Lafayette Greens: Urban Agriculture, Urban Fabric, Urban Sustainability

By

Kenneth Weikal Landscape Architecture, Farmington Hills, MI

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Image: Beth Hagenbuch BLA

“They broke the mold on how to create for the long term with a contemporary language. It raises the issue of the importance of accessibility to fresh produce in the inner city. This strikes such a great balance of design, scale, and economy that it makes a good model. And it’s great that it’s so visible right downtown. ”

—2012 Professional Awards Jury

用现代的语言打破传统的束缚，用伟大的设计平衡规模与经济，在城市中提供新鲜的农产品。太棒了，对城市腹地极其有价值。

2012年专业奖评审委员会

▲ 基地平面

方兴未艾的城市农场出现在底特律市中心的某个广场。有形且有功能的菜园富有成效的在公共空间中表达出魅力—都市农业纳入城市空间成为城市美丽有趣的生活方式之一。

这片面积只有0.425英亩的花园补缺了2010年拆掉的拉斐特大厦那令人沮丧的空缺，这里濒临金融区，周围异常繁忙，但是花园成功的营造出一片积极的绿色空间。

客户希望这个花园包含木床，树皮路，儿童的游乐空间。设计经过层层发展，最后演变成为一个使用可持续性材料，具有儿童教育意义的都市农业园区。景观设计师考虑美学，环境，生产力，经济等等各种问题，让这片都市农业园成功的融入复杂的城市，成为一个公共的绿色社会空间，同时也是一个多功能的社区花园。

经过日常研究和行人穿越路径进行了高出地面的植物种植槽摆放。这里布置了超过200种的蔬菜水果以及草药和鲜花，提供了许多休息座位，鼓励公众使用这片空间。在繁华的城市环境中使用了平气凝神的薰衣草。强烈的几何平面从大楼高处俯瞰也非常漂亮。几何，但是却有机，自然，充满生命的力与美。

这个可持续的花园地面有70%的面积是可渗水的砾石，草坪，地面。草坪有耐旱的高羊茅组成。场地内配置高效率的灌溉系统。将废弃的人行道破碎成碎石再利用。利用再生木材。此外儿童花园的花盆是以前装食物用的钢桶。密集的植物种植使得花园的生产力大幅提高。

这个花园更是一个教育圣地，人们在公共空间自然的参与学习，种植，栽培，采摘。在这里可以了解粮食系统和体验季节的变迁。这里美丽，前沿，富有教育价值。这个几何造型强烈的花园对孩子们有着强大的吸引力。黑莓，向日葵，还有五颜六色的迷宫小花盆整列。不同高度的花盆让儿童可以轻易接触到植物。而这些植物的信息从色彩，质地，气味到形式都在花盆边缘做了标注。花园的一侧安放着三个花棚。

这个都市农业景观花园增强了城市体验，建立了景观，食品，环境这三者之间的相互关系的楷模。相信在食物安全的压力之下，都市农业的成长还有很大的空间。这个项目在各方面都表现优异。美丽，可持续，高效而完美的融入城市之中。

Interest and excitement about urban farming is gaining momentum. This corporate sponsored urban garden brings urban agriculture, community gardening, productive landscapes and the entire conversation about the food movement into the heart of downtown Detroit. A productive vegetable garden that also functions as an engaging public space, it is a tangible expression of the possibilities for integrating urban agriculture into city spaces and city life in a way that is participatory, beautiful and productive.

▲ 场地背景

场地日照分析

▲ 雨水管理和可持续的材料方法

(left)A gabion curb defines the garden boundaries and illustrates an unexpected use of recycled materials. A transparent fence was chosen to convey a welcoming and inclusive message, appropriate to a community space.(左)新旧对比。边界用可再生的格栅材料围就，这个透明的边界展现出开放和包容的信号

(right) Steel vegetable beds with Massaranduba seating line one of the walks to the Sunflower Terrace. （右）与座椅相结合的钢蔬菜种植床

Custom designed galvanized steel planters and I-beam light poles by the Landscape Architects. The historic brick wall and industrial materials evoke Detroit’s past, while vegetables and community participation look to the future. 工字钢灯柱和镀锌钢种植槽都反映了底特律工业城市的过去，而这里种植的蔬菜，则展望着未来。

Steel vegetable beds facing the apple orchard. Raised beds have adjustable drip irrigation lines.  苹果园对面的蔬菜种植床，里面有可调节的灌溉管线。

Modeled after Will Allen’s Growing Power facility in Milwaukee, The Fair Market Farm introduces fresh food, employment and community space into the neighborhood. The

proposed location anticipates the advantages of being close to the Triangle Business District and Woodward Avenue. 种植园的食物能提供给周边的白领和社区居民使用。

In The Children’s Garden looking towards the garden sheds with the Federal Court Building in the background. 儿童花园的北京市hi花棚和远处的联邦大楼。

(left)Garden sheds designed by the Landscape Architects are clad with recycled pallet wood and have salvaged doors with chalkboard panels. At night the sheds glow with a soft interior light. 花棚用回收木材搭成。黑色的们，顶部的阳光板窗户为室内引入柔和的光。

(right)Under the Hardy Kiwi Trellis on the promenade. The Kiwi vines are just beginning to climb their specially designed I-beam and rebar supports. Specially fabricated benches line the Lavender Promenade 猕猴桃攀爬在专门设计的走廊构架上。

This .425 acre garden fills a parcel of city land left vacant after the 2010 demolition of the historic Lafayette Building in downtown Detroit. Just a one block walk from Compuware headquarters, adjacent to the financial district and bordered by the Detroit Federal Building and the renovated Westin Book Cadillac Hotel, this vegetable garden fills a busy and highly visible urban setting. The loss of the Lafayette building left the city looking to future development and city inhabitants unhappy with a depressing empty lot. Lafayette Greens is a cooperative effort between private and public sectors resulting in a positive and productive interim use of a vacant parcel in the city.

Design Intent

The client approached the landscape architects with a conventional community garden concept of raised wooden beds, bark mulch pathways, and a space for children. As design development progressed, the program for Lafayette Greens evolved to include the use of sustainable materials and practices wherever possible, spaces for public use and enjoyment, future and ongoing public art projects and a fun educational Children’s Garden. The designer looked closely at the relationships between the garden and the surrounding urban context. In spite of the current enthusiasm for urban agriculture, there are also many reservations and questions about whether this type of activity is appropriate in the city and urban living experience. Aesthetics, environmental concerns, productivity and economics all need to be addressed. The landscape architects were intent on re-imagining how urban agriculture could look and function in a site specific way; in this case, the community garden as a sophisticated urban space, productive and multi-functional as public space, green space and community space.

The overall design of Lafayette Greens was shaped by the site analysis. Raised vegetable beds were oriented for optimal sun exposure based on sun angle studies, especially critical in an environment of tall buildings. Due to its unusual shape, pedestrians had to go out of their way when passing through the area or cut across the vacant site. A wide Lavender Promenade now carries people along this desire line. Pedestrians can move through the space quickly, rest on a bench or enter the garden and explore over 200 types of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers. A variety of seating is provided throughout the garden to encourage public use of the space and provide respite from the surrounding busy city streets which offer virtually no outdoor seating. The use of fragrant Lavender, with its documented ability to induce calm, to line the public passage through the site reinforces the regenerative and restorative function of the garden in a bustling city environment. Views from the surrounding buildings and parking decks led to a strong visual statement in plan view. The geometry of the spaces in the garden reflects the structural order of the urbanenvironment. Drawing from architecture, urban form and agriculture the design of the long rows of steel beds are at once urban and industrial, and yet organic and natural, overflowing with plant life. Because of challenges presented by the awkwardly shaped property, the steady rhythm of raised beds was arranged within the golden ratio to impose a calm order on the site design.

To accommodate 4 feet of grade change across the site, the vegetable beds rise out of the ground plane as it falls gently from Lafayette Blvd to Michigan Ave. This gentle but dynamic solution energizes the wide, flat, expanse of space and permits easy access to planting beds for all kinds of gardeners and visitors. A continuum of bed heights from 8” to 40” high along the 70 foot long planters allows toddlers to get close to the action at the low ends, while the taller areas are barrier-free and back friendly.

Sustainability

Stormwater Management and Water Usage The garden is an opportunity to showcase and demonstrate sustainability. An urban bioswale catches and slows stormwater runoff. With informative signage, it also catches attention and raises awareness about bioswales and water issues in the Great Lakes region. Planted between two gabion curbs, a hedge of Redtwig Dogwood are sheared into a clean architectural bioswale appropriate for a city street. 70% of the site’s surfaces are pervious: gravel, lawn and planting beds. Drought tolerant Fescue lawns and a high efficiency irrigation system including adjustable driplines in the raised beds conserve water.

Materials Re-use

A gabion curb filled with concrete rubble frames the site and bio-swale, broken sidewalk pieces are re-used as pavers, the garden sheds are clad in reclaimed pallet wood and salvaged doors. Repurposed food grade steel drums are planters in the Children’s garden.

Urban Bio-diversity

More than 200 plants: vegetables, herbs, flowers, heirloom fruit trees, vines, berries, a native species short orchard meadow and a bioswale add diversity to the urban environment and habitat for pollinators.

Efficient Organic Growing Methods

The entire garden is managed organically. Bio-intensive raised beds with drip irrigation are highly productive with a potential 200-400% increased caloric production vs conventional gardens, consume less water and require low energy inputs.

Education and Community

Lafayette Greens is unique as an urban garden in that it is a public space that is participatory. Anyone can take part in planting, tending, harvesting, learning and teaching. It is a place to meet, participate in the conversation about local food systems, share food and experience the rhythm of the seasons. The landscape architects made it a priority to create spaces in the garden to accommodate events, workshops and gathering. Education is inherent in the very act of growing food – from science, ecology, history, and nutrition to issues surrounding urban agriculture, public health and food access. Although the vegetable beds at Lafayette Greens have the potential to produce upwards of $10,000 worth of produce in a growing season, the location and visibility of

the garden bring the educational value of the space to the forefront. The garden is a showcase for urban growing techniques from bio-intensive methods, organic pest management, SPIN Farming and the French Potager tradition of the kitchen garden planted for its beauty as well as its productivity.

With the Compuware daycare nearby and parents volunteering in the garden, The Children’s Garden is an important component of Lafayette Greens. In a garden of strong angles, geometric shapesand steel, this space is round and friendly, signaling it as a special garden within a garden. A protected space enclosed in a circle of thorn-less blackberry bushes and sunflowers, it holds amaze of round colorful planters. Small and circular, the repurposed juice barrels and galvanized fire rings set at various heights are easily accessible to children of all ages. Although this garden is only 38 feet in diameter, its themed planting scheme offers a rich educational experience in a small space. The Landscape Architects created a planting plan with names like ‘The Petting  Zoo’, ‘Purple Pandemonium’ and ‘The Salad Bar’, that fill the planters with colors, textures, tastes, scents, forms, and plant names from A to Z.

Three garden sheds, named Charles, Howard and Crane after the Detroit architect who designed the Lafayette Building and 250 movie palaces across North America, including the iconic Fox Theater in Detroit, were designed by the Landscape Architects to fulfill multiple functions. As garden sheds they hold and store tools and supplies. The sculptural, whimsical forms add a vertical focal point to the space and serve as the first of several planned art installations in the garden. The sheds define the edge of the garden and enframe the open lawn area, creating a buffer along the busy street.

Lafayette Greens is an example of how Landscape Architects can set the standard for urban agriculture design that enhances the urban experience and highlights the interrelationship of landscape, food systems and the built environment. With food security becoming an increasingly important global concern, the growth of urban agriculture is inevitable. Landscape architects are uniquely equipped to design productive landscapes in our cities that are beautiful, functional, sustainable, efficient and fully integrated into city living in innovative and surprising new ways.