Urban farming is a current and popular focus for many Boulderites. From the successful community garden project, to the Boulder County Farmers’ Market estimated to have an attendance of 360,000 per season, to the restaurants adopting the locavore movement, to backyard chicken farming, focus on local food production is a number one priority. The citizens of Boulder are propelled to natural living, outdoor activities such as, biking, hiking, skiing and now gardening and farming have become the latest path to follow. Not only in the Boulder community but nationwide dialogue has started about the ease in which a chicken coop can be maintained in a backyard urban environment.
For many years artists and architects have explored the multiple dimensions of urban and rural environments. Two University of Colorado professors-Richard Saxton in the Art and Art History department and Rob Pyatt in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning have challenged their students to revisit the age old debate; can urban exist in the rural and can the rural exist in the urban. Two different and sophisticated projects ensued with the goal of functionality and community participation.
The BASELINE GROUP is a special topics course at CU-Boulder that engages fine art students-both graduate and undergraduate-in the processes of designing and implementing tangible large-scale projects. This class encourages students to develop work that is community-based, site-specific, and to incorporate non-traditional media and ideas. This first installation, titled the “Chicken Shack Village” explores rural aesthetics, farming, and “intuitive building.” The project was created through 2-semesters of experiential activities and hands-on workshops that involved visiting artists Haiko Meijer from the Dutch design team Onix, and Marjetica Potrc, an award-winning artist from Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Urban Hens, a Boulder-based organization, captures that idea and adds an educational perspective about healthy living and environmental responsibility with its goal of implementing a citywide backyard chicken coop movement. The Children, Youth and Environment Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder Going Local, and the Institute for Intentionally Sustainable Neighborhoods engaged University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Urban Planning instructor Rob Pyatt’s design and build class to complete the first model for the easy-to-build chicken coop kit for homeowners. This first structure explores ideas about “urban aesthetics” including; art, architecture, design and approaching theories about city, social space and public space.
Comments are closed.