Merit Award
Mission YMCA Edible Garden
San Francisco, CA
Landscape Architect: April Philips
Client: Zynga.org
The Mission YMCA Edible Garden, located in San Francisco, is the product of six months of collaborative efforts for a corporate sponsor's team, the Mission YMCA community, and the landscape architect to transform an unused, overgrown, inaccessible hillside into a productive and sustainable edible garden. The garden provides a place for the Mission YMCA community and staff to come together to experience growing food and engaging with nature. The garden design provides areas for children to play and learn, a chicken coop, an orchard, planting beds for teens to plant and grow vegetables for cooking classes, vertical gardening to maximize space and spaces for the elderly to relax and enjoy the garden. Outdoor learning is essential to the design, creating a series of "outdoor classrooms," such as the reclaimed pallet amphitheater and cut log seating circle, where children can engage with the outdoors and get their hands dirty.
