Halve It Component:

My design project is focused on the Nutrition pillar of Halve It.

• Nutrition to us at Living School means looking after ourselves physically and mentally with fruit vines growing on the walls. Not only is it fresh produce that's full of vitamins, it's also improving our mental state by including us to grow our own gardens in our learning spaces and use that as a way to calm down after some work.

School Context:

If you look at the new Brown and Jolly campus, you will notice that every wall is a plain, boring, lifeless brick wall. This is a huge problem because the name of the school is quite literally Living School. It would be a crime not to have any living plants, nature or greenery. One of our main school values is relationships and if we didn't keep our relationship with nature in our new campus, it would just be wrong.

Blue Zones

Blue Zones are five places around the globe where the residents who live there have a longer life expectancy than the average human. The average life expectancy for someone who lives in a Blue Zone is 83 years old. One of the most important factors of this is that they grow their own food, such as wild blackberries. These are good because they are a source of vitamin C K and E. They are also a big anti-inflammatory. There are also the Cannonau grapes. These are good for you because they are a source of potassium and they are full of antioxidants. Growing their own food supply is a proven source of longevity in these zones and should also be afforded to our Middle School students.

Hundertwasser

Hundertwasser believed that all windows should have a plant or tree growing out of them, instead of boring paint that looks the same as every other building, you would have life thriving out of your window. Imagine if every building had trees and fruit vines and even little shrubs growing out every window. It wouldn't be boring anymore; each building would be unique. This links to my project because I would like to grow fruit vines on the walls of Brown and Jolly to make the new campus more incorporated with nature. For example, on the Rogner Bad Blumau, a building Hundertwasser designed, the roof of every building is a grassy plain with the occasional tree.

How might we design edible walls that help students enjoy food that they grow themselves?

The design solution is The Vertical Vine. This delicious wall should be located in the cafeteria of Brown and Jolly. Instead of having plain, bland brick walls, there will be plants. Life, thriving. 

The wall would have old upcycled shipping pallets held into place by drilling them into the existing building. We could use passionfruit vines and kiwifruit vines. These specific vines are good because they are both high in fibre and are good for your immune system. They are also known to grow well and produce an abundance of fruit. 

When a student takes a piece of fruit from the wall they will be full, and ready to learn. There could even be a gardening club to help water it once its fully grown, but in the meantime while its getting built we could gather a group of kids and it could be a wood work project once that's done there would be another group of kids planting these fruits

 And to make sure we are being sustainable in this project, we will make sure that all the materials that we use will be upcycled and sourced locally. Any leftover materials could be used in other projects so that you wouldn't be investing in one project but potentially multiple projects.

The vertical vine will be a part of Middle School that will bring fresh produce to hungry middle schoolers and benefit everyone.