P30 Tower Gardens
Project Snapshot
Location: Indianapolis, IN
TYPE: Urban Agriculture
SERVICE: Project Management, Visioning, Civil Engineering, Landscape Design
STATUS: Complete
Overview
Launched in May of 2022, the P30 Community Tower Gardens produce fresh veggies and herbs, empower local chefs, combat food deserts and scarcity realities on the Far Eastside, and reduce environmental impacts attributed to conventional farming practices. The tower gardens play a fundamental role in a larger effort of converting an industrial manufacturing facility into a local business campus known as P30. The renovated facility integrates a kitchen share, entrepreneurial coworking and office space, event space, a community center, and more to host a collective of many businesses and nonprofits who serve the community.
DESIGN GOALS: The tower gardens contribute to the facility’s environmental stewardship goals to offer sustainable and locally grown produce to all who walk through the doors seeking various community wrap-around services.
Carbon Footprint Reduction: Within the P30 facility, a circular economy is generated by retaining the gardener, kitchen chef, and various patrons (such as coworking tenants) on site. Growing, marketing, and selling at the source eliminates the need to transport the produce to big box stores. Harvested produce is garden-to-fork. This single location life cycle of on-site use reduces and nearly eliminates the typical carbon footprint of farming and transportation.
Water Usage Reduction: The vertical gardening method efficiently recirculates water through an internal pump system, which reduces water usage by up to 80%, compared to conventional growing methods.
Youth Education: Tours and “how-to” training sessions are provided to local youth, area schools, and universities. The garden tour guide is responsible for engaging students and promoting the importance of reducing our carbon footprint. Each student ends their tour by constructing a seed starter kit to germinate and grow from their home.
Chef Empowerment: By pairing the tower gardens with the on-site kitchen share program, chefs have access to the most fresh and nutrient-dense produce for preparing meals. One of the success stories that grew from this partnership includes a local vegan chef who utilizes the tower gardens to teach adults and youth the importance of fresh produce and how to prepare simple and healthy meals.
In collaboration with local stakeholders and agencies, the client retained the design firm to assist in facilitating community engagement sessions and user group studies. The feedback sessions resulted in a wide array of recommendations for garden programming. The team implemented a self-sustaining model for the business’s circular ecosystem, led volunteer workdays, selected seed starts, scheduled planting cycles, organized collaborative sessions with kitchen share chefs and much more. The unique and cohesive user experience is attributed to the successful planning and implementation of a long-term management process.