Pizza garden

Vale da LamaPedagogic Pizza Garden

Co-Created by Josh Gomez & Rosie Stonehill

Garden that produces all the ingredients of a pizza ( including base and toppings)

Pizza shaped

Some small livestock for egg, cheese, meat

Trees, esp olive, maybe some fruit & nuts

Children and family friendly

Pedagogic education centre – for children to learn about the origins of all ingredients on a pizza, have contact with animals and possible hands on connection to the vegetable garden

Clients Requests

Design ChallengesBefore we started this design we looked at the proposed area for this garden, the “pizza” spans 70 m across with the two 35 m halves either side of the road, the client wanted one half for topping and the other for the grain. We repeatedly told the client that we felt this arrangement was disproportionate to the quantities of ingredients needed to make pizza i.e. too much vegetable topping and not enough grain to make equivalent amount of bases. We also estimated that, on this large a scale it would take 15 full time workers just to keep the vegetable garden from becoming a mess of grass and weeds. But after all this he still really loved the idea and wanted a design from us for his pizza garden. We also liked the basic concept of a pizza garden and this was an interesting situation in that there were no limits to financial input. So, as we enjoy new design challenges and we wanted to try to accommodate all the requests of the client into a more functional design, we created this design proposal.

The Site

Garden features

• Two styles of chicken tractor, one the eggloo dome structure in the forest garden, the other a long hooped tunnel tractor, with a nesting box on one end, to go on top of the raised beds, clear up, de-pest, weed, scratch/till, fertilise the beds ready for re-seeding/planting.

Garden features

•Synergistic raised beds marking out the shape of a pizza in a continuous rotation of crops, except permanent tomato beds which create a red ring around the perimeter.

•Integrated deciduous fruit trees provide some summer shade, supply niches for more shade loving species and lengthen the growing season.

Garden features

•Around the outside, creating the “crust” is a mixture of pepper and chilli bushes and some soft fruit shrubs creating a sheltering belt of more perennial crops and bridging the annual garden with the more long term forest garden.

Garden features

•On the other side of the road there is a rotating system of grain crops and pasture using an adapted version of the Fukuoka method including Rye, Oats, Corn, Spelt, Buckwheat, Favasand Clover. It is likely that, to provide sufficient grain to be able to make bases on a scale equivalent to the vegetable toppings, there would need to be other areas in the farm allotted for growing grain.

•Around the outside of the field there is a proposed windbreaking shelter belt of trees which create a beneficial microclimate for the grain crops.

Garden features

•Alongside, and rotating with, the grain crops are two pastures for small to medium livestock (a relevant and compatible selection from: geese, ducks, guinea pigs, rabbits, pot bellied pigs, sheep, goats etc...). Small livestock and pigs could stay in the pastures, in rotation with the grain, and can also be brought kitchen and garden scraps to supplement their diet. The larger grazing animals (sheep and goats) would only be in the pastures when there are visiting school groups for the children to have contact with the animals and see where the milk comes from. These animals would need to be grazed and housed elsewhere for them to have enough food and a proper place to sleep.

Garden features

•There are two ponds within the design, at the centre of the pizza, on either side of the road, which serve to collect excess runoff from road and field. The pond in the grain / pasture rotation provides water for the animals and, when soiled, can be filled from the irrigation, overflowing into the grain fields giving more fertilisation. The pond in the vegetable garden would functions as a small aquaculture with some fish e.gcarp, tilapia.

Garden features

•Pedagogic education centre and pizza prep house with solar parabolic concentrating pizza oven, with outdoor dining area, water collection from roof and educational signs explaining the comparisons between the pizza hut industrial pizza and the Vale Da Lama permaculture pizza

Design SummaryProcess ReviewExamples of Ethics & Principles applied in Design

Earth Care: This design, if effectively put into practise and once fully established, attempts to provide all the elements of a pizza reducing the need for any off site agriculture and allowing more land to be left to return to nature.

The Problem is the Solution: The site of the pond in the centre of the raised beds half of the pizza was a place which we observed was boggy due to run off collecting. Rather than suggest that this be drained for planting it made more sense to turn this into a pond and take advantage of this natural water collection.

Maintain/Encourage Polyculture and Diversity : This design mixes so many different elements: huge variety of vegetables, trees, shrubs, grain and animals that it is hugely boosting diversity in this area.

Use Appropriate Technology: Parabolic Solar Collector Oven provides the energy for an element which would normally consume vast quantities of non renewable, highly polluting, energy.

KEY EthicsBasic PrinciplesDesign Principles

Final Design ConclusionsReflecting on this design, we feel that all the elements in their present arrangement could work very well as a pedagogic pizza garden. At certain times it may be necessary to augment some of the ingredients with produce which is either grown on other parts of the site or bought from local organic producers. There is great value in the basic idea of an educational pizza garden which teaches children about the origins of all the elements of a pizza, how they could be sourced in the most ecological way and clearly illustrating the difference between this method and a very industrial mass produced, destructively farmed pizza. This type of centre could provide children with opportunities to learn about a selection of the wide variety of different plants which produce the majority of the foods we eat and to meet and interact with the animals which will also either make or become part of their food.

Although we found this design challenging, we have learnt much through the experience, both about physical elements in large scale design and also about important considerations within the client / designer dynamic. It has given us confidence in the fact that, at times, we need to take more into account what is practical and sustainable and less the overall vision of the clients, placing and scaling the elements where we see fit and not solely adhering to the clients specification if we can see how it could be made into a more efficient system. In terms of design, it has shown us again about the importance of placement of elements within a design and that it is not enough to simply consider the isolated elements of a design or a disconnected concept.

© Copyright 2011 Rosie Stonehill and Josh Gomez