Food Better - Harvard

Throughout the academic year, the Harvard community focuses on the food system and how to improve it – how to grow better, eat better, shop better, conserve better . . . how to Food Better. In 2014-15, the Harvard Innovation Lab hosted a year-long Deans' Food System Challenge, in which students from across the university were invited to develop innovative solutions to make our food system more healthy and sustainable. In conjunction with the Challenge, the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, Harvard University Dining Services, Food Literacy Project, and Harvard Office for Sustainability opened a community-wide dialogue about how we can Food Better, which included events, field trips and more. These events continue on into the 2015-2016 school year.

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lecture - cheng

How does architecture and design influence our relationship with food?  Join architect Christy Cheng to explore how the catalytic nature of food and drink can be used to redefine architecture and design characteristics.  Does food inspire what our buildings and urban spaces look like? Do we eat the food that is curated by our surroundings?

Christy will discuss her work with the Alimentary Design studios at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and her latest project, the West Louisville Food Port. Alimentary Design explores how the fundamentals of food can be used to redefine architecture and urban design typologies. This field of design examines everything from farming and harvesting to consumers and waste and all the ingredients in between.

Is the future of architecture and urban design appetising?
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fantasy projects

reeHugger has had some trouble digesting vertical farms for a decade, as has Stan Cox of Alternet, who wrote in 2010 that “Although the concept has provided opportunities for architecture students and others to create innovative, sometimes beautiful building designs, it holds little practical potential for providing food.” Now he is at it again, refining his points in a new article in Alternet that was picked up and retitled in Salon as Enough with the vertical farming fantasies: There are still too many unanswered questions about the trendy practice.

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agro-ecosystems

‘hyperions’ is a sustainable agro-ecosystem project that is capable of resisting climate change due to healthy economic and environmental systems. developed under vincent callebaut architectures, the study aims to combine archaeology and sustainable food systems, that grow up around wooden and timber towers in new delhi, india. ‘hyperions’ is made of six garden towers, each 36-story high containing residential and office spaces. the name comes from the tallest tree in the world ‘the hyperion’ – a sequoia semperviren found in northern california – whose size can reach 115.55 metres (close to 380 feet). the aim behind the project was to create a cultural hub that combines urban renaturation, small scale farming, environmental protection and biodiversity.

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Food Tower

ABF-lab is a paris-based design collective founded in 2011 that specialize in creating projects that mix architecture, energy, climate, and engineering. for a building in romainville, france called ‘food-farm tower’, they aimed to optimize the volume to follow the sun’s path, making it as productive as possible and liberating it from the use of artificial light to supply power to the gardens. the project proposes both housing and gardening at the same time.

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Paper food

Barcelona-based paper artist Raya Sader Bujana gives a distinct twist to the saturation of food images online. From afar, her photographs seem to depict food items, but these are in fact painstakingly intricate paper creations.

Bujana transforms delectable food items into intricate paper sculptures. Through her creations, she strives to capture the same color, texture and sumptuousness of these foods in their original state. A slice of pie includes a dollop of whipped cream on top— a piece of white paper expertly folded and placed to resemble the luscious topping it imitates.

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dumpster house

How to get students thinking about their environmental footprints?

Jeff G. Wilson and his students at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Tex., retrofitted a garbage container into a cozy pad that he lived in for an entire year. It was, he says, “a radical experiment in what it would mean to live on, and in, less” — specifically, 33 square feet. He moved out last February but the experiment continues.

Nine educators have since taken up residency for up to a week to see what it’s like to live without running water. Cooking is on a camping stove. But there is electricity. To battle interior heat that rises to over 130 degrees in Texas’s sweltering summers, the bin had to be connecting to the grid so air-conditioning could be installed. There’s now a TV and an overhead light. But it’s still tight quarters.

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