The Everything Roof @ The Centre for Social Innovation Annex
CSI Annex: CSI Annex will host the About Face Collecitve’s "Everything Roof", as well as act as Trustee for this project. CSI has seven years of project incubation and building/space management experience. Karine Jaouich and Tonya Surman will oversee the implementation of this project and act as main contact persons for the trusteeship of the Live Green Toronto Grant.
Sketch Toronto: Members of the Sketch community will be instrumental in the design and implementation of the rooftop garden space, as well as creation of murals and permanent art installation pieces. Rose Guitierrez will be our liason and coordinator for our partnership with the Sketch community of artists and organizers.
Skate4Cancer: The About Face Collective and Skate4Cancer will work collaboratively to create and implement programming around Skate4Cancer’s “You Are What You Eat” campaign. Rob Dyer, Founder and Spokesperson for Skate4Cancer will be our main contact person.
LiveGreen Toronto: The About Face Collective has recieved $75,000 from Live Green as start-up capital for this project. This funding is contingent on raising matching funds by December 31, 2011.
The About Face Collective is proposing the creation of a community rooftop garden and learning space with a twist: the creative structural elements of the garden will be designed and built by local artists and youth using primarily recycled or reclaimed materials. Together with Skate4Cancer’s “You Are What You Eat” program, Sketch Working Arts for Street Involved and Homeless Youth, and the Centre for Social Innovation, The About Face Collective will create a unique, inspiring, visually exciting platform to promote urban farming, green lifestyles and integrated community engagement.
Educational programming will be offered throughout the initial development process in the form of workshops. Our regular scheduled programming, in partnership with Skate4Cancer, will be implemented upon completion of garden installation. Our primary program offering will take the form of half-day educational sessions for school and community groups, focusing on agriculture and urban gardening education, sustainable art and design, nutritional information and simple food preparation. The programming will seek to show the food process in its full cycle, from seed to meal. We take a creative approach to food education, integrating art, nutrition and sustainable possibilities.
The multi-faceted nature of our project addresses many issues facing our local community. Environmentally, the rooftop green space will help to reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to the heat island effect and smog that urban centres experience. The downtown rooftop garden will be one of the most urban sources of food production, along with popular rooftop gardens such as the Carrot Commons and The Royal York Hotel. Socially, it will help educate a growing population of young people growing up in urban centres with no real access to interacting with the food production process, as well as create jobs for at-risk youth.
Our project is one of the last to receive environmentally-focused city funding from the Live Green Toronto grants, but that funding is contingent on securing matching funds ($75,000) by December 31st. Funding from this competition would therefore be very timely and a would allow us to begin the implementation of this garden starting in January 2012.
In terms of cutting carbon emissions, replacing black tar rooftop space with garden space has a twofold effect for carbon reduction:
- Eliminating the “dead” rooftop space will reduce the Heat Island effect caused by hot, heat absorbing black roofs, which contribute to smog and poor air quality in the city.
- The plants grown on the roof will help to absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen, helping to improve air quality with measurable results.
- Creating a local food source for the surrounding community will also help reduce transportation emissions associated with importing produce into the city.
We will be using carbon emission measurement tools provided by LiveGreen Toronto to determine the exact amount of carbon emission reductions.
Lauren Pirie: Project Manager, Artistic Director and Marketing Manager
Lauren will work collaboratively with Natalie to manage overall project coordination and progress, source and coordinate contractors, consultants and volunteers. Lauren will focus on the creative design and artistic direction of the garden space and any artist created elements. She will coordinate and manage the artist team and work closely with the Sketch coordinator and Sketch artists. Lauren will be assisted by creative spatial design consultant and local reclaimed materials expert, Mahmood Popal to direct the creative design of the physical space and coordinate between artists, architects and contractors. Lauren will also oversee all communications, public relations and marketing of the project and subsequent programming. This will include press releases, written materials, website and social media upkeep, branding and graphic design.
Natalie Boustead: Project Manager, Education Coordinator and Garden Manager
Natalie will be responsible for the general oversight of project implementation in collaboration with Lauren Pirie. This will include coordination of contractors, architects, builders, artists and volunteers. She will oversee the creation and implementation of educational programming in the space, as well as organizing and coordinating the use of garden space. This would include gardening volunteer coordination, crop planning, gathering and organizing educational resources, and leading and coordinating volunteers or interns to lead workshops and school tours.
The About Face Collective will seek to be self sustaining through the following capital-generating aspects:
- Educational Programming: School and community groups will pay fees to The About Face Collective for various educational programming throughout the year, including planting/gardening skills, nutritional knowledge, and food security issues.
- Event Space Rental: Community and Private organizations can rent out the rooftop space for private or public functions. CSI Annex has agreed that any and all fees generated from these events will go towards The About Face Collective Rooftop Recycle Art Garden.
- Organic Produce Sales: Produce generated from the rooftop garden space will be sold at the CSI Annex organic market, as well as to local restaurants. We will strive to produce rare and heirloom varieties to ensure highest possible capital generation from this endeavor.
- Additional Grants/Private Donations: In addition to the LiveGreen Toronto Grant, The About Face Collective will be seeking various sources of funding for all aspects of this project to ensure the continued success of it’s functionality and programming within the space.
Comments
Collaboration
Another great project in the running!
I am curious if there would be a way to monetize the space, such as rent it out for performances or talks, or would that be against the spirit of the initiative?
- Ideas for moentizing so that the space could become self-sustainable
- Discussion of what the space would be used for in the winter months in particular
Education
Fantastic. I love the idea of using this space as a place to educate regarding where food comes from. There is an alarming numer of children today do no not have the exposure to, and therefore have little to no understanding of the cycle of food production.
I would be very inerested in finding out more about the involvement of the You Are What You Eat initiative, and how this will be integrated into this project. As the project grows, I would like to see people being offered simple cooking lessons using the seasonal and local produce grown so that people could see how they themselves can grow, harvest and cook their food in a sustainable and healthy way.
Food glorious food
I really like the basic idea here. I think it would be helpful to add a couple of pieces. One is to look at how replicable this type of project is. This would answer questions like roof access on residential buildings and any structural issues including water access, how many key participants it would take to sustain over long periods etc. Would also be interesting to know how many people could access food over what period of time using how much space. For outcomes it would be good to know that there was a commitment from participants in the education program to building gardens in their communities.
Innovative
I think your idea is fantastic. Having been in the green roofing industry for several years it will be nice to see artistic elements woven into the design, as opposed to being an add-on as it is in many green roofs.
From the description of the venture it appears the design has not yet been completed, in my opinion that gives you an additional and rare opportunity to make the metal retainment system (most commonly chosen in the industry if this hasn’t been designed out via value engineering) an artistic component as well. Include that and your project becomes a very rare one and I believe the green roofing community (and broader design community) will praise you for years, perhaps even turning to your collaborators (local artists and youth) for ideas and future work.
City-wide impact?
Very exciting proposal given all the multiple benefits - and I especially appreciate the idea of integrating the cultural, health and environmental elements.
I agree with some of the other comments regarding a good think on how this project could be fully leveraged to bring carbon reductions city-wide through support of expanded garden space, and building commitment to preparing and eating locally produced foods.
Re: Expanded Garden Space
I agree that there needs to be more of a city wide effort to tranform more urban rooftop spaces into potential food production locations, and I think that showcasing how this kind of practical and necessary food production can also be a tourist attraction, and can facilitate community engagement in a variety of ways is an important step towards the city staff's willingness to re-juvinate environmental funding sources, such as the Live Green grants, which we are losing this year.
We need this kind of project in Toronto right now to prove how exciting and multi-faceted the food security sector really can be! We can't do it all at once, but we can be the spark that starts the flame!
Re: Making retainment system artistic
This is an interesting idea we haven't yet looked into! Thanks for the suggestion!
Educational opportunities
I think that the potential of connecting education, urban agriculture and design will spur endless possibilities of teaching and learning through experiential activities.
What a great idea!
If you can hold regular events on the roof top by subject matters, it will pull lots of people to the roof. Important thing may lie in how can you animate the programs to engage young people. Quality and substance also in the program may be commendable.
Just start rolling and improving as you go along.
I saw the roof
I visited CSI the other day. The roof looks great for your project. All weeds are covering the whole roof.
It would be wonderful to tender the roof garden into a beautiful organic vegetable garden. Design the plot in such a way that it is pleasing, beautiful and productive with nice walking board trail. CSI will certainly enjoy your fruit of hard work. And make sure people can come and see your shining example and inspire them to copy you, free of charge. But should pay you what you put your time for them. Good luck!
Financial Strategy: Bootstrapping and your Lead Customers
Please read below.
I’m excited to see so many entrepreneurial proposals on ClimateSpark. I especially like the model of social ventures that can sustain themselves by creating their own revenue and be less dependent on grants or gifts.
In my own experience starting and building several companies, I’ve often employed “bootstrapping” techniques so I’m not dependent on external capital (VCs, etc.). One technique I’ve used successfully is to recruit one or more “lead customers” who pay me up-front for a service (e.g., consulting or something they need right away), which gives me the capital to build my product or capability for them. The big advantages: cash up-front (or early); a real customer to help make sure my design is something they’ll want to buy; and a great partner to test ideas with as I’m getting off the ground.
What’s your bootstrapping strategy? Have you tried to develop “lead customers” for your product or service? Have you talked to potential customers ? What are you doing to get cashflow from them early, so your idea can gain traction?
For profits with a social purpose vs. non-profit
hi Deepak, what you described, having clients and a business model that sustains the social purpose is how for-profits with a social purpose operate. The company I founded to develop urban ag equipment fits this description. Like other for-profit with an environmental and social purpose, we were invited to join this competition, provided we have a non-profit partner. This condition complicated things! These partnerships are a naturally fit once our businesses have launched, but not while we develop our product. The competition requires that a non-profit administers the fund used by a for-profit to develop a technology that the non-profit will eventually use. That's a deferred partnership that confuses them and us! We need a competition for for-profits with a eco-purpose, the ones that self-sustian their eco-idea and have clients.
I like the proposal by Everything Roof. I think they could include innovative technolgies for processing food waste from the building into a fertilizer for the roof, without excess labor, odor or flies.
Financial Strategy: Bootstrapping and your Lead Customers
Please read below.
I’m excited to see so many entrepreneurial proposals on ClimateSpark. I especially like the model of social ventures that can sustain themselves by creating their own revenue and be less dependent on grants or gifts.
In my own experience starting and building several companies, I’ve often employed “bootstrapping” techniques so I’m not dependent on external capital (VCs, etc.). One technique I’ve used successfully is to recruit one or more “lead customers” who pay me up-front for a service (e.g., consulting or something they need right away), which gives me the capital to build my product or capability for them. The big advantages: cash up-front (or early); a real customer to help make sure my design is something they’ll want to buy; and a great partner to test ideas with as I’m getting off the ground.
What’s your bootstrapping strategy? Have you tried to develop “lead customers” for your product or service? Have you talked to potential customers ? What are you doing to get cashflow from them early, so your idea can gain traction?
Excellent Suggestion
This is a great suggestion. Because the nature of this project is to serve public rather than private interests/access, it is a bit trickier to target a "lead customer" per se. Mainly, our lead customer is CSI Annex, who have been very generous in their support of this project, allowing us free access to the rooftop for 3 years, free office space, waiving administration fees, offering us their advice, support and social capital to help get this idea off the ground.
Any suggestions of how one would target any other "lead customers" on a community-oriented project like this would be helpful!
Clearly expressing your business value – Mock Press Release
Each proposal in ClimateSpark is bringing a valuable community based idea forward to help with energy conservation and the reduction of carbon emissions
Centennial College, School of Communications Media & Design, Corporate Communications and Public Relations Class of 2012 will be working on a set of mock press releases, in anticipation of this proposal being one of the 20 to be selected on October 31 to continue to ClimateSpark Ignite Phase 2.
If you would like to be interviewed as part of the mock press release development process, please send a note to Professor Barry Waite, bwaite@centennialcollege.ca by Friday October 21, 2011.
If you choose not to be interviewed, the mock press release will be developed based on Information currently posted in the description of your idea, as well as information gleaned from the various comment interactions.
Thanks for the vote of confidence!
We'd be happy to do an interview for a Mock Press Release. We have done this in the past for George Brown students and will gladly do it again. We'll be in touch!
Beautiful, useful, and exciting
This roof could have the same energy, beauty, and excitement as Evergreen's Brickworks, in a very accessible location, directly across from Central Tech. It would also benefit from synergies with the many wonderful organizations who already use the Centre for Social Innovation, trying to build a better future.
Central location is key
Thanks dsaxe, we totally agree that the centrality of this garden space is key, as it can facilitate many of the same type of things that the Brickworks does, but in a more central location that makes it more appealing for people who feel a trip to the Brickworks is a half-day event instead of a quick drop in.
The location, paired with all of the innovative ideas coming out of CSI will see the creative use of this space on a regular basis.
Multi purpose project!
I think this is a very creative project. This green space is environmental but has potential for so much more. The artistic elements make it appealing, the sale of organic products is business oriented and the educational element is socially conscious. Using the space to teach nutrition and the food process is useful in expanding the influence of the project. Finally, the possibility to rent the space out for events is a real draw. I would, however, really like to see more detailed design plans for the space.
Re: design plans
The About Face Collective is excited about allowing the community to be intrinsically involved in the design plans for this project, and will do so by holding community engagement meetings with both CSI members and other members of the commuinty to make sure everyone has had a chance to help envision the space with us and help meet everyone's needs. Therefore, we've held off on making set design plans until we've had a chance to involve our community!
Great Potential
This is a great creative project integrating environmentalism and art. It has great potential to involve a large number of people in the community both in its construction and how it’s used. This mixed-use space will appeal to a wide range of people for its its uniqueness and will hopefully become a dynamic centre for environmental education in Toronto.
I would love to see more detail about the various features the space might include, like the stage or the living wall.
this is the one!
beautiful project!!!!!
Great idea!
This idea I find to be the most interesting and innovative because of how many platforms it can jump off of. It engages youth and communities, promotes education, the use of existing urban space and the arts. It also maintains green components with their ideas of urban farming, their usage of recycled materials and sustainable possibilities. The opportunities this garden and urban space would create are most confluent with the competition’s mission.
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We love it!
This project is so multifaceted and interactive, spanning the gamut of arts and environmentalism and community engagement in one cohesive space! We really hope to get the chance to present this before the judges and get helpful feedback and funding to make our dreams a reality!