Tag Archives: edible

Monday musings – Brighton foraging and the edible city

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A couple of Saturdays ago, we led a walk around a little patch of our city that we know pretty well – guiding a few people in the ways of edible urban Brighton foraging as part of our edible city month and as part of the Chelsea Fringe.

edible city walk brighton flyer

The day was perfect – wonderfully sunny but with a bit of a breeze, and with everyone turning up we soon had a crowd of 20 or so people, raring to learn a bit of urban foraging. A few people had foraged before, a few had never thought of foraging and it was great to see a couple of families interested in exploring their repertoire of wild foods.

After a run down of the (very complicated) laws of foraging we started our walk, pointing out around 15 different edible flowers, fruits and foliages, from the highly fragrant and blousy Japanese Rose to the very unassuming Hairy Bittercress.

Some of the plants and shrubs were very familiar, others not so, and we told a bit of the ancient folklore that accompanies the uses of the plants as well as uses in modern medicine – especially with our favourite shrub, the hawthorn.

But the most important factor of the day was to show how a relatively short walk can supplement the weekly food shop – urban foraging is not going to replace the supermarket, but why spend a few quid on salad leaves when you can pick them, fresh and tasty on your doorstep for free?

After an hour of walking and talking, loads of photos and chat later (including a couple of stinging nettle casualties) we ended up back at our start point, on a bit of urban greenery right next to a large supermarket, where we had a little foraged picnic feast that we had made, comprising of:

- Elderberry and ginger cordial, wild plum and rum cordial and nettle cordial for the drinks.

- Japanese rose syrup drizzle cupcakes, lilac and lavender shortbreads, ground elder and garlic mustard quiches, mini cheese scones with wild garlic pesto and mini cheese scones with wild apple cheese.

It was a wonderful afternoon – thank you to everyone who attended the event and made it such a success. We will be running a series of these Brighton foraging walks over the coming months, so if you would like to attend one of the next walks, drop us an email – hello@clairepotterdesign.com

And you can read a review from one of the attendees here, at the Epicurious Adventurer.

EVENT – the edible city – a free guided urban foraging walk in Brighton for the Chelsea Fringe…

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This event is now full – please email us if you would like to go on our mailing list for future edible city / urban foraging events…

We love a bit of local food and you do not get any more local than a spot of urban foraging, so for our Chelsea Fringe event this year we are celebrating the local hedgerow larder in Brighton.

edible city walk brighton flyer

Join us on a free guided walk around a little strip we know well in Brighton – we will help you to identify a few (very abundant) edible goodies that surround us all on a daily basis and give you some pointers on how to use them to boost your cooking repertoire.

We will also give you the run down on foraging and the law and there will even be a few light refreshments made by the studio from stuff we have foraged in and around Brighton.

When? Sat 8th June, 1pm – approximately one hour walk

Where? West Hove, Brighton (exact location TBC, but near to a train station, buses and car park)

Price? completely free – but please email hello@clairepotterdesign.com to book your place as spaces are limited.

Why? because we should all be urban foragers. it’s tasty and fun.

see the Chelsea Fringe website for details on more great events happening until 9th June…

flowers and graffiti from Amsterdam

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We are particularly drawn to anything with high contrast – the rough with the smooth, the loud with the quiet, the dark with the light. Contrasting elements can provide real interest to a space, display or even just to differentiate between surfaces.

So, whilst wandering around Amsterdam last weekend, there was one particular photo which showed interesting contrast in a way which we had not seen so much - flowers and graffiti.

flowers and graffiti

We found a lovely flower shop – very typically Dutch and beautifully presented. But the flowers flowed around the corner into an adjoining alley, where masses of bright yellow pansies and violas were displayed for sale.

Sitting against a dark black, graffiti covered wall, it was this piece of contrast that really caught our eye. Flowers and graffiti do not sit obviously next to one another, but these shared splashes of gold and black, so complimented each other whilst still having a great contrast.

So when you think about putting together a display, or redecorating a part of your house and garden, think about contrast – how can the unusual be combined to create something which shocks in the right way?

(image by claire potter design)

REVISIT – sweet violets – the most beautiful edible flower for Spring?

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Despite the snow, there are a few plants which are beginning to come to life and remind us that spring is surely on its way.

One such plant is the stunning Sweet Violet, which we wrote about last year and is just starting to get going…

March 2012…

A few weeks ago we posted about the earliest edible flowers available to pretty up your plates and this weekend we spotted our favourites – sweet violets, or to give them their proper name, Viola odorata.

There is a large bank near our studio which sits right on the edge of a road, by a bus stop, which is completely smothered by a blanket of sweet violets which fills the air with the most amazing scent each March.

Given their demure size, the scent they produce is actually quite incredible, with a little bunch happily scenting a whole room.

The blooms are also wonderful added to spring salads to give a bit of colour, but our favourite way to use them is to place a single bloom on a chocolate violet flavoured cupcake – the dark brown icing really making the blue purple of the violet sing out. Or, as pictured to the left here, they can be crystallised and added as decorations (these cakes were vanilla with violet extract flavoured icing)

Sweet violets are a great addition to a garden and as they are happy in both full sun or semi shade there will almost certainly be a place that they would love.

Plus, as well as the standard violet coloured sweet violet, you can get white varieties too, which, if colour is not your thing, would be a brilliant alternative.

Get them here or here.

(top image from crocus)

SPOTTED – a great, low tech green walling system

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As some of you are probably aware, we are pretty obsessed with the greening of our cities – be it with ornamental green wall cladding, or preferably with edible landscaping. A few posts of late have been dedicated to the art of green walling, from the highly efficient living wall systems of Biotecture to the very low tech DIY green walling systems using traditional climbers to clad a building.

And there are clear merits to each of the systems, from versatility, water recycling to just utilising natures own plants which want to scramble and climb.  They also come with very different price tags.

One DIY system we really like takes the green wall plants right off the face of the structure itself so potential damage from the plants climbing to the façade of the building is minimised.

green wall 2

So whilst wandering around Ecobuild last week we were delighted to see such a system installed as a demonstration stand around one of the lecture pavilions.

It uses stainless steel fixings which space a tensioned mesh away from the face of the building, creating a secondary skin across which a climber, in this case English Ivy can climb.  What is great is that these types of fixings are readily available, reasonably priced and can be customised to the space you need to clad.

green wall 1

It creates a very nice and clean detail – and some great shadows on the façade of the building, which in this case was large format tiles.

And this is the beauty of shows such as Ecobuild – finding ideas and inspiration for your own projects, so why not take this idea and apply it to your own buildings in need of a bit of green walling?

(images by claire potter)

more climber based green wall cladding…

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A few posts ago we looked at how you can create a green wall type installation using a basic framework, built around your existing building and allowing climbing plants to be grown up the structure.

As we discussed, this sort of installation ensures that damage to the building structure is minimised as the plants are grown off the façade.

It also creates a very interesting secondary skin to the building, which could be allowed to envelop large sections of the structure, or changed periodically to give differences in texture – or even edible crops such as squashes.

It does seem as though this type of ‘green cladding’ is becoming very popular, as we spotted another example at the end of last week, using this very framework based system.

Formerly an existing garage in the Italian Alps, architects Act_Romegialli were bought on board to convert the structure into a welcoming studio for their clients.

green design, eco design, sustainable design, Green Box, Act_romegialli, green roof, Italian Alps, vine covered garage, living walls

The resulting structure, called ‘Green Box’ is encased in a lightweight steel frame upon which climbing plants have been encouraged to grow – shielding the building and developing it into a piece of the landscape itself.

Privacy to the retreat section of the building is given by the growing vines and climbers themselves which filter light passing into the structure.

green design, eco design, sustainable design, Green Box, Act_romegialli, green roof, Italian Alps, vine covered garage, living walls

The interior of the building follows this simple theme, with reclaimed timber boards, stone and steel being used to create a very industrial yet rustic aesthetic.

What is beautiful about this particular project is the simplicity with which it was envisaged - using the natural growth of the plants to create the covering skin – an idea which could easily be employed with any small scale structure.

Garages, sheds, outbuildings – why not think about creating your own green wall cladding this Spring.

(images via Inhabitat)

the edible city – the future of our workplaces?

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This week we have been preparing for a talk we are giving at the University of Brighton for the Brighton Interior Architecture and Architecture Society, about the work of the studio and stuff that inspires us. One such element is the integration and development of the edible city and how this can inform public landscaping and workplace design.

When putting together the lecture, we were aware of just how many concepts there are for the integration of food growing, particularly beautifully rendered, high technology concepts, but just how little are actually built.

Is it that we are just thinking about the edible city but have just not got around to building it yet?

Also, the vast majority of the concepts are new build projects, usually in the vertical format. Towers, Sky Farms, layered buildings with horticulture and agriculture combined.

There is, of course a certain amount of building efficiency which can be planned into a new structure, but it does not necessarily mean that our existing buildings cannot be adapted to integrate localised growing into their footprints.

Dalston 1

We wrote about one such project here – the FARM: shop project by Something and Son in Dalston, London, which uses a standard retail location to produce fish through aquaponics, salads and even eggs from rooftop chickens – all of which is used in the on site cafe. They also run educational programs to encourage other people to grow.

But thinking of the larger, city workplace format, there is one project which is a very interesting example of what the future of our offices could be – and not in a new structure.

The Pasona HQ in Tokyo is based in a retrofitted 50 year old building, which has been adapted to be not only a working environment, but an urban farm.

Pasana hq1

Designed by Kono Designs, the building grows most of the food required to feed its employees, from broccoli, squash, tomatoes and even rice, through a variety of interior and exterior growing methods.

There are growing areas included throughout the building, from the main lobby to private offices and meeting rooms, with both soil based and hydroponic systems being employed.

Pasana hq2

Outside, the exterior of the building has a living facade which includes orange trees, which provides valuable seasonal solar shading and improves the air quality as well as being productive.

What is also great about the Pasona HQ is that the employees actually tend to the crops themselves  and are encouraged to spread the word about growing to other city goers through education – leading by example. The sight of someone cutting the rice paddy in the office reception is a welcome change to the usual piece of sculpture.

Pasana hq3

Overall, this existing building has been redesigned to include 43,000 square feet of ‘farmland’ with over 200 species being grown.

Could this become a model for the development of our edible city and workplaces?

(images via Inhabitat fron Kono Designs)

Cladding with a green wall

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On Friday we looked at how living green wall systems can be used to bring a bit of the Pantone colour of 2013, Emerald Green into an interior space, even though the green wall is most often seen outside.

Of course, as well as bringing a bit of colour into any space, green walls have many air purifying qualities and can even be used to grow edible crops, making then a great space saving choice for residential and business premises. But, as we detailed on Friday, the green wall system is a technical beast.

There are however ways to create a living green wall effect outside with relative ease, as this project, the Art Barn in Greenwich, USA by Robert Young Architecture demonstrates beautifully.

Instead of the traditional panel green wall system that we have come to know, this project takes the effect right back to it’s literal roots – with climbing plants.

The structure is covered with an open mesh type cladding panel which allows the plants, in this case white wisteria, to cling on and scramble up the building. The wisteria acts as a natural rain screen and provides insulative shading in summer, whilst still being a separate ‘skin’ from the building beneath.

This separation provides the feeling of a shield, but also ensures that the vigorous nature of the climbing plants do not do any adverse damage to the structure of the building as they grow. There does seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to climbing plants – good living screens or potential structural nightmares, but if treated with care and attention, with this type of separation, you can have the best of both worlds and is usually the path we adopt with clients with similar projects.

This type of green wall ‘cladding’ is a great way to cover an unsightly building, garage, or to provide a skin for a larger building, just like the example above. Install an open mesh system first, slightly separated from the structure, then choose your climbers. Think of it as a modern, freestanding trellis project and you are pretty much there.

Of course, this type of green wall does take a lot longer to create the end result, but climbing plants which are relatively vigorous can be chosen to cover your chosen structure. You could even mix up your planting with edible climbers too, making the green wall productive as well as aesthetically pleasing.

So, why not think about your own green wall this year? make use of a structure and get growing.

(image via Inhabitat)

Weekend colour inspiration – Using Emerald Green in interior architecture…

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As well as writing the Ecospot, Claire also is a guest blogger for the Society of British Interior Designers – here is a recent post which looks at how to take the colour of 2013, emerald green into an interior, with a bit of a difference…

January 2013

Recently we looked at the newly announced PANTONE colour of the year for 2013 – Emerald Green: 17-5641. But whilst there is the linkage with precious jewels and riches, there is also a distinct connection with the ideas of regeneration, growth and renewal.

But as a rich shade, it could be a tricky one to pull off in an interior. It is a very dominating tone and could be better used as an accent colour rather than using it envelop a whole space. Dark greys can be used in this way as they act as a moody foil for everything which sits on top, but emerald green? It could look like the mock up of a rainforest.

As a colour, we think emerald green is beautiful, so we have been thinking how it could be integrated into a modern interior in a way which is contemporary and uncluttered. And we have thought of one, slightly different way that designers could incorporate it into interior spaces.

The living wall.

The use of plants within any interior spaces has always been key, with the most balanced of designs using a good mix of large and small scale planting as an integrated element, but the living wall has now truly established itself as a greening tool for inside as well as outside. Many commercial and residential projects have utilised the wonderful textures and air cleaning qualities that come with a true living wall. And the shade? Well, depending on the plants used, we would put this well and truly into the emerald green bracket.

Surely there is no better way that to represent a colour which is all about growth, renewal and resurgence than to actually use living plants within a space?

A living wall is best integrated into a project at the detail design stages, but there are ways to retro fit this truly beautiful element into any space, so long as there is adequate light, power and somewhere for the water (which is recirculated around the system) to be housed. They work wonderfully in living room spaces and can be absolutely magical in bathrooms and wetrooms.

There are many specialist companies who are able to assist designers with the planning, construction and implementation of living walls of all scales and we would urge you to utilise their extensive knowledge. As simple as they look, living walls are complicated and highly engineered beasts, but with planning and thought they may just become your favourite way of creating texture and life in a modern interior. We have used them on a number of projects and both our clients and ourselves have been delighted with the results. The lushness of foliage really cannot be imitated.

And if you choose your plants carefully, your wall will be emerald green, so you’ll be bang on trend for 2013.

(image from living wall specialists Biotecture)

the ‘Back to the Future’ style indoor garden light

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We all have films, or even series of films which we remember fondly from our youth for a variety of reasons. For us, one of the ‘classics’, and one which we can quote from quite happily is the epic ‘Back to the Future’ series where marty mcfly skips between the past, the future and then the past again in a time machine Delorean.

We of course wanted to build a time machine, or a hoverboard (still working on this one) or any of the large props which featured in the Back to the Future series, but the second, ‘future’ film actually featured a whole range of ‘gadgets’ which have almost become part of our daily lives as we increasingly live with technology.

But there are still a few gadgets which are yet to be created (food rehydrator anyone?) and we were very interested to see the newly launched ‘Babylon’ light from Toronto based designer Ryan Taylor which seems to be partially inspired by the domestic kitchen indoor garden in the second film, which is called down from the ceiling when required.

Babylon Light, Ryan Taylor, Back to the Future, Garden, lighting, aluminum, light, plants

The futuristic pendant light can be used to grow all indoor plants, but it is particularly suited to indoor kitchen gardens where herbs can be grown and be on hand for all culinary purposes.

The body of the light is constructed from powder coated aluminium and is relatively minimalistic which suits the lush greenery which becomes the focus of the striking piece.

It is still in very early stages, but we think that this type of relatively low tech interior greening could be the start of a continuing trend for 2013.

(image via Inhabitat)