Urban Farm Design
Urban farm design can be a fun and rewarding process for the community and individual. At the beginning it is important to ask yourself some fundamental questions about your site. Is it a community space or a within a private development. Who will manage the space day to day and how much time will be allocated to this? Will you go for a more low maintenance perennial, permaculture system or traditional allotment style? Will you keep livestock and if so is there a contingency if the person who cares for them becomes sick.
When you have a defined your set of rules and parameters from your questions you can start brainstorming on the elements you want to have and where they can be positioned. At this stage it is important to do an in depth site analysis and survey. The success of urban farming depends upon working to your site strengths and orientation. Write down the headings STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OBSTACLES and CONSTRAINTS. Start to list the particulars of these for your urban farm. Try to identify if you have a wet site or well drained. Sunny or part shade, is your site exposed to harsh winds or sheltered? Do you have a suntrap or micro climate that will enable warmer loving plants? Do you have close neighbours that will be disturbed by chickens clucking? I would always recommend analysing the history of your site use for possible incidents of polluting contaminants of at least obtaining a soil sample for dangerous metals.
Once you have identified all of the opportunities and constraints of your site you can start to plan. At this point it is good to try and identify the main circulation of the urban farm. How will people move through it, what potential equipment, machinery will need access for specific tasks? How will the individual elements of the farm relate to each other? Will the chicken enclosure be near the composting or uphill from the vegetable beds so any fertility from their dung can be easily moved to feed your vegetables? If yours is a community urban farming venture is your site going to meet health and safety requirements?
The design and planning of any new garden proposal is a fun process but if you are seriously thinking of planning a new urban farming project there are two books I highly recommend for this:
For literature on more the ethics of Harmonious ecological design and how analyse the interrelationships of garden elements. Permaculture Design: A Step By Step Guide breaks these down in a clear and thought provoking way:
For literature on more the ethics of Harmonious ecological design and how analyse the interrelationships of garden elements. Permaculture Design: A Step By Step Guide breaks these down in a clear and thought provoking way:
An absolute bible when it comes to urban farming is Designing Urban Agriculture by April Phillips. The book covers everything from planning, designing, funding but even maintenance and management of urban food production systems. Here you will find every feature of urban farming including vertical gardens, roof gardens and edible cityscapes.
Case Studies
The Kodak sustainable living community & Urban Farm, Harrow, London, UK
This was a design proposal I submitted via my ecological landscape design practice Ecospaces http://www.eco-spaces.co.uk/ In the proposal I integrated public park land which regularly flooded into a sustainable living community through a central urban farming zone with private and public allotments. The proposal attempted to combine ecological habitat with forest garden food production planting. The holistic concept was to create a sustainable living environment for wildlife and people.
The Mayland Business Park and Permaculture Urban Farm, Hertfordshire, UK
This was a proposal for a new business park with ecological parkland running through realising the potential of the localities water table. The central waterways would be a breeding ground for edible fish and aquacultures with wild forest garden edible planting creating edible wilderness zones. There were also areas allocated for urban farming with allotments and livestock enclosures.