Crowdsourcing the Cottage Garden
Katherine Sharpe
The first time I saw Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray's work, a giant "Window Farm" installed in the front window of the New York City art and technology center Eyebeam, I knew I wanted to write about it.
Luckily my editors obliged, and I was interviewing Britta and Rebecca several weeks later, for the sidebar to my piece about plastic beverage bottles as a building and engineering material ("PET Rocks," ReadyMade, Oct/Nov '09).
The idea behind the Window Farm is simple (the impressiveness of the monumental-sized version at Eyebeam notwithstanding). Riley and Bray, two Brooklyn-based artists who collaborate on projects that bring the power of social media to bear on environmental problems, came up with the idea after reading on Michael Pollan's New York Times blog that one of the best things people can do for the environment is to grow some of their food at home.
"There were all of these catty comments from New Yorkers complaining that they live in tiny New York City apartments and can't possibly grow any food there," says Riley. She remembers reading that and thinking, "'Come on, guys. There's got to be a way.'"
Together, Riley and Bray worked out the requirements for an apartment-friendly growing station. It would have to be vertical, so as to take up little space, and they wanted to find a way to take advantage of available sunlight coming in through urban windows. Riley is fascinated with hydroponics, so they decided to look into a hydroponic solution. The basic elements of a Window Farm fell into place: a series of inverted plastic water bottles, filled with hydroponic growing medium, and a pump that circulates nutrients and water from a PVC pipe at the bottom of the farm to a PVC pipe at the top, from which it slowly drips down through the bottles/planters. Regular CFL bulbs supplement natural light from the windows.
In February 2009, Riley and Bray built the first Window Farm prototype. Then they began to apply the approach that defines their work: an idea that they call R&DIY, or "Research and Develop It Yourself." R&DIY grew out of some of the Riley and Bray's early projects on water conservation. In searching for ways to address the issue of water pollution without being overly didactic, the artists hit on the idea of presenting their audience with problems and calling on them to generate possible solutions themselves.
Appealing to the spirit of innovation turned out to be a good idea. "We found that people don't want to just be implementing environmental solutions that somebody else came up with," says Bray. "They would get so excited about coming up with processes of innovation themselves."
R&DIY has taken shape based on Riley and Bray's backgrounds in technology and the web. "We've been very interested in open source," Riley says. "Open source software becomes robust very quickly because you have so many people who are working on it at the same time." The idea behind R&DIY is to apply the same approach to environmental problems.
In the case of Window Farms, Riley and Bray appointed a dozen "pioneers"—handy people they knew through their extended social network—to help them figure out how they could improve on the early designs. At that point, the Window Farm was more expensive than they wanted it to be (the prototype cost around $200), and they were having a problem timing the cycling of the pump that circulated the hydroponic nutrient solution through the planting tiers.
One of the pioneers discovered that there's a way to hack a $12 windshield wiper pump, which brought the cost down significantly. Another figured out how to make his farm work with an inexpensive air pump.
Armed with the ideas and innovations from that first round of R&DIY, Riley and Bray have put together instructions for people wishing to construct their own window farms. PDF instructions are available in two levels of size and complexity at the Window Farms website. The site is also a hub where active and prospective window farmers can connect with one another to share ideas and expertise. Says Riley, who is harvesting about "a salad a week" from her own Window Farm: "There are a million different ways that people can decorate it and make it blend in with their own apartment."
[Images from Britta and Rebecca's Window Farms Flickr Sets. Below: Britta and Rebecca, courtesy of Britta Riley]
Luckily my editors obliged, and I was interviewing Britta and Rebecca several weeks later, for the sidebar to my piece about plastic beverage bottles as a building and engineering material ("PET Rocks," ReadyMade, Oct/Nov '09).
The idea behind the Window Farm is simple (the impressiveness of the monumental-sized version at Eyebeam notwithstanding). Riley and Bray, two Brooklyn-based artists who collaborate on projects that bring the power of social media to bear on environmental problems, came up with the idea after reading on Michael Pollan's New York Times blog that one of the best things people can do for the environment is to grow some of their food at home.
"There were all of these catty comments from New Yorkers complaining that they live in tiny New York City apartments and can't possibly grow any food there," says Riley. She remembers reading that and thinking, "'Come on, guys. There's got to be a way.'"
Together, Riley and Bray worked out the requirements for an apartment-friendly growing station. It would have to be vertical, so as to take up little space, and they wanted to find a way to take advantage of available sunlight coming in through urban windows. Riley is fascinated with hydroponics, so they decided to look into a hydroponic solution. The basic elements of a Window Farm fell into place: a series of inverted plastic water bottles, filled with hydroponic growing medium, and a pump that circulates nutrients and water from a PVC pipe at the bottom of the farm to a PVC pipe at the top, from which it slowly drips down through the bottles/planters. Regular CFL bulbs supplement natural light from the windows.
In February 2009, Riley and Bray built the first Window Farm prototype. Then they began to apply the approach that defines their work: an idea that they call R&DIY, or "Research and Develop It Yourself." R&DIY grew out of some of the Riley and Bray's early projects on water conservation. In searching for ways to address the issue of water pollution without being overly didactic, the artists hit on the idea of presenting their audience with problems and calling on them to generate possible solutions themselves.
Appealing to the spirit of innovation turned out to be a good idea. "We found that people don't want to just be implementing environmental solutions that somebody else came up with," says Bray. "They would get so excited about coming up with processes of innovation themselves."
R&DIY has taken shape based on Riley and Bray's backgrounds in technology and the web. "We've been very interested in open source," Riley says. "Open source software becomes robust very quickly because you have so many people who are working on it at the same time." The idea behind R&DIY is to apply the same approach to environmental problems.
In the case of Window Farms, Riley and Bray appointed a dozen "pioneers"—handy people they knew through their extended social network—to help them figure out how they could improve on the early designs. At that point, the Window Farm was more expensive than they wanted it to be (the prototype cost around $200), and they were having a problem timing the cycling of the pump that circulated the hydroponic nutrient solution through the planting tiers.
One of the pioneers discovered that there's a way to hack a $12 windshield wiper pump, which brought the cost down significantly. Another figured out how to make his farm work with an inexpensive air pump.
Armed with the ideas and innovations from that first round of R&DIY, Riley and Bray have put together instructions for people wishing to construct their own window farms. PDF instructions are available in two levels of size and complexity at the Window Farms website. The site is also a hub where active and prospective window farmers can connect with one another to share ideas and expertise. Says Riley, who is harvesting about "a salad a week" from her own Window Farm: "There are a million different ways that people can decorate it and make it blend in with their own apartment."
[Images from Britta and Rebecca's Window Farms Flickr Sets. Below: Britta and Rebecca, courtesy of Britta Riley]
