The Greenhorns Screening and After Party

The Brattle Theater was completely sold out and we had a great after party on the front porch of Gund with local Cheese donated by City Feed and Supply and local beer donated byPretty Things.

A delicious and thoughtful evening that would not have been possible without Mark Winterer from Recover Green Roofs in Somerville and a handful of very special GSD students who came out for the film and helped with the reception- Tessa Kelly, Lindsay Chandler Alexander, Alicia Taylor, Mara Kate Smaby, and Connie Migliazzo. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Finally, Dan, our fearless leader, and his associate performed live music as Cowgill Music !

Some people were unclear on how design and agriculture really fit together but for many, it is precisely the same systemic thinking that draws individuals into both or either fields (pun intended!). One farmer in the film described his education in industrial design as having taught him to "solve problems with his hands, to make things." YES

RURAL SCRAPER

In spite of some questionable representation techniques, interesting proposal for increasing urban farming yield. For the super high rent districts only of course...

"Hungarian practice atelierarchitects proposed 'the ruralscraper', a conceptual highrise structure for the eVolo 2011 skyscraper competition. a response to a projection stating 70% of the global population will live in urban areas, this vertical farm would act as a substitute for the rapidly shrinking amount of arable land throughout the world. energy and land will be saved by moving food resources into city centers placing consumers close to the production source of their daily provisions.

Plastic bag cultivation, glasshouse culture, home gardening, tray method and late field growing occur within the tower's diverse levels. farmers live within integrated houses. Vertical circulation accommodates the various machines and equipment necessary for production and harvesting. prompting social interaction in a communal market setting, awareness is raised about growing methods with the ability to converse with the farmer. tanks for water collection can be redirected for irrigation and turbines generate electricity. glasshouses enable year round production while open air spaces may be used as ice skating rinks for the community."

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/16345/atelierarchitects-the-ruralscraper.html

CFP: Food and the City Conference, Boston University

The Boston University History Department is pleased to host its first Food and the City Conference on Friday, February 24 and Saturday February 25, 2012. This two-day conference welcomes scholars from a broad range of disciplines to explore the history of the relationship between food and cities within a global framework.

Our conference intends to look at the history of the relationship between food and urban populations in ways that may inform our future food systems. More broadly, we will consider food history as an emerging field that brings together scholarship from disciplines such as history, economics, environmental science, technology, anthropology, politics, geography, and archeology. We seek papers that investigate consumer practices, but also encourage proposals that examine the movement of food to and from cities, suppliers and processors, and markets.

What factors shape the transport, storage and delivery of food to cities? How has the supply and storage process changed? How do markets reflect particular social and economic traditions? What influences popular food behavior and attitudes in different cities? Two keynote speakers, Dr. Ken Albala from the University of the Pacific, and Dr. Warren Belasco from the University of Maryland at Baltimore will provide their views of the history of urban food systems from their respective disciplines. Dr. Albala is Professor of History at the University of the Pacific. He is the author of many books on food including Eating Right in the Renaissance, Food in Early Modern Europe, Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, The Banquet, Beans: A History (winner of the 2008 IACP Jane Grigson Award), and Pancake. Dr. Belasco Warren Belasco is a professor of American studies at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. He is the author of Meals to Come: A History of the Future of Food (University of California Press, 2006), Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry (Pantheon Books, 1989; Cornell University Press, 1993, 2007), and Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910–1945 (MIT Press, 1979).
Send a three hundred word abstract and CV by October 1, 2011 to Robyn Metcalfe at history@bu.edu

The Greenhorns Premiere! And Reception at the GSD

Start:

Wednesday, September 28th at 7:00 pm

End:

Wednesday, September 28th at 10:00 pm

Location:

Brattle Theater and Gund Hall

"The Greenhorns" documentary film is directed by Cambridge-born Severine von Tscharner Fleming. This 50-minute look into America's young farmer movement includes interviews with Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, and dozens of emerging young farmer leaders across the country. A panel of young and beginning farmers from the Greater Boston Area will follow the screening at the Brattle Theater. Following that will be an after party for mingling and more discussion at Gund Hall, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

http://harvard.eventplease.com/event.php?eid=294&promote=true