Title:  COMMUNITY AS A GARDEN - Creating a new development paradigm that reinforces our connection to each other as well as the environment.

Project Statement: 

Our lives have become extremely fast-paced and, socially, we have become slaves to new technologies that claim to be able to increase our connectivity to each other. Rather than being connected, we have, instead, become more isolated and less capable of relating to each other in the real world on a day-to-day basis. The senior population has been especially hard hit by the advancing technology and has responded by withdrawing with increased reports or isolation, loneliness and depression.

Overall, we have become more of a society of spectators rather than participants and, in doing so, we’re missing out on the rich relationships that can develop with face-to-face interaction and the communality of shared experiences and the intimacy of authentic friendships.

What we gain in technological advances seems to result in the sacrificing of our ability to build and maintain relationships.

From the war-time and Depression era victory, liberty and relief gardens, urban agriculture and community gardens have long been important parts of American and International culture. These spaces and the activities contained therein meet economic, social, psychological and environmental needs and have earned a reputation as a vital amenity of the urban fabric.

Using food and community agriculture as the common thread for relationship building, I will examine, through design, various ways to create more opportunities for social interaction.