What Makes a Neighborhood

Great local color and history

 My design class has been focusing on one neighborhood in Philadelphia and researching the neighborhood's history, the current uses, the projects planned for the space and the community members and their opinions on what is and could be happening there. We're reading Image of the City by Kevin Lynch at the same time, where three cities, Boston, Jersey City and Los Angeles (circa 1960) are examined for their successes and failures of imagability and what people who live there think of the cities, remember and love. It's an interesting thing to think about what makes a neighborhood great and what makes it miss the mark.

 

Historic details and architecture

Volunteer at your Local Urban Farm!



I visited Farm 51 for their workday today and fell in love with their space, a diverse mix of raised beds of vegetables, chicken coops, nice people and good food.

Weekend Garden Project

Today I finally got to this project, making a marker for my bed in the community garden, so I can be friendly with my neighbors who ask where is your bed? And this makes it easy to see. It reminds me of houses at the shore that have the cute names and signs.

I found a cement remnant in our rock pile that was about 8" tall and 6" across, cleaned the surface with a rag, and applied a layer of white acrylic paint, then went back over the edges with more white. I mixed blue, green and white together and painted a graduated fade from top to bottom.

The letters were harder to paint, so I painted the letters, then outlined them with a slightly darker green, then went back over the interior of each letter. I thinned out the paint to paint the flowers and it was much easier to work with. My garden has a huge lavender plant, so I wanted to make sure that was featured on my sign.

I dug a shallow trench for the bottom and back filled dirt behind the stone and stepped on it to firm it up so the rock doesn't fall over. You can see there's not much happening in the garden in terms of growth, so this is a bright happy reminder that all will be colorful again!

Mill Creek Farm Fundraiser Tonight!

Mill Creek's Fundraiser is taking place tonight at the First Unitarian Church at 20th and Chestnut Streets in Philly. If you can't make it, still consider donating to their Urban Farm to keep them growing food with neighbors and for neighbors!

I'm selling the photo below to benefit Mill Creek, It's the sign on their gate that explains their philosophy. Click on the photo to go to my etsy site to purchase it. All of the proceeds go to Mill Creek!