From co-design to breaking ground: Project BUG work party

photo credits: Ian Marcuse

A year ago, GWFC asked us to help engage teens in the design of their school garden. Community organizer Ian Marcuse led this process which included the participation of UBC SCARP and Evergreen. Recently, GWFC organized a workparty and the youth who participated in the co-design all pitched in. In all, about 100 youth participated in the build party, assisted by Environmental Youth Alliance.


"When commenting on their experience, students highlighted that they enjoyed the drawing out or “co-designing” of the project, helping with the design, and in particular “the collaborative effort with members of the community and other students within their community schools”. For students, the planning process was one of “creation of the gardens, just watching them come to life”, which leads directly into the hopes and aspirations these students have for the garden in the future. There was a resounding hope from students that they can see this garden to completion in the near future."


Project BUG final report , prepared by Ian Marcuse, Grandview Woodland Food Connection
Zsuzsi Fodor and Erica Lay, UBC School of Community and Regional Planning June, 2011

Britannia Garden Club students win Queen of Green most unique project

all photos by Ian Marcuse, Grandview Woodland Food Connection

An earth day parade organized by youth for youth converged on Britannia Secondary.  Britannia Garden Club was awarded the Queen of Green award, amongst other awards, for most unique project!   Project BUG 's  design participation was a big part of this.  Youth members of the garden club made seed bombs beside their co-design drawings.  Congratulations to the dedicated students involved, and to Ian Marcuse, community organizer of GWFC.   Check out this inspiring Earth day event.

Flickr set of photos for project BUG's display here  and video of the parade here

Project BUG Digital Story

Grandview Woodland Food Connection put together a draft slideshow on Project BUG part 1 .  Stanley narrated this, summarizing the co-design process in a nutshell.  We are privileged to be a part of this process which is a collaboration between GWFC, UBC SCARP students and Co-Design. The purpose is to design a food garden and to demonstrate a participitory design process.

Project BUG next step

Project BUG, organized by Grandview Woodland Food Connection moved into the next design stage today.  Flickr set of photos here.  Students examined the data gathered from the community input.  All the co-design drawings were rated by the community:  Students, parents, teachers and community members had an opportunity to vote on their desired features.  Erin, from SCARP, facilitated a session where groups of students walked through the site and marked their ideas on a plan.  The purpose of the session was to synthesize all the ideas into a plan for the three garden sites.  Dolores Altin, a landscape architect from Evergreen Learning Grounds,  gave students a presentation on food security and garden design.  She showed examples of school food gardens in BC, and emphasized that design of a space is an on-going process.  Followup to this, (update, Oct 2011): The Build party occurred  Fall of 2011

all the features of the drawing were rated "I love it, go for it", "needs more designing" or "this belongs elsewhere".  Today, students considered the features that received a high rating from the community.

Dolores discussing priorities for the design

students learn strategies for overcoming bureaucratic hurdles

Erin displaying the plan for the site

Erin demonstrates a shadow study for the garden site

Stanley facilitates discussion of design ideas in one group during the site walk: "Ask yourself what would you be doing here?"

UBC SCARP community engagement and "neighbourliness"

This video summarizes a design event focused on co-designing the future of the Britannia Centre. Facilitated by Maged Sembel's classes from UBC's School of Community and Regional Planning.  In part, it features the co-design work of Stanley King. 

Note the richness of citizen ideas as partcipants express a desire for an integrated  neighbourhood of  diversity, creativity, and affordable living.  Co-design images emerge showing pedestrian spaces for every age group, and activities relating to art, food security and community. 

At the end of the video, a cameo of Ray Spaxman, former director of planning for the City of Vancouver, and a champion of "neighbourliness":

"Ray Spaxman was recruited as city planner by Vancouver's leadership in 1973, when the public was in full flight from the excesses of modernism and out-of-control development.  Only a decade and a half previously, the tallest building in the West End was the Sylvia Hotel. ("Dine in the Sky" said the sign on the roof.) And not many people thought several hundred concrete slabs had really improved our urban ambience all that much.  

Spaxman was responsible for changing the way planning and development was done in this city -- and he summed it up in one word: "neighbourliness." A building had to be respectful of its neighbours, and of the citizens on the street.  

Buildings, in other words, had to be more than sculptural objects on vacant plazas -- "pigs in space," as some planners call them. It didn't matter how "iconic" a building was if it selfishly ignored the urban environment in which it dwelt."

        

 -- Gordon Price, "It Takes One Icon to Know Another", Vancouver Sun, Web.


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Project BUG

Grandview Woodland Food Connection asked Stanley and Susan to help facilitate a youth program  in Vancouver.  Using some of the techniques described in the Youth Manual,  students shared their ideas for how they wish to experience a community garden on school grounds.  Here is the flickr set of photos  as well as the follow-up session here and, later a build party for the new student garden

Stanley is facilitating a drawing with youth participants

Susan invites participants to create a city on the wall

participants create a city out of wilderness

Desired personal experience and perceptions noted on this drawing

Day in the Life of the Garden, a graffiti wall.

Susan draws youth harvesting mushrooms on a cob house, at the direction of the participants

Drew Ferrari facilitating a collaborative design dialogue.  This sequence of drawings took less than an hour. activities and features are dictated precisely by participants.  

the collaborative drawing is now complete and features are numbered for voting