Slow design is alive and well in the suburbs :) Edible Estates is artist/designer/educator Fritz Haeg's "attack on the American lawn and everything it has come to represent." The project proposes the replacement of the American lawn with a highly productive domestic edible landscape.

Haeg argues, "The American lawn is almost entirely a symbolic gesture. Exactly what it represents has shifted from its ancestry in English estates to today's endless suburban carpet of conformity..."

With the modest gesture of reconsidering the use of our small individual private yards, Edible Estates takes on issues of global food production, our relationship with our neighbors and our connection to the the natural environment.

Though not explicitly stated, the project also challenges the notion of private gardens solely for use by those inhabiting the premises. Edible Estates, by contrast, are open-source systems that engage members of the community. The project not only encourages 'becoming gardeners' as a means of reclaiming our connection with nature and the seasons, but also that as we benefit from that role so too do our neighbors who are invited to share in the abundance.

Edible Estates web >