Brilliant inventions usually result when someone asks the right question at the right time. Taja Sevelle, the founder and executive director of Urban Farming, a Detroit-based nonprofit dedicated to eradicating hunger, had just such a query for architect Robin Osler when the two met last year for the first time: If sedum and other non-edible plants thrive on green roofs and walls, why not tomatoes, peppers, and onions? If so, she reckoned, these gardens could supply free, healthy food for economically distressed neighborhoods.
Sevelle had consulted the right person. Osler’s Manhattan-based atelier, Elmslie Osler Architect, created a 2,000-square-foot green wall—the largest in the United States—for the Huntsville, Alabama, location of clothing retailer Anthropologie. After meeting Sevelle, Osler contacted George Irwin, whose firm Green Living Technologies manufactured the Anthropolgie wall system, and discovered that he was already experimenting with how to grow lettuce and other crops vertically. The team quickly came together and dubbed their project the Urban Farming Food Chain. It debuted this summer at four sites in Los Angeles’s Skid Row, a district that contains one of the nation’s largest homeless populations. The sites include a courtyard at the Michael Maltzan-designed Rainbow Apartments, a transitional housing facility for the homeless and mentally ill.
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