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FARMADELPHIA: An Interview with Yen Ha & Michi Yanagashita of Front Studio

Philadelphia has much to offer visitors and residents alike – from the swank Avenue of the Arts, to the cobblestone streets of Old City, to the ethnic flavors of the Italian Market and Chinatown. Culturally diverse and steeped in history, our city’s cornucopia also overfloweth with vacant lots and open, overgrown, abandoned areas. Two architects from New York City, passing through one winter’s day (bleak, gray, and enveloping, I would bet. As we know how wintertime tends to seize the Philly skies.), were struck with the vastness of Philadelphia’s non-utilized spaces.

 

 

Meet Yen Ha and Michi Yanagashita, the two principals of Front Studio, a New York-based architecture firm who created “Farmadelphia,” a project, proposal, and vision a for the city of Philadelphia to re-purpose its open spaces and vacant buildings into sustainable farmland, creating an “edible landscape” and stimulating local economies.

 

Front Studio’s Farmadelphia was a finalist in the Philadelphia LANDvisions “Urban Voids” Design Competition in 2006, and has been gaining attention ever since.

 

Recently, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (RDA) announced a pilot program for land bank use, based on Farmadelphia. The initial plans are moving ahead, with support from various city organizations such as the City Planning Commission, City Parks Administration and Mayor Nutter’s new Office of Sustainability. The initiative calls for interim urban greenhouse farming on urban plots ranging from 1/2 to 3 acres. The farmers selected (via an application process) to cultivate these spaces will not pay rent to the city, but cover personal insurance and utilities costs. Terry Gillen, Executive Director of the RDA, hopes to begin the pilot project as soon as this summer! Go, Farmadelphia, go!

 

 

We are proud to present a further look into the lives of two very busy, very talented women who use the power of design to improve world around them and build relationships between inhabitants and spaces. Their radical (read: simultaneously awesome AND revolutionary!) plan for a greener, more self-sustaining, economically sound Philadelphia is inspiring. With advising from such Philly organizations as White Dog Cafe Foundation and Greensgrow Farms, Front Studio’s 7 Year “Farmadeliphication” plan is more than aspirational. It could be do-able in the very near future! Read on…

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Introduce yourself and give a brief intro about what you do.
I’m an architect and principal in the New York City architectural firm, Front Studio. Along with Michi Yanagishita, we work to create meaningful design that engages the built environment and its users.

What real life city, past or present, would you epitomize as closest to an ideal city?
An ideal city seems to want good public spaces, an easily navigable and far reaching public transportation system as well as be, in general, accessible and clean. Although I wouldn’t say an ideal city is necessarily the city I live in.

What do you love/hate most about life in NYC?
It never stops moving, and it is precisely this constant energy that is the appeal and also fatigue of living in NYC. It’s also an incredibly pedestrian friendly city. I love being able to walk almost anywhere I want, not relying on anything but my own two feet.

What do you love/hate most about Philadelphia?
The scale of Philadelphia is so lovely. The city’s neighborhoods blend residential and commercial living in a way that feels very intimate and friendly. I also enjoy its historical sensibility, something largely lacking in New York City.

Are you drawn more to commercial or residential spaces? How does designing for one realm inform design for the other?
For us it’s not so much a preference for commercial vs. residential spaces as the actual project itself and the creativity or challenges that each project brings. We do like having variety in our work. Regardless of the type, it is, for us, always about the habitation of the space. How will someone use this space, how will someone feel in the space, what moments do we want to enhance or minimize.

 

Do you draw lines between the genres of art, design, and architecture in your practice? How so, and why or why not?
We don’t really draw lines of distinction between art or design or architecture but the more creative projects do tend to have wider boundaries, less restrictions. At the end of the day it’s still about how we’re interacting with a user.

Your LUNCH blog is awesome! Give us a recommendation of a dish/treat/restaurant for this week…
Now that it’s summer time, it’s the perfect weather for seasonal sandwiches in the park. One of our favorite warm weather lunches is picking up a fresh sandwich from a local purveyor and heading to a nearby park to sit in the sun.

In your opinion, to which discipline is Farmadelphia most relevant: Design, architecture, city planning, or social/civic activism? Or maybe all of these?
We do like to think that Farmadelphia is relevant to all of those disciplines. Especially as we believe that the successful intertwining of these elements creates a strong and coherent whole. Because Farmadelpia was initially conceived as an urban planning project, we felt it important to inspire people from both a design point of view and a civic sensibility.

 

Where/how was the seed (no pun intended) of this proposal born?
We drove down to Philadelphia one very sunny and slightly chilly winter afternoon, parked the car, got out and were just astounded at the sense of vastness resulting from abandoned lots and overgrown fields. There was a peacefulness that somehow evoked the idea of farmlands. It might be that we had just come from the density of New York City and so were particularly struck by the abundance of space, but we wanted to somehow preserve that sense of openness.

 

What specific economic/social trends do you observe that would lead you to believe that this proposal is viable?
Although sustainability seems very trendy of late, it is also heartening to see at least the general idea start to permeate to the greater public. Even if everyone is not fully educated on what it means to live more sustainably, at least they know the word. Which then means that there can be more support on a governmental level for proposals like Farmadelphia.

 

How is Farmadelphia different/similar to Front Studio’s previous/current work?
Not much of our work to-date has directly addressed issues of sustainability and localism. Farmadelphia is nice because we had the opportunity to think about ways of tying together the landscape with the community and providing a framework, based on the land, for the direct involvement of the locals.

Do you grow any plants in your home?
Yes! I’m no green-thumb but I love having plants and greenery around the house.

Several of your designs for competitions involve the “greening” of public urban spaces. Do you think that American cities are on the correct path toward achieving greener, more sustainable futures? Or is urban America a huge mess?
It does seem like the American public and the government is starting to really take sustainability more seriously. Public policy is starting to catch up and really be an integral part of lawmaking, not just a peripheral piece. It’s all good but we have such a long way to go before sustainability really becomes a part of everyone’s everyday life.

 

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Thank you so much to Yen & Michi for taking the time to answer our questions and share their expertise. If we are ever to move into a brighter future – one with less dependence on fossil fuels, strong local economies, and healthier food to eat and air to breathe, then the women of Front Studio are setting the bar for a new design frontier that is a platform for impactful and beneficial change in our communities.

(Photos: FrontStudio.com)