Manchester was the European City of Science 2016 with the aim to bring Manchester alive with science and provide exciting activities for audiences that explore how science connects to our daily lives and to imagine the possibilities for the future.
The Science in the City festival (22nd-29th July) ran alongside the conference and engaged the public in all aspects of science. One of the key content strands for Science in the City was food; activities, experiments, tastings, conversations unpicking the science of taste, truth & myths about food and health, and imagining the farms, factories and menus of the future. A key element of Science Feast was an allotment of the future in St Ann’s Square.
Led by Marketing Manchester, URBED designed the allotment. Content partners included Squirrel Nation, the University of Manchester Plant Science department, the University of Salford School of Environment and Life Sciences, Sow the City and Real Food Wythenshawe. Salford based m3industries worked with us to turn the designs into reality.
The Autumn 2016 edition of the Urban Design Group Journal focuses on 'Food and the City' and features an article on our involvement in the Allotment of the Future. Written by Helen and Jie, the article explains our design concept before exploring some of the content, in particular looking at themes of alternative protein, growing in urban spaces and the importance of soil.
The Autumn edition will be available on the Urban Design Group journal in due course: http://www.udg.org.uk/
A write up of the Allotment of the Future features in the October edition of Now Then Manchester.
In this post on the European City of Science website we detail our involvement with the Allotment of the Future project, explaining the design principles behind the week long installation in St Ann's Square in July.
There are also some fascinating articles from other partners including:
It's your final chance to visit the Allotment of the Future in St Ann's Square today. It's been a fantastic week full of plants, interesting science, DIY mushrooms, algae, insects and loads of activities. We'll be sad to see the allotment taken down (it's wonderful to see some greenery in Manchester city centre), but happy knowing that the various modules will continue to be used by our partners in educational work. If you couldn't make it down to the allotment, here are some pictures:
The Allotment of the Future is taking shape in St Ann's Square with everyone working hard to get it ready for the opening on Friday 22nd July. Here's a sneak preview...
One of the partners on the Allotment of the Future is Sow the City. They've been busy building a hydroponics installation that will be on display during the installation in St Ann's Square (from Friday 22nd July to Friday 29th July). Built from PVC pipe and connected to a water tank and pump, they're aiming to showcase a range of crops.
During the week Jon and Kieron of Sow the City will be running a series of 30 minute workshops, explaining how the system works:
Fri 22nd – 2pm
Sat 23rd – 3pm
Mon 25th – 1pm
Tues 26th – 11am
Thurs 28th – 2pm
Fri 29th – 3pm
Here's a sneak preview of some of the elements of the allotment being built for us by Salford based M3 Industries!
