We recently visited the Mushroom Farm during the Mushroom Harvest + Meet the Farmer event on First Thursday in
Pioneer Square. The Mushroom Farm is the latest installation in the
Olson Kundig Architects [storefront] experimental space. It has been getting tons of press on its impressive concept: coffee grounds from three local coffee shops in Pioneer Square are composted to farm gourmet oyster mushrooms inside a downtown building.
CityLab7 collaborated with
Olson Kundig and
Schuchart/Dow to bring its Fertile Grounds pop-up concept to life.
Now, as quickly as those mushrooms popped out of 225 bags of coffee grounds and sawdust, the Mushroom Farm will be drawing to a close soon this week.
The Mushroom Harvest + Donation event, set for Thursday March 8th (see CityLab7's website for updates), may be the last time you can participate in this local, homegrown concept.
Which makes now a good time to reflect on the lessons the Mushroom Farm has put on the table. While everything in the installation was local-centric (coffee grounds from Caffe Umbria, Starbucks, and Zeitgeist), re-purposed (plywood in the Mothership construction), or salvaged (communal dining table), much focus has been on individual moving parts and we thought we should take some time to examine the bigger picture.
We asked CityLab7's Stephen M. Antupit if he could help us clarify the big takeaway from this nearly ephemeral installation: "CityLab7's
work is focused on using individual food choice, urban food production, and
sharing the table as the media for strengthening community connections,
designing new arrangements to serve our true needs, and to support healthy
urbanism."
The Mushroom Farm has successfully integrated all of these principles into a whole, closed-loop system.
"Yes we have diverted high quality feedstock from the waste stream. And we have cultivated a valuable crop whose production adds a new dimension to the neighborhood's economy. More, we have engaged the curiosity of cafe patrons and passers-by alike. Many have come to share a meal at the communal table, others have tweeted their coffee buying habits to secure invitations to a shared
mushroom-themed dinner."
In an age where society is now waking up to the effects of transnational corporate, industrial, mega-farming (cough, climate change, cough), could we use the Mushroom Farm as a model for urban agriculture in the future? Can we learn from marrying the economics of small-scale farming with communities? With such beautiful oyster mushrooms growing in one of the most unlikely of places, it smells promising to me.
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