Workshop: Vegetable garden design — GFF*

Gentler Futures Festival
Workshop: Vegetable garden design

The way we do agriculture on a large scale relies heavily on fossil fuels, chemicals, vast amounts of clean water and global supply chains. Its side effects turned the current food system into one of the major contributors to the environmental emergency. How do we move beyond that? What are the alternatives that allow us to produce and distribute food inside the city without compromising what’s around us—the environment, the non-human species, the wellbeing of the farmers? Which skills are designers and architects able to bring to the table (and to the farm)? And how do we close the gap between production and consumption?


About the workshop

Discover the basic principles of an urban vegetable garden and join tutors Rodrigo Borralho and Sylvain Papyon as they guide you through the process of setting up an efficient cultivation bed and help you understand its functioning. Cultivation beds provide you with the opportunity to grow a diverse range of fruits, vegetables and herbs in limited spaces, like verandas, patios or rooftops. The ones used in the workshop (Noocity Growbeds) are versatile and easy to assemble, they can be used individually or configured in different combinations, and they allow you to make the most of the space available in your home, office or school. You will learn how to build the bed, how its self-sufficient irrigation system works, what you have to keep in mind for its maintenance and how to maximise your cultivation space efficiently. And by the end of the session, together with the tutors, you will have designed and planted a 3 m² edible garden for the local community.


Who is it for

This hands-on workshop is meant to be a starting point for those who are new to urban farming, and is suitable for anyone interested in starting their own vegetable garden at home or in any other urban setting, regardless of their gardening experience. It will be held in Portuguese or in English depending on the preference of the participants.


How to attend

The workshop is limited to 15 participants and is free to attend upon registration.
Please wear comfortable clothing appropriate for gardening activities.

Mouraria Creative Hub
Travessa dos Lagares 1
1100-300 Lisbon

After the workshop, you are welcome to join us for Gentler Futures Festival’s Preview session: Designers who grow food, starting at 18h00. Together with farmers, architects, students and makers we are going to explore how people are coming together to change the mainstream fast-cheap-and-easy food culture and how cities can become hubs of local food production.

We are mindful of privacy rights and obligations under GDPR, therefore we would like to inform you that we are going to capture the workshop with photographs and/or video recordings. These will be used to share the activities on our website and communication platforms, as well as in eventual articles or publications. If you wish for your image not to be used, we ask you to let us know during the workshop or by email.


About the organisers

BY THE END OF MAY is a research and design studio exploring the roles of manufacturing and crafts in creating a (non-linear), (post-consumerism) and (anti-alienation) economy.

Distributed Design acts as an exchange and networking hub for the emerging field of distributed design. The initiative, funded by the Creative Europe program, aims at developing and promoting the connection between designers, makers and emerging digital and local markets. Distributed Design's local activities are coordinated by the Politécnico de Lisboa.

Mouraria Creative Hub is the first business incubator in Lisbon that provides support to startups, projects and business ideas related to the creative and cultural industry, particularly in the areas of design, media, fashion, crafts and jewellery.

A Bairros is an active network of organisations and individual actors, which aims to contribute to the local development of Lisbon's neighbourhoods, collaborating in building active, cohesive and solidary communities. It assumes itself as an intermediary agent, focused on empowerment and sociocultural innovation.