Plant Lab: Towards a Sustainable Hatfield Campus

Studio leader: Karen Botes

The Plant Laboratory is a collaboration between students in the fine arts, consumer sciences, agriculture, architecture, and interior and landscape architecture initiated by the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria (Javett-UP), which aims to create an experimental research platform for agroecology. The aim is to incorporate our local edible plants and culture into food production, as opposed to food industrialisation. "Through its various activations, the Plant Lab aims to impact an authentic culture of caring: for ourselves, each other, for humanity, and for our planet." (Javett UP, 2023)

The Plant Lab aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set up in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly. The Plant Lab specifically focuses on: SDG Goal 3 - Good Health and Well-being, SDG Goal 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production and SDG Goal 13 - Climate Action (Javett UP, 2023). The SDG goals are at the heart of sustainable cities. Sustainable cities meet their residents' socio-economic needs by efficiently using their environmental resources, land and energy, limiting their ecological footprint and pollution, and reducing recycling and re-using material (SA Cities 2023). This studio will focus on 1) mapping existing open spaces for the Javett-UP and the Hatfield campus as study sites and 2) developing a framework for the Plant Lab to stimulate conversations about indigenous African food plants' roles in contributing to the United Nations (UN) SDGs. The framework will entail 1) the Plant Lab strategy, 2) a green infrastructure network map of a) ecological areas and b) agroecological areas as biodiversity habitat enhancement and human well-being corridors, 3) proposed locations for land art, living installations and urban farming outputs, and 4) edible green infrastructure typologies to be included.