Presentation
Communal Provisioning and Community Abundance: Operationalizing Jewish Concepts of Gleaning
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA)
(2023)
Abstract
Each year, more than 10% of the U.S. population experiences food insecurity. Historically, many faith-based organizations have focused on alleviating hunger as an expression of their values. As these organizations are some of the largest non-governmental landowners in the world, some of their less productive land holdings could be repurposed to directly address food justice. In Jewish practice, the Torah outlines laws providing agricultural support in the form of fallen grain and fruit available for post-harvest gleaning. Moreover, the pe’ah, or corners of the fields, were specifically designated to be left for the hungry to glean with dignity. Two associated projects, Abundance Farm and the Food Security and Sustainability Hub, provide design examples that address food justice by operationalizing Jewish traditions of "the commons."
Abundance Farm is a one-acre food justice farm and outdoor classroom. The project developed through collaborations between three neighboring institutions - a synagogue, that owns the land and provides staff, utilities, and programming; a food pantry serving over 3,000 people per year; and an elementary school that incorporates the farm into curriculum. Over the past decade, Abundance Farm has integrated land-based programming into the Jewish community’s ritual life while offering educational programs for the broader community. The Farm has operationalized Jewish concepts of social justice through spatial and design practices. For example, to activate the concept of pe-ah, the design team located a pick-your-own orchard along the synagogue’s street frontage; the orchard repurposes the institutional front lawn, providing perennial fruits and berries to passersby and those in need.
Building on the success of Abundance Farm, the synagogue purchased an adjacent extant municipal property through an RFP foregrounding community benefit. The design process for the Food Security and Sustainability Hub engaged Farm leadership in visioning both short- and long-term programs proposed in the Community Benefits Statement and concurrent grant applications. Site planning and building design iterations explored the Farm’s expanding mission and associated services that emerged during the pandemic. Design visualizations provided probes for dialogue about the ways adaptive reuse of the building and remediation of the brownfield site could provide for inclusive future uses including food production and processing, educational and workforce training, value-added business incubation, skill sharing, and community gathering.
These projects suggest the potential for quasi-public landscapes held by faith-based organizations to be repurposed as productive sites and, through their deep social reach, to simultaneously advance communal provisioning and community abundance.
Keywords
- Participatory Design,
- Resilience,
- Food Justice
Disciplines
Publication Date
April 1, 2023
Location
St. Louis, MO
Citation Information
Caryn Brause and Madison J DeHaven. "Communal Provisioning and Community Abundance: Operationalizing Jewish Concepts of Gleaning" Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) (2023) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/caryn_brause/31/