Student Impact: Shipping Container Finds New Use at ECO City Farms

A young entrepreneur, farmer, and environmental educator, Adam Schwartz came to Yestermorrow seeking hands-on learning in design/build with a strong focus on sustainability. Interested in working at the intersections of ecological design, green building, and sustainable agriculture, Adam chose Yestermorrow’s Certificate in Sustainable Building and Design as the path to pursue his vision for contributing to the growing vibrant food economy.

Adam is farm manager at ECO City Farms, a 1.5 acre educational urban farm in the Capital Beltway in Maryland. For his Sustainable Building and Design practicum project, Adam is putting a sea shipping container to new use by designing and building the FoodShed, an on-farm commercial kitchen for value-added production and a teaching kitchen for local food production.

The project demonstrates low-cost solutions for food processing and enables value-added and farm-to-school food entrepreneurial ventures. The licensed and certified kitchen, constructed of predominently reused materials, features a solar hot water system and an integrated greywater filtration system. The FoodShed will host a variety of cooking and food preservation classes throughout the year. Funded by the Southern Maryland Agricultural Commission, the FoodShed is being documented closely so the open-source design can be shared with other small farmers.

Green Buildings Open House October 2nd

Ever wonder what your friends and neighbors are doing in terms of sustainable technologies and renewable energy solutions? Time to come on inside and find out for yourself! NESEA’s highly successful Green Buildings Open House is scheduled for October 2, from 10 AM to 4 PM in locations around the Northeast, including here at Yestermorrow. Last year, more than 16,000 people toured some 500 sites from Maine to Pennsylvania, and this year’s event is expected to be even bigger!

For a complete list of locations in your area (or to learn more about building features or fuel types) go to http://www.nesea.org/openhouse/listings/ and search the NESEA GBOH database.
For the past 14 years, the GBOH program has inspired thousands of individuals to learn about and implement energy efficient and renewable energy solutions in their homes. The goal of the GBOH event is to enable participants to see, firsthand, energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements in their communities and subsequently motivate them to adopt similar solutions themselves. At host sites, participants are able to talk with home and business owners, ask questions, and see how their renewable energy technologies actually work. GBOH also connects building owners and managers with professionals who can provide them with sustainable energy services or energy efficiency retrofits.

As host sites register, detailed information and photos of the buildings' innovative energy features are posted, providing an ongoing educational tool (see Yestermorrow's listing at http://www.nesea.org/Scripts/googleMaps/detail.php?id=610). Just a few of the features you can see here at Yestermorrow include: a composting toilet, daylighting, Energy Star appliances, FSC certified wood, two green roofs, grid tied photovoltaics, heat recovery ventilation, local materials (slate, stone, wood), passive solar, recycled materials, solar domestic hot water, straw bale, and super insulated walls/roofs.

Talk to the people who are in the trenches – what worked, what didn’t work, what they may be thinking about doing next. There is something really powerful about homeowners talking to other homeowners and sharing what they’ve learned. This is how change happens ‐ be a part of it!

New video! Lecture by Jacob Deva Racusin

Check out the 7/8 summer lecture by Jacob Deva Racusin on Bridging the Gap: Bringing Together the Worlds of Natural and Green Building at http://blip.tv/file/2394709. He discusses how the modern natural building movement has been growing slowly but steadily for decades across the globe, yet much misunderstanding still remains about its form, function, purpose, and potential. The growth of the green building movement has helped increase awareness of energy efficiency, building performance, and ecological sensitivity. Developments in natural building and design in our cold climate are addressing these concerns, while continuing to support core issues of social and ecological justice and affordability. Come find out how the natural and green building movements can - and must - learn from and work with each other to reach mutual goals.

Jacob Deva Racusin is co-owner of New Frameworks Natural Building, a Vermont-based contracting and consulting business specializing in the integration of natural materials, holistic design principles, and intentional process to create high performance structures of beauty. Jacob has been creating functional art with wood, stone, straw, earth, and other found materials since 2000, when he began design and construction on a solar-oriented straw bale house in Montgomery, Vermont, in which he lives with his family. He has led Yestermorrow's Natural Building Intensive program in 2008 and 2009.

Stay tuned to http://www.yestermorrow.blip.tv/ for each week's public lectures, or join us in person at the School at 7pm on Wednesdays through the end of August. For a full schedule of the Summer Lecture Series, please visit www.yestermorrow.org/Lecture09.htm.