Flatbread Society
A public baking facility housed within an experimental architectural structure, a cultivated grain field and a urban gardening community
Initiator(s)
Futurefarmers
Description
Flatbread Society is a permanent project created in a common area amidst the waterfront development in Oslo, where farmers, oven builders, astronomers, artists, soil scientists, bakers and city officials work together with local people to establish an aligned vision for the use of this part of the land. Using grain as an excuse to analyse the interrelationship of food production to knowledge sharing, cultural production and socio-political formations, they built a bakehouse and a cultivated grain field resulting in the formation of an urban gardening community. The project functions as a shared resource for urban food production and the preservation of the commons. A full-time farmer was hired in collaboration with the Norwegian Farmers Union to maintain the project.
Goals
The project provides a multi-functional oven and glass house which facilitates various types of bread baking and public programs around agriculture and grain. The activators of the project collected and planted seeds that have been “rescued” from various locations in the Northern Hemisphere to display thousands of years of a complex hand-to-hand network of knowledge and genetic resources. The project inserts make-shift production into the highly planned and controlled public space of the new Bjørvika, in Oslo. The space offers an alternative approach in building methodology of urban design, creating a place in which people might actively contribute to the life of the public spaces.
Beneficial outcomes
Users can learn how to cultivate grain in a urban setting, how to bake and they can use the facilities for free.
Location
Norway
Users
Farmers, oven builders, astronomers, artists, soil scientists, bakers, city officials and citizens
Maintained by
Situations, Bjørvika Utvikling
Duration
2012 - ongoing
Category
Scientific
Pedagogical
Politics
Urban Development
Economy
Environment
Social
