Halve It Component: 

My design project focuses heavily on the Nutrition pillar of my school’s framework, with a secondary link to the Wellness.

Nutrition means a substance that you take into your body as a food and the way it influences your health. The reason it is important to have good nutrition in a Middle School is because during the huge growth stage the students are going through, it's important to remain healthy so we can do our best.

Wellness means a state of being healthy, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally too. For Middle School students it is really important to support wellbeing especially as they move through adolescence, which is a time of high levels of anxiety and stress, as well as because it's the second biggest growth stage of their lives which piles on more and more worry. It is important to maintain and regulate our emotions, and to feel calm instead of stressed out all the time. 

Sustainable Development Goal: 

SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing

The Nutrition of the Nursery project meets SDG 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing) because it provides healthy brainfood for students that supports their immune systems. This would be a sustainable and reliable way to fuel students’ minds and bodies during the long days at school which draw on energy. The garden itself would not only be for food but also it would be a space for students to get outside and involved with nature, providing a great way to get fresh air and away from the stress of schoolwork and be able to just breathe and re-connect with your emotions. 

School Context:
If you look closely at our new school campus design, there is a huge problem: there is nothing living at the Living School campus. Everything is straight lines and concrete, there's no room for anything to grow, more or less the students themselves. Schools have an important role in promoting healthy eating and providing a healthy living environment. In a study (2017) people went around asking how many vegetables youth were consuming, the results came back as 1 in 50 (2.0%) of males aged 15 - 18 ate according to the national vegetable guidelines,  33 (3.0%) of females did so as well. 

Liveability

Liveability is all about the quality of a place where people visit or reside, whether that be a town or a city, it’s about the condition of the people’s overall living, including health, wellbeing and safety. Each of the places are given what's called a Liveability Index, a Liveability Index is an overall compound score based on the aspects people saw within the community. There are 13 measures that make a Liveability Index, some of those include access to community, street connectivity, and culture and leisure destinations. 

My design supports the quality of livability through adding connections to people in and outside of the school. The effects community gardens have on liveability are they enhance social connection, enable inclusivity, encourage change and acceptance, and reduce stress and anxiety among the public. Changing this campus from one of concrete and brick to a place bursting with life, allowing the school to live up to its name of “Living School”. 

To conclude, true liveability is supporting the whole wellbeing of all, students, teachers, and community. Middle school students are already dealing with the stressful days of school while also going through adolescence, which might cause anti-social behaviour and isolating. A community garden space would not only provide a safe space to have a break but also allow them to take a breather from pencil and paper schoolwork and learn in nature while further building connections with each other and the expanded public. Being a Living school shouldn’t we foster both physical and mental welfare so students can grow in light among nature instead of being confined to a brick classroom, because isn’t that what liveability's about?

Hundertwasser

Freidensreich Huntertwasser was a famous Austrian artist and architect (1928-2000). Through his early works, Hundertwasser focused on painting with bold, bright, and unapologetic colours, which later factored into his architectural designs. It was in 1950 where he began to turn his attention towards architecture. One of his beliefs was no straight lines, he often referred to straight lines as “Godless and immoral”. Another one of his beliefs was in untamed growth, he was firmly against cut or massively planned gardens. He believed in wild and spontaneous natural vegetation, where it was left to grow for itself, it would flourish without interference.

To support the idea of wild and unpapered growth, Hundertwasser incorporated something called “wild rooftops” which covered the flat roofs of his work with weighty soil, providing an environment for native and indigenous plants, shrubs, and trees to flourish and thrive alongside and in harmony with the building. My project brings forth those ideas into our school by providing a space where plants can sweep across and grow freely and in harmony with both the place and the people. Like what Hundertwasser said in a speech himself “...these peace negotiations with nature must begin soon, or it will be too late.”

Finally, by bringing Hundertwasser’s ideals into our Middle School campus, we would be able to provide a space for not only plants to grow freely, but our students as well. Harmonising with nature is a necessity in moving forth to a sustainable future.

How might we design a sustainable community garden that provides a healthy source of brainfood to support wellbeing, concentration and health?

This design solution is a community garden project called Nutrition of the Nursery. This garden should be located in the Carrington car park, spanning 5 meters by 5 meters, hence replacing a cold and lifeless slab of concrete, with a haven brimming with growth, giving this campus a soul.

The gardens layout would be placed in concentric circles, inspired by Freidensriech Hundertwasser’s Five Skins Philosophy, housing many different plants from all over, with many different uses, ranging from cooking to beautification. 

When students step foot into the garden, it will act as a safe spot from all the stress and anxiety that comes with school, providing them all a place to breathe and re-connect with nature again after a long day of controlled environments and calculated actions, letting them embrace the unpredictability of life outside. When students reach the garden, they will see a wooden bridge made of recycled wood providing access to the inner garden beds. 

When students walk across these bridges, they enter a calm space where connections can start and flourish.

This instalment provides a key chance for students to engage in outdoor activities that support community and leave a path for younger students to follow and expand on to create something beautiful. Prior to building this space, students can participate in studying and suggest what they would like to grow and how that might add to sustainability for the school, as well as each student could foster a patch with a group of other people that they might not have a strong bond with and raise a garden bed together.

To maintain and support sustainability, we would use recycled materials to build the structure and for up-cycling, giving it not only a unique look but also a good use of materials that would’ve been thrown away if we didn’t use them. This would provide an excellent place for future projects.

The Community Garden project is an integrant of the impending, bringing forth the importance of liveability into the middle school campus with whimsy.