Overbrook Farmacy: Building a Farm in a Food Desert
Viridian’s master plan for the Overbrook Farmacy transforms a remediated brownfield site in a food desert into a multipurpose-purpose and multi-generation neighborhood resource.
Cultivating Vegetables — and Community
Developed in collaboration with the Overbrook Environmental Education Center (OEEC), this new park promotes community wellness by providing access to outdoor activities, gathering spaces, and locally grown produce. The Farmacy—a portmanteau of "farm" and "pharmacy"—will also offer valuable educational opportunities and critical stormwater mitigation. It's a catalyst for changing attitudes and behaviors where people of all ages can come together to learn, play, and grow.
We conducted workshops with the Overbrook community to learn which spaces, activities, and services would have the greatest impact.
Learning from the Landscape
Environmental education occurs across the entire site, starting with outdoor classrooms and demonstration gardens that provide beautiful spaces for guided learning. Alongside immersive, integrated exhibitions on civic infrastructure, functioning bioswales showcase the value of stormwater as natural resource. The OEEC’s new landscape will improve local aquifer health while advancing the science of green infrastructure.
Play Spaces for a Healthier Community
Nature-inspired play structures in a restored woodland setting invite the young and young-at-heart to challenge their bodies and their minds. The plan leverages the natural grading of the site to create ADA-accessible treehouses, multi-level play areas, and interactive (and educational) water play features. Walking loops let visitors experience the full garden while exercising in a safe, rejuvenating setting.
Detail of Playground Plan, showing tree house area, music grove, splash pad, and other nature-based play areas.
Students in the new OEEC greenhouse learning about growing vegetables
Growing Local Produce
As a model of urban agriculture, the Farmacy addresses food inequity and education through its agriculture area, which includes a greenhouse, orchard, and flexible planters designed to increase capacity over time. There's space for growing, cleaning, and packing crops, and hosting regular farmers market. Like the rest of the Farmacy, this area is lush with native ornamental plants that help restore the ecosystem by providing habits for birds, butterflies, and pollinators.