Sustainable Land Lab

Sustainable Land Lab Competition: Final Eight 
By: Megan Gebke

In a previous blog, I had mentioned the sustainable land lab survey. Up to four winning teams will be announced on April 10. The winning teams receive a two year land lease and $5,000 cash to jump start their project. The final eight ideas have been chosen:

Bistro Box: The Bistro Box concept is a small business incubator that transforms surplus cargo containers into a compact restaurant and culinary destination.

Carbon Carpet: The Carbon Carpet team proposes to install warm season grass plantings on unutilized urban lots currently owned by the LRA. Plantings will be positioned to afford educational, financial, ecological and social benefits to neighbors, city residents and fellow inhabitants of spaceship earth, in that order, respectively.

Chess Pocket Park: Community sustainability supported through Chess Pocket Park – outdoor community chess venue for residents with a permanent location supporting our primary community asset – its people.

HUB: Hybrid Urban Bioscapes (formerly LauLab, Nectaring Garden and Refab): A productive landscape and a public space. The intention is to share knowledge and strategies with local residents about how to cultivate and maintain a food producing garden while having a place to gather.

Mighty Mississippians (formerly Christner): Learning Lessons from the Past: A modern agricultural and sustainable living model, the premises for our approach rooted in regional history, the Mississippians and their ancestors, as well as modern permaculture practices. Using concepts of permaculture, the site would demonstrate the interdependent relationships that work efficiently and sustainably in nature and that worked for previous civilizations, from the soil to the birds, to humans.

Renewing Roots Urban Farm: A scalable urban agriculture network that proposes to transform blighted lots into cost efficient models of sustainability.

ShiftUP : A community space to rent, maintain, and learn about bicycles. As a bike hub, shiftUP would encourage bikers from other parts of St. Louis to visit Old North and interact with the community.

The Sunflower+ Project: The Sunflower+ Project: StL proposes turning previously developed urban lots into a community asset through the planting of sunflowers. With a goal of eventually spurring redevelopment of these vacant parcels, the project will serve as an appropriate, scalable, and productive transitional solution.

For more information visit: http://sustainablecities.wustl.edu/2013/02/eight-teams-advance-to-final-round-of-sustainable-land-lab-competition/