Above the Pavement-the Farm!

Above the Pavement--the Farm!
Architecture & Agriculture at PF1
Amale Andraos, Dan Wood

Forty years after French protestors took to the streets with the rallying cry Sous les pav's, la plage! (Beneath the pavement, the beach!), a new form of radical expression took shape at MoMA's P.S.1 courtyard in Queens, New York. Above the Pavement--the Farm! reveals the groundbreaking efforts of architecture firm WORKac and their team of more than 150 collaborators--farmers, politicians, horticulturists, technicians, soil scientists, engineers, architecture students, and artists--to create a working urban farm, hoisted 30 feet high, using industrial cardboard tubes filled with more than 50 varieties of locally grown fruits and vegetables. Called Public Farm 1 (P.F.1), this new breed of sustainable infrastructure, capable of generating its own power, recycling rainwater, cultivating crops, and encouraging leisure, demonstrated that even the most impossibly utopian visions of green city living are within our reach.

Above the Pavement--the Farm! presents a delectable range of ideas and issues situated at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and food. Featuring a lively melange of voices depicting the making of P.F.1--with contributions by artist and agricultural activist Fritz Haeg, architectural historian Meredith TenHoor, architect Winy Maas, and head chef Michael Anthony of New York City's Gramercy Tavern--this book introduces a new era of ecological thinking and urban sustenance.

Publication date 6/10/2010