Posts Tagged ‘toronto’
Not Far From The Tree: Urban Orchard Network
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on March 9th, 2011
© Not Far From The Tree
Not Far From The Tree puts Toronto’s fruit to good use by picking and sharing the bounty.
When a homeowner can’t keep up with the abundant harvest produced by their tree, they let us know and we mobilize our volunteers to pick the bounty. The harvest is split three ways: 1/3 is offered to the tree owner, 1/3 is shared among the volunteers, and 1/3 is delivered by bicycle to be donated to food banks, shelters, and community kitchens in the neighbourhood so that we’re putting this existing source of fresh fruit to good use. It’s a win-win-win situation! This simple act has profound impact. With an incredible crew of volunteers, we’re making good use of healthy food, addressing climate change with hands-on community action, and building community by sharing the urban abundance.
With our first full season in 2008, Not Far From The Tree has grown quickly:
- We transport all of our equipment and fruit by bicycle, keeping our carbon footprint low.
- We were an official part of Nuit Blanche with our all-night cider-pressing art installation, City Cider.
- We participated in 40+ fairs, festivals, and community events across the city this year.
- We ran 12 preserving workshops to extend the harvest year-round and share local food skills.
- We harvest maple syrup from city trees, too, to demonstrate a local winter crop from Toronto trees (see Syrup in the City)
- We will be starting a public fruit tree mapping initiative to be launched in 2011.
- We helped Toronto’s first community orchard become established.
Visit the website to find out more about this very active project http://www.notfarfromthetree.org/
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Water Treatment Facility As Parkland
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on March 30th, 2010
From “Hume: New waterfront park does double duty” by Christopher Hume
When is a park not just a park? When it’s also a water treatment facility.
The best example in this city is taking shape at Sherbourne and Queens Quay. These days, the site doesn’t look especially park-like; in fact, it’s a sea of mud as work crews pour concrete on the enormous channel that will run the full length of the site carrying clean water to Lake Ontario.
The as-yet-unnamed park is one of 14 public spaces already constructed under the aegis of Waterfront Toronto, the agency created in 2001 by the three levels of government to oversee revitalization of Toronto’s old harbour lands. From the start a decade ago, the organization’s strategy has been based on the proposition that if you build the infrastructure, they will come.
But Waterfront Toronto has taken the concept an important step further. As Sherbourne Park – its temporary name – will illustrate so dramatically, in this case, infrastructure won’t just make the area inhabitable, it will itself be inhabitable. This notion of using design to transform a public utility into a public amenity has never made more sense than now. It’s not new, of course, but the idea that everything we build in a city should do double- (even triple-) duty is one whose time has come[....]
The intention was not simply to incorporate an industrial process – storm water purification – into the park, but also to reveal, even celebrate, that process. At a time when Canada’s infrastructure deficit stands at $123 billion, such exposure couldn’t be more welcome. These are the systems, usually out of sight and out of mind, that provide the basic urban functions we take for granted but can no longer afford to do so.
And so Sherbourne Park is also the Sherbourne Park UV Purification Facility. Beneath a pavilion designed by Toronto architect Stephen Teeple, water will undergo ultra-violet treatment. It then flows into the channel through three sculptures that rise nine metres above ground. The channel, which will figure prominently in the stormwater management system for the entire East Bayfront stretching from Yonge to Parliament Sts., also includes a biofiltration bed for further cleansing.
“The days of the singular perspective are over,” argues Vancouver landscape architect Greg Smallenberg. [....] “We are in a new world of collaboration. Today the feeling is that if we have to build something anyhow, why not build something worthwhile. Waterfront Toronto really gets that. The politicians are also getting it, which from my perspective is probably the biggest advancement of the last few years.”
Read the full article by Christopher Hume.
Integration of Community Gardening and Biodiversity
Posted in Models, RDAG by Virginia on June 11th, 2009
Ecological restoration and community gardens have been begrudgingly kept separate from one another. The integration of biodiversity with community gardens has received very little attention, which is surprising seeing that they have both been important contemporary environmental initiatives.
In essence, both these initiatives are interlinked. Biodiversity concerns are due to habitat degradation because of an ever increasing land required for urban developments. Urban developments in turn forces the relocation of land that had been traditionally used for farming into increasing wilderness areas therefore exacerbating biodiversity problems.
The Alex Wilson Community Garden(AWCG) established in Toronto in 1998 sought to rectify the divergence of ecology and community gardens by attempting to consolidate the two goals into one project. In trying to achieve this, the AWCG planted exclusively native species whilst maintaining space for a community garden.
Alex WIlson Community Garden
The AWCG can be used as a model for future community gardens to demonstrate the importance and feasibility of integrating biodiversity values with community garden initiatives.