Associazionismo americano

di Paola Tonizzo

A New York, l’associazione Greenthumb è stata avviata in risposta alla crisi finanziaria negli anni settanta che ha causato l’abbandono dei terreni agricoli sia pubblici che privati. L’organizzazione ha adottato e ristrutturato questi lotti liberi e oggi sostiene il progetto di oltre 600 orti urbani. Sono i residenti del quartiere ora a gestire gli orti, fornendo importanti risorse come gli spazi verdi che incentivano un miglioramento della qualità dell’aria, biodiversità e benessere, una considerevole risorsa per la comunità. Greenthumb organizza workshop con frequenza mensile per favorire la partecipazione civica e per l’organizzazione di comunità tematiche. Oltre a produrre dispense alimentari programma laboratori didattici e feste di quartiere. Gli spazi Greenthumb sono in tutti i quartieri della città, sotto le molteplici forme di spazi relax, zone di incontro o veri e propri allevamenti.
Dati forniti dalla National Gardening Association (Nga) denotano un incremento, dal 2006 al 2007, del 25% delle spese per la coltivazione in proprio. Nel 2008 la spesa è stata di 2 miliardi e mezzo di dollari. 

Public farm at P.S.1

Public Farm 1 is a project designed by WORK Architecture Company for MoMA and P.S.1's Young Architects Program. Public Farm 1 will be on view in P.S.1's outdoor courtyard beginning June 20, 2008 for the 2008 WARM UP music series. Public Farm 1 will function as an urban farm while providing an outdoor social space for the summer.
P.F.1 will combine playful programs with educational ones, creating a sense of community around the shared experience of growing food. Bringing sustainable construction together with sustainable agriculture, P.F.1 will be built entirely of recyclable materials, be 100% solar-powered and will utilize rain collection for irrigation. P.F.1 is formed as a folded plane made from cardboard tubes, designed to hold planters for vegetables, herbs and fruit. While most of the tubes create an elevated canopy for shade, some tubes extend to the ground to become columns. Each column holds a different program, from seating to sound environments to a mobile phone charging column and even a juice bar at the farmers market.

P.F.1’s intent is to educate thousands of visitors on sustainable urban farming through the unique medium of contemporary architecture. The P.F.1 project has already received tremendous attention and a number of New York institutions will participate. The Queens County Farm Museum (QCFM) is providing guidance and green house space, the Horticultural Society of New York (HSNY) is growing additional plants through its GreenHouse program on Rikers Island and its Green Team will assist with the maintenance of the farm throughout the summer. The Council on the Environment of New York (CENYC) has assisted with the design and installation of the water collection system and organizing a weekly farmers market at P.S.1 to accompany the Warm Up parties on Saturdays.

Public Farm 1

Above the Pavement—The Farm! is a smorgasbord. Based on P.F.1 (Public Farm 1)—a temporary working urban farm and social space built within a cardboard structure rising over 30 feet high, filled with 19 tons of experimental soil, and featuring more than 50 varieties of plants and vegetables—this book explains the literal nuts and bolts of what might appear at the outset an impossibly utopian endeavor. Architects WORKac designed and organized P.F.1 for MoMA’s P.S.1 2008 Young Architects Program with the ambition of creating a new type of sustainable urban infrastructure, producing its own power, reclaiming rainwater, and creating sustenance. This was done with the help of more than 150 collaborators including farmers, politicians, horticulturists, technicians, soil scientists, architecture students, and artists. These participants’ oral histories form the bulk of this book’s narration, demystifying a fast-paced, complex collaborative process.

P.F.1 is also situated here within a delectable range of ideas and issues found at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and food. Artist and “Edible Estates” activist Fritz Haeg muses on the relationship between architecture and the land. Architectural historian Meredith TenHoor presents a selection of architect-designed farms from the 18th century to the present. MVRDV’s Winy Maas discusses the role of the visionary in today’s cities with WORKac’s Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. As a final treat, readers will find a P.F.1-inspired vegetable salad recipe by the Gramercy Tavern’s Head Chef Michael Anthony.