A project enabled by a 2022 RSA Catalyst Grant to teach green skills to the next generation and improve food security and quality of life for under-served communities.
Everything Grows is a prototype for a self-sustaining modular food-production system suited for any estate or urban community with limited space. It turns building waste into a resource, household food waste into a garden nutrient, and rain into a watering source. Each element of the project builds agency to see existing assets as resources ready for new use. The vertical garden’s installation on stakes instead of drilling to walls works the most common limitations to growing food – space and land use permissions.
The project’s partnering housing estate is in the middle of a rapidly gentrifying area in danger of becoming a food desert. Everything Grows will let the community to grow their own culturally specific food without digging into shared spaces. The project will give members of the multicultural, multigenerational community skills to use their food waste, spaces, materials, and natural resources in new ways to improve their lives, and will teach children and young adults how an abundance of creativity can overcome a perception of limitations.
The permaculture-based design approach will focus on growing food used in traditional cultural dishes. This will not only increase their food security but also create a catalyst for sharing and understanding cultures through the great common denominator – food.
For more information, contact Scott Burnham: scottburnham [at] gmail [.] com
