IDES322 - Farm Philly

Being that we had our last class meeting today for studio, it was important that we took some time to evaluate our progress in this project.  Next week is our final critique, and we’ve been preparing pretty rigorously for the big day.

We broke this project up into three distinct phases.

PHASE 1 consisted of research-intensive class meetings, during which the entire class crammed as much information on urban agriculture as we could handle into our heads.  This was probably the most important phase of the project.  Since we didn’t break into groups at this point yet, we were researching all aspects of urban farming, and it wasn’t until phase two that we knew we’d be honing in on our wastewater management research.

PHASE 2 broke the class up into specialized teams that would focus on different topics (see the navigation bar above).  The main point of phase 2 was to establish a client for each team, so that we would be able to work with someone within the Philadelphia community and get some real feedback on our projects.  Jared, Paul, Christiaan, and I became the wastewater management team, which we quickly changed to Aquatherapy.  We met with Mill Creek Urban Farm and they cited a need on their farm.  The water from their sink, which washes hands and vegetables, was installed to be diverted into a huge, dark cistern buried underground.  To them, the cistern was a mystery.  It was decided through conversation with the managers of the farm that the cistern was either bigger than expected and not full yet, or (more likely); that it has been overflowing and leaching into the ground.

The need was established, and the design process was underway to adapt what we had learned and tested to their site.  Mill Creek’s aesthetic really led us to use repurposed containers for this site-specific version of our natural filtration system concept.  This phase is still live and can be followed on this blog.  We are currently still digging up the hill in order to make room for our gravity-fed natural filtration system.  We plan on finishing installation over the summer, out of class time.

PHASE 3 of our project addresses the other deliverable for the class project. We were to make a manufacturable, and easily replicated version of our concept that could be sold to people who were interested in these topics we looked at within urban agriculture.  This phase, for us, was difficult because we had been so focused on installation at Mill Creek.  We had been talking about this and sketching out some thoughts, but all the serious design happened more recently.  We went with a modern pond aesthetic that people could buy for their back yards or decks.  Within city regulations, the system is scaled up and can handle an average household’s grey water from their showers, sinks, washer, and dishwasher.