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Past Friday, the class made a trip down to the St Lawrence Market. Unfortunately, I was not able to take part in the trip with conflicting schedule, so I made my own trip down on Saturday to feel the festive spirit as well as check out some of the things that my classmates told me. Arriving in the morning at around 11am, there were as usual lots of people, each enjoying the market in different ways. Festive ornamentation were installed to both interior and exterior of the building, bringing attention to the Christmas holidays around the corner. For those not familiar with the market, it is one of historical markets of the city that boasts rich array of small businesses. These small businesses are not only diverse and each unique in character, but they are also extremely successful in creating a vibrant ‘community’ atmosphere.

I’ve also learnt that there is a rich history behind the St. Lawrence Market. The market was initially opened in 1814 introducing local food culture to Toronto. Since then,the market has gone through different buildings and renovations that culminated to current structure that was built in 1968. St. Lawrence Hall, situated on the north of the site, is a sister building to the current St. Lawrence Market that was built in 1851 and still stands slightly north of Front Street. In 2010, the market has also opened an international architectural competition for the new north building that was eventually won by Norman Foster architects. Their scheme involved viewing the new North Building as a connector building between St. Lawrence Hall and St. Lawrence Market through using glass atrium.

To finish off today’s blog post, I grabbed my fish n’ chip at Buster’s Sea Cove, and I must say, it was probably one of the best fish n’chip I had in a long time. Highly recommended!

I’ve often stumbled across images of aquaponic agriculture, but I’ve never had a chance to understand how it works. September 23rd, Productive city class headed to Scadding Court to look at their Aquaponics 707 as well as their Market707. In my imaginary mind, I was picturing slick white tubes in a sci-fi lab like setting--boy was I wrong.

The setting was rather closer than I thought--in a familiar area  where I often hangout for lunch and coffee. I’ve always found area around Scadding Court interesting (which I’ve come to learn is called Market707), but I was unsure of what the facility was for. Turns out, Scadding Court is a community center that has a couple of community initiatives which Market707 and Aquaponics707 is a part of.

Aquaponics707 is a small initiative to demonstrate use of and adoption of aquaponic system in a small corner of community center lobby. Fittingly, it was much more intimate compared to my initial prediction for sc-ifi lab. The structure was made of rather affordable materials (wood, styrofoam, plastic tank, etc). I just thought it was quite interesting misconception that people often had regarding new agricultural technologies.

Once everyone had a chance to settle down after grabbing a quick snack from Market707, the facility personnel explained aquaponic system and how it worked. Aquaponic uses water to rather than soil to grow plants. It cycles nutrients through a filtering process and the one at this facility uses tilapia to replace nitrogen and nitrates. Plants float above the water on styrofoam boards, and the roots growing in the water tank. I was surprised to find out how well these plants grew. We were also offered try some of the plants that were grown through aquaponic system which tasted bitter but extremely fresh.

I’ve recently had a chance to watch Mike Velings’ TED talk titled “the case for fish farming.” In the talk, he gives a comprehensive introduction of aquaculture and its potentials to aid in the inconvenient, yet ever pressing truth--global food shortage.

He outlines that we’re headed towards a global food crisis, where we are running out of protein both on land and under water. Paradoxically, the demands and necessity is constantly rising--he states that we have nearly quadrupled the amount of proteins consumed. This rate doesn’t look to slow down. It is predicted that by 2050, we will need at least 70 percent more proteins than what we have available. Nevertheless, more and more aquatic species are being endangered. He explains that 90 percent of largest predatory species like swordfish and bluefin tuna have disappeared since 1950s.

The solution to this is to look to ‘farm’ the ocean, rather than ‘hunting’ the ocean as we are today. He states that we should be controlling and managing growth of edible aquatic lives in a sustainable and ecological ways. There are many obvious advantages to this system. For human health, fish and aquatic lives are generally healthy and diverse, they can prevent heart disease, and they provide key amino acids and fatty acids. Logistically and economically, fish farming yield much more efficient protein output. You can farm one pound of fish with just one pound of feed, while a typical cow needs eight to nine pounds of feed and drink almost 8,000 liters of water to create just one pound of meat. Also, the fact that fish float on water, much less energy is required to sustain them.

Current drawbacks include chemicals and antibiotics to keep away fish disease, and excessive waste from unsustainable feed ingredients. Nevertheless, Velings argue that these drawbacks are being worked on, and with adequate investments and time, they will soon become non-issues. Already, there are automated feeders to make sure that fish are fed only when they are hungry to reduce unconsumed fish waste. They are also developing methods and technologies to battle disease and minimize use of antibiotics and chemicals. In other words, with enough public interest and investments, it is an underdog of an industry that has a mega potential.

Tracing back my memories, I think it was during my kindergarten days that I was first exposed to farming experience. They got all the kids to a sweet potato (or yam) farm to plant the seed, and harvest the crop a couple of months later. I remember it being a good season and I brought home garbage bag full to my parents surprise. Of course, this left a strong image in my childhood memory, but my ‘farming’ experience ends here where for next 20 years I have fewer and fewer chance to be involved in what I eat.

The Farmery, as the name might suggest, is an idea by Ben Greene to combine farm and retail and bringing it closer to the city. It is an urban market that allows city dwellers to witness and participate in the growth & harvest of crops and fish. Being made from 6 meter shipping containers, it takes relatively small space allowing for it to be stationed almost everywhere. According to Greene, it also makes financial, environmental sense. 

Financially, the Farmery promotes local agriculture, while “reducing costs by eliminating the 36% inventory loss incurred” while bringing produces from farm to market shelves. Environmentally, using aquaponic growing system, it’s very efficient producing very few waste. It also eliminates crop sterilization and wastes incurred packaging. 

Start of productive design journey begins with Allen Garden--not 5 minutes away from Ryerson University Architectural Building. Briefly walked passed this structure couple of times through my four years of education at Ryerson, but never did I know how cool it is inside this building. There are plenty and variety of flowers, cactuses, tropical & exotic plants, and aloe vera, which were all well taken care of and had nice scents. The building itself is made of glass in steel structure which made the interiors slightly warm, but I would like to visit again in winter when such warmth would be more appreciated!

Following the path inside the building, we were lead to edible outdoor community garden--an initiative that Ryerson has started. It was organized by June Komisar along with couple of Ryerson Architecture Students, who have designed and built recycled benches and planters. My favourite part of this community garden was the kid’s zone. I think that in this ever changing society where kid’s have less and less exposure to plants & garden and how they are made (especially in downtown communities), I think it would be a wonderful learning experience for them.