Welcome to our second round of Resilient Environments Laboratory (RELab) — a year-long design-build program exploring questions of community, health, and food justice, in the face of our climate and housing crises. Students from multiple Seattle schools joined us in fall 2023 for the exploration and design phase, beginning with an education in the model of mutual aid. We attended a mutual aid fair hosted at Black Lives Memorial Garden in Cal Anderson Park – an important community space established in 2020 during the George Floyd protests in Capitol Hill, which was permanently uprooted by Seattle Parks Department in December of 2023.

With the goal of uplifting a mutual aid group through this project, RELab youth selected Black Star Farmers as the client, and began dreaming up ideas to support the collective in “working toward the radical reclamation of land and food sovereignty.”

Ideas ranged from a mobile market veggie cart, to a resource stall with a seed library, to a small barn! Students worked within a few design constraints, such as a maximum footprint, and taped out potential floor plans in our temporary classroom at Rainier Arts Center to walk through and imagine the space. By early December, the team’s mentor architects were able to fuse many of these ideas into one cohesive design.

In spring 2024, we regrouped for the build phase of this program, and we couldn’t be prouder of all the teaching, learning, and community care that went into this project. The “Community Activation Kiosk” features a seed library, pollinator hotel, as well as plenty of storage and community space for our friends at Black Star Farmers. 

Thanks to incredible support from JAS Design Build, we had a powerful mentor team, and students were often able to work one-on-one with builders. Our students developed great relationships with our high-energy mentors — one of whom was a Sawhorse student years ago! We’re so grateful to JAS for their people power, as well as their support donating the majority of our building materials. Much of the building materials were reclaimed and salvaged materials.

This collaboration with Black Star Farmers highlighted the power of mutual aid. As we watched the BSF team tend to the garden while we built the structure they’re stewarding really drove home the “why” of this project. We also had a nearly constant flow of visitors and passers-by interested in the building, which invigorated our build crew — we know this little building will be appreciated by the community for years to come. Drop by the New Holly Rockery Community Garden and Market Garden to check out this structure and the amazing programming put on by BSF!