A project presentation for the AvantGarden created by team Bohemian AvantGardeners.
The project was competing in the 1st edition of Design the Ultimate Urban Greenhouse challenge organised by Wageningen University & Research in 2018.
The final submission is available for download from here.
Note: A majority of the following content is a summary of the included submission file.
The explosion in urban growth presents opportunities as well as challenges to our environment and our food systems. Many cities start looking for ways to feed themselves sustainably and to create a liveable, healthy environment for urban dwellers. To support these developments, Wageningen University & Research was organising a Student Challenge to "Design the Ultimate Urban Greenhouse". Multidisciplinary student teams were challenged to bring professional food production (back) into an urban neighborhood, connecting it with local resource flows an smart energy systems. The design had to be based on an existing location in Amsterdam: the former Bijlmer prison in the Bajes Kwartier. It had to encourage citizens to actively engage with the sustainable production and consumption of healthy food. Teams' business plans had to show which values are created and prove that the proposal is worth investing in. The Challenge integrated social, economic, environmental and technical aspects.
Photo source 1, Photo source 2
"A place where we grow and buy healthy food, learn new skills, find meaningful employment, celebrate, meet, and develop a sense of purpose in our community."
"We wish to create a positive change in the lifestyle, attitude and knowledge of our community and through doing, inspire communities around the world to do the same."
Natural systems develop in a succession. A barren field left undisturbed for long enough will become a forest, but this of course doesn't happen overnight. Ecosystems take time to mature and have several stages that are not always linear. First, pioneer plants, often called "weeds", rush to heal wounds in the earth, sending long tap roots into the ground, drawing nutrients from below and holding the topsoil in place. Organic matter accumulates, shrubby plants begin to grow, offering more niches for life, increasing the flow of nutrients. Slowly, a forest emerges from what was once naked earth; a self sustaining, stable ecosystem, built and supported by a vast network of plants, mycelium, earthworms, birds, and animals. In turn, the forest provides food, shelter, energy, water, shade, and tranquility.
We look at the Bajes Kwartier and see bare soil, but envision the full functioning forest ecosystem it will become. Designing an urban greenhouse isn’t enough. So we asked ourselves: “How do we build a resilient community from the ground up around healthy food production, that is equitable for all involved, and whose members are directly invested in its survival?” To answer this question we can’t be concerned with one-way consumer transactions. What we present is a thoughtfully designed actionable plan which has the potential to create real change for a quarter, a city, and beyond.
The AvantGarden can be divided into several parts which meet the needs of the different people and activities we address in our community:
AvantFarm
At the AvantFarm we produce essential nutrition, primarily for ourselves, the community of the B²COOP. We seek in every way to mimic nature. We designed a holistic food web connecting independent, but mutually beneficial cycles of aquaponics, plants, mushrooms, and insects. We wholeheartedly support aquaponics as a source of nutrients rather than any synthetic solution. Aquaponics allows a truly circular model of production through which we manage to capture, supply, and recirculate nutrients for our ecosystem while creating value in all its stages.
AvantMarket
The AvantMarket is where the harvest arrives to supply essential healthy food to the citizens of the Bajes Kwartier. The harvest comes from the AvantGarden, but not exclusively. Some products, such as wheat, can be produced in our system but make much more sense to grow outdoors at a different scale. Therefore, we seek to cooperate for high-nutritional produce, sourced locally and responsibly, rather than compete and disrupt the local business environment. The AvantMarket is designed as a farmer’s market held year round. Each stand in the AvantMarket tells the story of the farmer. B²COOP provides the space for the stand and B²COOPmembers-employees work as the cashiers, stock managers and cleaners of the market.
AvantCommunity
“If niches are opportunities in space, cycles are opportunity in time” (Mollison, 1988). The AvantGarden is full of both kinds of opportunities to accommodate a wide range of activities and meet the needs and wishes of all our AvantCommunity. Not a single space in the common area of the AvantGarden is used for only one purpose. We have a cowork hub, which can be used as study space or library as well, kids playground which becomes a summer cinema & event space, green meeting rooms used either for classes or business meetings, a hackerspace where people can build and experiment, and a public kitchen easily transformed into a dinner party room. Apart from spaces of the AvantGarden that are accessible based on membership or rent, there are some public areas: "The Hill" and the rooftop Permagarden Café.
AvantWorld
As the building and its community grows, it transforms its surroundings and beyond. The profits of from the AvantGarden are invested back into B², creating an edible quarter filled with fruit trees and berry bushes and community events. We aspire to be the model for other urban neighborhoods and through our B²Apprentice program we will create a network of village communities springing up in urban areas of Amsterdam and around the AvantWorld.
We borrow our overarching philosophy from permaculture, where cooperation is the basis of existing life systems and future survival. With that in mind, we have designed a multi-stakeholder cooperative B²COOP: a cooperative of citizens living in the Bijlmer Bajes (B²), the AvantGardeners, other local farmers and small businesses, working together to build lasting relationships based upon fair prices and wages, and forming community in a common effort to provide the essentials for a healthy, fulfilling life.
B²COOP is the legal organization that embodies the ethical principles guiding the succession to a resilient community around the AvantGarden. By investing into B²COOP, you invest directly into your community, lifestyle and neighborhood prosperity. In return you receive healthy food, and the opportunity to be apart of something bigger than yourself. All of the profits of B²COOP are reinvested back into the AvantGarden mission, supporting community development and slowly bringing change to the way urban areas feed themselves.
Around the world we see a monoculture of food production, but also of culture. To avoid this, we have devised a local currency, B²Coin. Each of us in B²COOP can either invest money or time into the community, and running of the AvantGarden. There are many opportunities to obtain ownership through work, all creating social value, increasing employment, and lowering costs. B²Coin circulates within the kwartier; the money you pay employs your neighbor who then buys your crafts, and so on.
The AvantGarden project was created by a team students of Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague named The Bohemian AvantGardeners.
Individually we specialise in various fields of agriculture, waste management, economics, social dynamics, and architecture, but as a team it gave us a unique opportunity to understand the future of food production better. We believe that behind real changes stands a cooperation of many and that answers can be found through building human-scale solutions. The nature inspires us to experiment and develop spaces that make people and environment healthier.
| Name | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Lucie Dudáková | Team coordinator |
| Jiří Bartoš | AvantFarm design, economics, financial analysis |
| Veronika Tůmová | AvantFarm design, aquaponics production design, economics |
| Brett Gallagher | Cooperative system design, economic model, mushrooms production design |
| Lucie Hladíková | Permaculture rooftop design, social embedding |
| Michaela Sedláková | Circularity, enegry and water systems, social embedding |
| Anna Pereponova | Snail production design |
| Karolína Pumprová | Plant production design |
| Matyáš Smutný | Insect production design |
| Jakub Med | Architecture |
| Johana Šimčíková | Architecture |
We would like express special thanks to our university Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, namely Ing. Dana Výlupková and prof. PhDr. Michal Lošťák, Ph.D. for their project support.
Also we would like to sincerely thank experts who were willing to listen to our ideas and gave us a constructive feedback, namely to Ing. Vratislava Janovská Ph.D., MSc Vojtěch Vosecký, Mgr. Jan Richtr, Ing. Arch Vratislav Danda, RNDr. Oldřich Vacek, CSc., Lucie Sovová, Ing. Martin Kulma and Ing. Jiří Patoka.