How small structures fill big gaps in food access

Storefront volunteer consultant and former mOb student Colleen Brennan discusses the relationship between craft and food access. A furniture builder by trade, she has worked on two projects about food access at mOb + Storefront — through Shalom Farms and Tricycle Gardens. 

As most of us know, there are big gaps in the locations of grocery store chains that leave many without adequate supply of food. Having a background in craft, I’ve thought a lot about how removed we are from the production of the basic things we need every day, that being food and the infrastructure & tools necessary to prepare it. While the craft movement was originally founded to revive the dignity of labor and combat the dehumanizing effects of factory work, the movement has been revived with concerns that are more focused around sustainability — both environmental and economic. Now, the focus is more about locally sourced materials and makers as a form of ethical consumerism. These are largely the concerns of the "slow food/farm to table" movement as well.  The philosophies of these two movements have such similar sentiments, and in addition to the similarities in scale there is immense potential for them to intersect and expand access to good food on the local level.

Bacon's Rebellion. Map showing Richmond's urban food deserts by census tract (2012).

There are two ways that food can actually meet food desert: physically providing access and education. Accessibility to food will always require infrastructure on some level, and small grocery markets operate on a scale that lends itself well to craft. Tricycle Gardens is a nonprofit community garden that runs a program called Corner Farm, which carves out spaces in the corner stores of Richmond’s urban food deserts to offer locally grown produce. They have 11-15 participating stores thoughotut the city.  Tricycle Gardens reached out to Storefront to get help designing shelves for shelf stable produce.

Through Storefront's Design Session, Brennan devised a scheme to create shelves around the coolers provided through the Corner Farm program.

Another nonprofit I worked with during mOb, Shalom Farms, literally drives to neighborhoods without grocery stores. This past spring, we designed a system that will allow them to easily load their van and convert the van into a pop-up market for sales. They're working on implementing this now. Their focus on education provides access by way of knowledge sharing. Part of Shalom Farms’ program is teaching volunteer labor about farming techniques and the science behind it.  They provide access through education and therefore, personal agency. This is early DIY movement stuff — So punk!

Brennan managed a team of students through mOb studio to design a system that converts a 16 passenger van into a farm stand.

mOb + Storefront will continue to work on issues around food access during this Fall's session of mOb. Even without building structures, healthier options can be more readily available. The Richmond City Health District will serve as a client of mOb, and students will apply the principles of choice architecture (focusing on arrangement that prioritize healthy options) to a corner store in the Highland Park neighborhood.

Check out more of Colleen's work here!

Storing Bikes for Story Rides

Catherine Illian, owner of Richmond Rides applied to work with Storefront to develop a storage solution for Richmond Rides, a new bicycle tour company that shares a small space with Cyclus bike shop at 2225 East Clay Street. Volunteer Evan MacKenzie developed three concepts to store 16 bikes and helmets. Each concept provides racks that can accommodate 14 bikes, while leaving room for 2 extra bikes in the space.

When not in storage, these bikes wheel around Church Hill on tours like this:

Our this tour of historic Church Hill, you will learn about the neighborhood where Richmond was founded through the lives of its most memorable residents. As you ride, you will also experience some of Richmond’s delicious eats and amazing views in this beautiful and historic city. Some of the characters you discover along the way include its celebrated and sometimes overlooked heroes.

Beautify Bellevue Group Seeks Support to Restore Treewells

Storefront volunteer consultant Scott Wiley provided a planting schedule for a swath of sidewalk in the Bellevue neighborhood.

On behalf of Beautify Bellevue, Linda Decker applied to work with Storefront to develop concepts for streetscape improvements along Lamont Street in the Bellevue community. For this anomalous strip of asphalt, Linda requested assistance in plant placement and permitting. Landscape Architect and Bellevue resident Scott Wiley provided a plan that recycles portions of the asphalt for the abutting on-street parking, with smaller plantings and additional tree wells in- between. With the exception of some aspects of asphalt removal (it is actually soft), most of this work can be implemented by volunteers. Scott communicated with Arborist Luke McCall and Right of Way Engineer Doug Mawby from the City of Richmond’s Department of Public Works. They advised the group to apply for a Work in Streets Permit and Street Tree Planting Application. If necessary, Storefront staff can help Beautify Bellevue navigate these processes. 

East End Listening: What We Heard

Storefront staff located at Creighton Court's resource center to engage residents about redevelopment.

As part of the team with the City of Richmond, Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA), The Community Builders (TCB), VCU Center on Society & Health, the Informed Neighbors Corps and residents of Church Hill North, the Storefront for Community Design began a passive engagement process to assist in providing perspective and insight from residents in and around Creighton Court. This was our first interjection into the neighborhood to begin the process of being present and gaining perspective on things they have heard, things that are still unclear, and their hopes for the future.

City Stadium Neighborhood: Keep the Kickers

The redevelopment of the City Stadium Site is of importance to the entire greater Richmond region, but this engagement process focused on the input and perspectives of those neighbors in closest proximity to the site—the people who interact with the site on a daily basis. The neighborhoods specifically targeted were: the Stadium Neighborhood, the Carillon, Carytown South, Rothesay Circle, and Carytown.

Storefront led a prioritization exercise which revealed that most of the surrounding neighborhoods prefer the City Stadium site (currently used by the Richmond Kickers soccer team), continue use as sports complex.

Scott's Addition Workshop Report

In June of 2013, the Scott’s Addition Business Association (SABA) and City Councilman Charles Samuels engaged Storefront to conduct a series of neighborhood workshops to develop a community design action plan.

Robinson Street Association Identifies Streetscape Needs

Storefront responded to a request from the newly formed Robinson Street Association to assist in a prioritization process by, first, organizing an urban design walk down the corridor with members of the City of Richmond’s Department of Planning and Development Review (PDR) in February of 2013. This report is a result of workshops around those observations.