When local ain't that local

Laura Reiley, the food critic at the Tampa Bay Times, recently delivered a riveting two-part series called “Farm to Fable” that hones in on the specious claims of “local food” at restaurants and farmers markets. She took samples from restaurants that were celebrated for their seasonal menus, and submitted them to scientists for testing, and she visited the small farms that many restaurants claimed, in pretty chalkboard lettering, to be partnering with. “Fiction started seeming like the daily special,” she found.

At farmers markets, Reiley discovered that actual farmers — as opposed to resellers — tend to be few and far between. In the Tampa Bay area, after several weeks of visiting markets, she counted 346 vendors, many of them selling in several different markets. “Of that number,” she wrote, “only 16 sold their own produce, honey, eggs, meat or dairy. Plenty of wind chimes and hot sauces, but less than 5 percent represented Florida farmers growing their own food.” In fact, the colorful fruits, vegetables and leafy greens on display typically come from “Mexico, Honduras, Canada,” and represent the glut of food that local grocers have already passed over.

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NYC's food web

Over the past year, Open House New York’s The Final Mile has explored the architecture of New York City’s food system. From the markets of the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center to the food halls of Brooklyn, The Final Mile has explored how the spaces in which food is produced, distributed, and consumed have helped shape the city and our experiences of it.

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Food Hubs

Food Hubs, a topic of recent inquiry. The design of our food system to utilize, process, distribute, share and educate. This example comes from Louisville KY, and the Seed Capital Kentucky. 

"Seed Capital Kentucky released master plans for the food marketplace last week. Netherlands-based architect OMA worked alongside GBBN Architects of Louisville to design a campus where local farmers can package, distribute and sell goods."

"The project aims to reduce the amount of travel, money and time that goes into local food production, while making consumer access easier.

"Our vision for this project is one that collapses a lot of those middle men and transactions into one place where they can all work together to help create more fresh, regional food and help our region feed itself more sustainably," said Seed Capital Kentucky founder Stephen Reily."

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Food Webs

"Dr. Samuel Johnson, from Warwick’s Mathematics Institute, explains: “Buildings require structural supports, such as the metal or timber frames around which they are then built. For the building to remain standing, though, these supports need to comply with the laws of mathematics and physics; if the roof is too heavy for the frame, the building collapses. The frames also need flexibility to adapt to conditions, if they are too rigid they become fragile and, for instance, unable to cope with difficult weather.

“The same is true of natural ecosystems; they need support and structure. Trophic Coherence seems to play a similar role in ecosystems as supporting frames of buildings — it is a structural property that helps ecosystems survive, and is common to all the ones we have analyzed. It provides them with essential support and structure.”"

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Visual Complexity