Social Impact Project WasteNot concludes with community installation

After months of dialogue, planning, design, and fabrication, PennPraxis’ Social Impact Project “WasteNot” joined community members in Southeast Philadelphia for a day of planting herbs, vegetables, and flowers – the final stage of their installation at Southeast by Southeast, an organization that operates as an active community center for a population of refugees from Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma. To activate the storefront’s backyard, community members braved the rain (rather, downpour) to help plant a collection of basil, chili peppers, tomatoes, and lettuce, as well as flowering annuals, in planters designed and built by a group of PennDesign students. 

In the early stages of planning, and at the suggestion of their project advisor Ken Lum, the students joined forces with Shira Walinsky, mural artist and organizer at SExSE, who willingly offered her advice and perspective on their proposal. Their goal was to utilize materials commonly discarded through design and construction, as well as to spark a dialogue surrounding waste and the potential opportunities for material reuse. What had originally been planned as a set of simple and temporary installations in a neighborhood being transformed with development, the project quickly evolved through conversations with Shira as she spoke of the community’s needs and desires. Planting and growing, particularly basil, peppers, and tomatoes (the leaves, not just the fruits, are used in cooking soups), play a large part in the culture and tradition of many community members as, Shira pointed out, most first generation refugees grew up farming, albeit on a much larger scale than SExSE’s backyard. The community gardens in the neighborhood, such as Growing Home Garden on 8th and Emily, are widely used for food production, but the smaller scale installation at Southeast by Southeast provides opportunity for education and the sharing of traditions with the children and teens who fill the space. 

Southeast by Southeast began as a Mural Arts project and now runs a full block of programming for community members of all ages, including arts workshops, tutoring, cooking and ESL classes. Their backyard is a popular space during the day for kids to play or work on homework, and now also serves as a gathering space for lessons in growing and gardening. 

The group of students, Doug Breuer, Clay Gruber, and Allison Koll (all dual MLA/M.Arch ’18) built the scaffold structure for hanging herbs, a bench for added seating, and a long raised planter for vegetables and flowers, largely using materials reclaimed from the waste management facility Revolution Recovery, an innovative company changing the waste stream (they resell/recycle 85% of the waste that enters their facilities). The site also operates an artist in residency program, RAIR, run by Billy Dufala and Lucia Thomé, who helped source materials. Though the installation is complete, the project marks the beginning of the students’ engagement with the community members and organization SExSE. They look forward to returning to the space in the fall for demonstrations on the construction of the hanging planters, as well as to periodically check on the progress of the garden throughout the summer. 

For more information on the students’ work, visit their website.  WasteNot was made possible through a 2015 PennPraxis Social Impact Project grant, and was advised by PennDesign faculty members Ken Lum, and Franca Trubiano.