FARM:shop Opens In East London
Conceived and created by the social design practice Something & Son, FARM:shop opened in March 2011, transforming a previously derelict shop in Dalston Lane into a fertile centre for food production and allowing city dwellers to catch a whiff of the countryside in East London. It is run as an urban farming hub that houses an Aquaponic for fish farming, a hightech indoor allotment, a rooftop chicken coop and a polytunnel used as a greenhouse.
The café serves up fresh food grown in-house and the events space runs workshops, talks and dinners to spread the “ FARM:ing knowhow.”
The mission of FARM:shop, according to Something & Son, is to “ excite and inspire city dwellers to grow their own food, fabric and medicine and make an income doing this.” Describing themselves as “ über-collaborators ”, this is, they say, just the beginning of a much larger project to develop a FARM: network of shops and growing sites across the UK. So if you have a warehouse, rooftop, vacant land, or balcony where you would like to learn to grow your own, then the Something & Son boys will want to hear from you.
This and more inspiring projects can be found in the print copy of A smart guide to Utopia or the ebook version.