Countway Community Garden
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Countway Community Garden Longwood Medical Area, Fall 2016 Boston, MA Inside Your Mission The Countway Community 4 Garden Redesign the Countway Community Garden on Specifics about the place & important background Harvard’s Longwood Medical Campus by addressing preexisting and future environmental Core Design Pillars 6 The significance of Health, and community challenges. Use your diverse Sustainability & Knowledge expertise to provide innovative, thoughtful, and Generation in this challenge fabulous solutions to this Key Design Challenges 7 underutilized space. The goal Outlines a majority of key of the Re(Design) Innovation challenges the Countway Community Garden faces Challenge is to unite the Harvard schools in a common Appendices 13 effort of creating a usable, Additional information to help your design sustainable, urban garden. BEHSC Built Environment & Health Student Consortium at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health 12 Re(Design) Innovation Challenge If you look at history, innovation doesn't come just from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect. Steven Johnson Here’s the Situation In Spring of 2016, Harvard Medical Sustainability, Built Environment and School’s office of Campus Planning and Health Student Consortium at the Facilities initiated multiple projects to Harvard Chan School, Countway ensure accessibility throughout the Community Garden, Campus Security, campus. One of several projects and the Harvard Longwood Bicyclists. includes constructing an ADA These key stakeholders saw an accessibility ramp connecting Harvard opportunity in the CCG and felt it was Medical School to the Harvard T.H. Chan necessary to preserve this area as a School of Public Health Campus. The community space. Recognizing that location of this ramp will eventually result Harvard students and staff would be in the displacement of an existing using the space most, it became clear covered bicycle storage cage. The bike that their perspective and knowledge cage, one of six, is critical to the was essential to leveraging the full Longwood campus, which has more potential of the space. cyclists proportionally to Harvard’s Cambridge campus. As they began HMS Campus Planning has currently set thinking about potential locations for the no budget for this project but are deeply bike rack, the Countway Community interested in incorporating innovative Garden (CCG) became an area of insights from student designs into the discussion. The proposed relocation future of the space. resulted the engagement of diverse stakeholders including the Office for 2 Re(Design) Innovation Challenge This is where you come in. In teams of 4-5 students, you are tasked with providing an innovative redesign of the CCG that promotes health, increases sustainability, and supports knowledge generation for the users of the garden. This is incredibly important as the Longwood Medical Area (LMA) and the greater city of Boston will be impacted by changes in sea level, the frequency and severity of precipitation, and extreme temperatures as a result of climate change over the next few decades. When thinking of how to improve and expand the Countway Community Garden, it will be imperative to plan for a The History of the changing climate in order to meet the Longwood Medical Area needs of the garden today and in the (LMA) is rooted in urban agriculture future. practices and tremendous The specific requirements for team advancements in medicine and health. submission are listed at the end of this Until the 1930s, cows lived on the campus case. They are also listed on the in order to provide uncontaminated milk Re(Design) Innovation Challenge for kids being treated at Children’s webpage. Hospital. In 1941, Arnold Arboretum and the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy started a medicinal plant garden “We’re excited about the opportunities featuring over 380 different species of that the Re(Design) Innovation Challenge medicinal plants in order to promote provides the students and community of learning and research (1). Today, the the Longwood Medical Area. We look LMA hosts teaching hospitals, research forward to incorporating the student centers, Harvard’s medical, public voice and their innovative ideas into health, and dental school, as well as 2.6 future design changes of this space. million patients a year and more than Furthermore, we hope that this model can 110,000 staff and visitors each day. To be replicated in future campus space optimize the cramped 213-acre planning decisions. Good luck to all the neighborhood for health facilities, much teams!” of the historical green space has been sacrificed, being replaced with MICHAEL MCGOWAN, HMS INTERIM DEAN pavement and bricks. OF CAMPUS PLANNING & FACILITIES 3 1 Re(Design) Innovation Challenge The Countway Community How the CCG Came to Be Garden The CCG began in 2010 as Founded in 2011 by a group of library staff, the CCG is a every great idea begins—as a collectively maintained community garden located conversation amongst friends. alongside Countway Library in a sunken patio space, A “Salad Club” had formed at colloquially known as the “The Countway Moat.” The space the Countway Library, where is bordered by the library building on the northwest side and colleagues brought in fresh by inclining 8ft cement walls on the remaining sides. The SE produce to share during their and SW walls are topped with wire fences. The floor of the lunch break. This appreciation “moat” is paved with pale bricks. There is no soil beneath the for fresh veggies sparked the bricks; instead the floor of the “moat” sits atop the roof of question--wouldn’t the ideal be to grow food right here at the subbasement of the library, specifically the Center for the library? There were the History of Medicine’s rare book stacks. In this respect, the opportunities for lots of CCG is really a rooftop garden, despite the fact that it is at partnerships because Harvard ground level. Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The garden is primarily accessible through a wide, L-shaped and the MCPHS were located alleyway between the Countway Library and Brigham and so close to the library. Women’s Hospital. In 2001, this alleyway was blocked off with a metal fence and locked. After the initiation of the Initial meetings amongst Garden, the fence’s padlock was changed to a keypad volunteers were informal, but and the code was given to the garden volunteers. In quickly began to include key addition to the alleyway entrance, there are two other stakeholders, such as facilities, access points to space: a stone staircase that leads from the security staff, and even the floor of the “moat” to the Countway Parking lot on Harvard Community Garden. Huntington Ave, and a locked gate on the SW end of the A formal proposal was crafted; space that leads to the rest of campus. organizers pitched a space they were interested in—an The CCG is the only garden affiliated with a Harvard library unused, under utilized, locked and it maintains connections to Massachusetts College of patio space near the library. Pharmacology and Health Sciences (MCPHS) and the The proposal included how the Boston Natural Areas Network/Trustees of the Reservation. garden would be laid out, the The Garden is maintained by a group of roughly 20 governance, funding volunteers including staff, faculty, and students from Harvard requirements, and benefits to Medical School, the Harvard Chan School, and Harvard the community/opportunities School of Dental Medicine. The current garden is comprised for education and use. In of 17, wooden raised beds of various sizes and depths. general they found there to be Gardeners privately grow their own vegetables, herbs, and a lot of support for the project flowers. Spaces managed communally include, one large and thus, CCG came to be. medicinal herb bed and two smaller strawberry bed, as well as small pots containing tomatoes, mint, chamomile, and 4 23 Re(Design) Innovation Challenge (Continued) basil. In the past, plants, tools, and soil were decades, the garden will experience either donated, bought for a reduced rate, temperatures that are higher than it has or were reused materials (i.e. old experienced in the past. bookshelves from the library. The space also features a metal pergola (8x10ft), a plastic As the effects of climate change continue, tool shed (5x5ft), a compost bin, and three the Northeast United States will experience round metal tables with chairs and increased heavy rainfall events. Since 1958, umbrellas. there has been a 70% increase in the how much rain the Northeast United States receives during a single heavy precipitation Why is this Case event, and this is projected to continue to Important? increase in the future [1]. This means that although the greater Boston area may Though the Re(Design) Challenge lasts just receive fewer precipitation events, those one month, your concept submissions may that will occur may bring more rain in a have long lasting impacts on future users of shorter period of time, leading to increased the CCG and Harvard’s Longwood flooding potential [2]. Campus. Given this, designs should not only account for previous and current These issues are just a couple of examples of environmental and social conditions but the environmental change that will impact also the dynamic and complex future the Garden. Due to these realities, in your realities. proposals it is essential to consider three core pillars: Health, Sustainability and As we look toward the near future, average Knowledge Generation. These elements summer and spring temperatures are have the ability to protect and promote the expected to increase upwards of 2 degrees wellbeing of the social and environmental Fahrenheit, with winter temperatures quality of CCG by reducing daily and long- increasing 2.5 - 4 degrees Fahrenheit by term stressors.