The Knowledge Garden — AEDI STUDIO

KNOWLEDGE GARDEN

CLIMATE PROOFING
WATER-ENERGY-FOOD
BEZUIDENHOUT PARK, JOHANNESBURG

Can we create an open system, a reservoir for knowledge supporting green urban economies? The Knowledge Garden is an indigenous garden that focuses its activities towards social development. We envision the landscape as a canvas for growth and development. In the old lapa site in Bezuidenhout Park, we want to transform the grounds into a flourishing indigenous garden that focuses its activities towards social development.

The garden is a platform for research, training and advocacy, as well as a demonstration site for an integrated approach to permaculture, agroecology and sustainable living methodologies for indigenous species.

The Knowledge Garden concept is for a community-based training centre that supports the development of indigenous knowledge and climate resilience. It serves as a sustainable small-scale urban farming model that paves the way for indigenous urban and peri-urban farms, which are a local, provincial and national government priority. The garden supports several potential production points, including fruit and herb production, seedling propagation and compost-making. The urban climate resilience project is a way to create a more sustainable future for central Johannesburg and its citizens. The city has been impacted by the ongoing drought, which has intensified the need for water conservation.

The objective of making the garden a commercially viable enterprise is to create additional revenue streams that can be used to train interns and offer eco-tourism, corporate events, and school visits.

The 'Knowledge Garden' is shade protected and is structured to enable production, research and training. A 'Knowledge Garden' will demonstrate various innovative, sustainable, and community-oriented urban farming techniques to distribute products to the local market and retailers and seedlings sales to encourage scaled urban agricultural farming of indigenous species. It will be managed by Siyakhana Food Gardens. The Knowledge Garden is located at the old Lapa site in Bezuindehout Park, which is located adjacent to Siyakhana Food Gardens.

The Knowledge Garden site suggests a circular element. The circular Lapa site is selected as the primary component for education and training, but it also acts as a heart that links the two major internal park arteries. The site sits on the bank of the Jukskei River, forming part of an eastern spine through Bezuidenhout Valley, which connects to Observatory ridge. The river system is considered ecologically sensitive and protected by law. The park's open space systems link the river to Observatory ridge; however, it also serves as a potential site for a Siyakhana Eco Village where gardeners can live while they work on their gardens year-round.

The enterprise and knowledge garden, is directed to the City of Johannesburg (Parks/Property/Sports Recreation/Mayor's Office).

The indigenous garden proposal seeks to address how to integrate communities living in urban conditions, public parks, state-owned land, informal settlements, and public or private land within the broader economy by offering alternative land use opportunities and market channels.

As noted by President Cyril Ramaphosa, '...current land reform and redistribution proposals are intended to ensure that the rights of all South Africans, and not just those who currently own land, are strengthened – and will boost and not threaten either agricultural production nor food security'.

The indigenous garden proposal is an effort to solve this challenge. The proposal seeks to implement a system that will allow people living in these vulnerable areas to access food security and income generation opportunities and participate in urban climate resilience programmes by managing their green spaces.

Advanced Environmental Design Initiatives (AEDI)
Centre for Ecological Intelligence (CEI)
Siyakhana Food Gardens (SOFG)

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