Made In Rockaway
How can design kickstart interaction between food system components in one neighborhood in Queens?
After Hurricane Sandy, what innovation is possible in Rockaway, Queens?
I was especially interested in gaining access to insights from the neighborhood through participating in the activities there, and building a rapport with the innovators who were already active in the space. After a quick survey of the geographic area in our design brief it was immediately obvious that the neighborhood had an unusually well developed urban farming infrastructure. Some shopping visits to the local grocery stores and restaurants demonstrated that the produce from the farm wasn’t feeding in to the local food supply, rather the grocery hub at Hunts Point was the only source serving the grocery and restaurant businesses just steps away from the local farms.
We visited the farms in the area and spent at least one day under the direction of the farmers at each site. The ability to take direction and work toward the objectives of the stakeholders and subject matter experts set us up for success when asking for background information or proposing innovation that would be disruptive to or different from the existing objectives of an already successful enterprise.
We learned that while some produce flowed to the neighborhood through a CSA program, much of the produce flowed to restaurants in Manhattan who offered their customers a farm to table dining experience.
Where was the produce going?
The project team experienced some strain because of the difficulty of accessing the field site. Not all members of the team were equally able to access the site, and the relationships that were carefully built over time and through demonstrations of trustworthiness were not easily transferrable between team members. With leadership support we were able to protect relationships while also maximizing team member engagement.