, at a much larger scale. Read on for more inspiration.
EC: The kick-off to the Slow Food Nation event here in San Francisco is the planting of an edible ornamental Victory Garden at City Hall whose produce will be donated to local food banks at the end of the summer. What is your artistic vision for this? What do you hope people internalize when they see the garden?
AF: There are two crucial points that should be inherent in the project:
1. City hall/Civic Center should be a place where city politics are visualized, demonstrated, and played out. If the city is supporting urban agriculture, of course there should be a garden in front of city hall demonstrating what they support. Civic center should be an external portrait of what is going on inside and throughout the city.
2. The garden should also highlight the efforts of current garden/urban agriculture practitioners in the community. There is a long-standing movement in the bay area that needs to be honored. The garden should serve as an invitation to meet and witness the practices of these garden organizations. Further it should be a stepping-stone to the home sites of these organizations. The civic center garden should be a place to educate, inspire and trigger participation beyond this central location.
As I was giving the garden a nice deep drink yesterday, I pecked off more than my fair share of grape tomatoes from our vines. Despite the horrible drought and dry ground the last couple of weeks the tomatoes are delicious. They are so delicious, in fact, I found a recipe to put their flavor to use:
In a non-reactive glass bowl toss together the tomatoes, onion, olive oil, lemon juice and parsley or cilantro. Add the avocado and lightly toss. Season to taste with sea salt. Chill if not serving immediately.
Per serving (212g-wt.): 190 calories (140 from fat), 16g total fat, 2.5g saturated fat, 3g protein, 13g total carbohydrate (7g dietary fiber, 4g sugar), 0mg cholesterol, 210mg sodium
Our garden project has transformed an old baren, unused lot into a functional and (though we are a bit biased) beautiful garden. On a much larger scale in Osaka, Japan, architecture and urban planning firm, Jerde, turned an old unused baseball stadium into office and retail space without the eye-sore. The land owners wanted to create a natural intervention in a dense urban area and Jerde delivered Namba Parks. The result is 2.2 acres of lush gardens that, while still a retail space and not just a park, provides some escape from the city. For more images and infromation on the project look here.
*Also worth mentioning is that having a green roof, or garden on a roof can lower a building's temperature 7-8 degrees farenheit!
Sidewalk Garden from East Bay Pictures on Vimeo.
If you've got a sidewalk, you've got a garden! (drum circle not included)
A website called Eat The View! is encouraging everyone to start urban gardens in high profile spaces. By integrating "edible-ized" landscapes into governor's lawns, town hall backyards, and even the White House, Eat The View! organizers feel we can send a positive message, in a high-profile way, about how good clean food can be grown on your own terms. To sign a petition for an urban garden to be started on the White House lawn go here. This petition will be presented to the next president elect.
hello from Florida! I just wanted to say quick thank you to Jim and Danny for being so awesome to work with. I'll miss working with you guys so much...
I think To Whom Do You Beautifully Belong? is a wonderful project, and it has inspired me to learn more about gardening. My husband has quite a bit of experience, so I convinced him to help me start a garden in Florida! Today we weeded, and then bought some compost to mix in with the soil. The ground here is very different than the soil in Columbus: It's mostly sand and you need to add nutrients to it to be able to get good results. It's nice though, because roots easily come up out of the soil! We then planted some zuchinni, string beans, mint, kale, eggplant, carrots, and broccoli rab. So the hot Florida sun doesn't dry up our newly planted seeds, we put hay in the bed to hold moisture. We plan on making one more bed in the next couple of days. On the other side of the second bed we're going to make there is a blackberry patch!
But what I'm really excited about is that there are crows that will eat our seedlings...so we get to make a SCARECROW!!! yay! that's gonna be fun.
Oh and you should feel lucky in Ohio: there was a black widow spider in the hay bale we had today! it was pretty...but scary
bye for now!
Katy