2024 Fall at The Commonwealth
Fall 2024 at The Commonwealth has been a period of recalibration and renewal of our routines, rituals, and reflections in preparation for the close of 2024 and the year ahead. Weekly Farmer’s Markets have continued in full swing with vibrant produce, featuring music by Human-in-Residence, Charles Pryor, and new Civic Arts activities such making smudge sticks and designing Prop Blocks. The SWF team has also been working hard to ready the land, spaces, and structures at The Commonwealth for the impending winter ahead by reconstructing and repairing hoop house infrastructure and organizing indoor spaces to accommodate work and programming over winter.
The fall season of Sweet Water Communiversity programming was jam-packed as we welcomed a new cohort of RND Research Interns, launching Community Building Wednesdays, are co-leading a college course on Artificial Intelligence and urban design, and delivering hands-on arts, cultural, and Urban Ecology programming to more than 100 students from across the Chicagoland area and the world.
Read more about the fall happenings at The Commonwealth.
SWF Communiversity Programming
SWF + Lake Forest College Urban Design + Artificial Intelligence Course
Fall Communiversity offerings kicked off in late August with a co-led course between SWF and Lake Forest College (LFC). The semester-long course, Interrogating the Ecology of Place: From Generative AI to Regenerative Neighborhood Development, includes undergraduate students majoring in environmental sciences, international relations, economics, Spanish, and biology. The course meets weekly, alternating between The Commonwealth - Sweet Water Communiversity’s campus - and Lake Forest College’s campus.
At The Commonwealth, students have been introduced to SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development (RND) by engaging in hands-on work, including cultivating SWF’s Prairie (including transplanting goldenrod from LFC’s Revery Prairie), participating in Civic Arts activities, harvesting on the Community Farm, and completing an introductory carpentry lesson to make a “Prop Block” – a propagation block designed from reclaimed 2x4” wood.
The course was designed to integrate and compare real-life experiences with generative AI (artificial intelligence). Throughout the course, both SWF and LFC have been stewarding a Shelf of Life, using SWF’s “Prop Blocks” and comparing the observations and lessons learned from the regeneration of houseplants and herbs using cuttings. Students and the SWF team have put AI applications – including iNaturalist, Audubon Bird Guide, Cornell University’s Merlin Bird ID, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and PromeAI – in real-life scenarios, seeking to push (and “break”) the boundaries of AI by integrating it with real-life experience.
The course will culminate with a final presentation in December.
Seeding the Future
In September, SWF launched the 2024-2025 Seeding the Future (STF) program with two second-grade classrooms from Beasley Academic Center, a local elementary school less than a mile away from The Commonwealth. STF is an Urban Ecology program that engages neighborhood elementary students in hands-on learning experiences that follow the seed-to-table process and expose participants to a wide range of academic disciplines and essential life skills (e.g., biology, math, gardening, nutrition, etc.).
SWF has been working with Beasley since 2019 to deliver virtual and in-person programming to more than 100 second-grade students, teachers, and their families. Students engage with STF programming monthly throughout the academic year, either at The Commonwealth or at Beasley.
The students’ first visit to The Commonwealth in Fall 2024 explored the concept of “community” and how we can cultivate a thriving neighborhood. Activities included an introduction to The Commonwealth site with a mapping activity to identify community assets, an exploration of soil (vs. dirt), an introduction to trees though a nature-inspired Civic Arts activity, and an introduction to propagation, energy, and growing indoors using the Shelf of Life as a real-life case study.
The field trip concluded in the Thought Barn, where students designed their future neighborhood, drawing neighborhood assets including grocery stores, schools, and farms. Each student also designed their own “Prop Block,” now on display at Civic Arts Church. During the second STF session at Beasley, students designed “Prop Blocks” for their classrooms – creating a Shelf of Life in each where they are growing and learning about the plant lifecycle through mint and coleus plant cuttings from SWF.
SWF is excited to continue Seeding the Future through the academic year.
RND Re-Search Program
In September, SWF launched the Fall RND Re-Search Program with three interns and a community fellow. The cohort included a local resident, working professionals, and undergraduate and graduate students with a range of interests/experience that spanned architecture, urban planning, public health, and education. This fall’s research focus was inspired by SWF’s Shelf of Life, exploring its regenerative possibilities for intergenerational learning and public health with a minimal energy footprint and the many translations possible across different typologies of spaces and places that are abundant in every neighborhood - kitchens, living rooms, classrooms, greenhouses, and laboratories. RND Research interns also examined the contrast between the Shelf of Life’s regenerative possibilities and the “wastes” generated by the vegetable/herb seedling and houseplant industries.
Although the RND Research Internship is virtual, it connected to each participant’s locality. TheChicago-based RND Community Fellow was actively involved in the on-site fall activities. One intern, a teacher, is translating the Shelf of Life in real-time to their school in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Another intern joined SWF Values-Based Partners in Detroit for a one-day Immersion with Carnegie Mellon University students and faculty.
The program culminated with a final presentation in mid-November.
Immersions and Catalyst Programs
Oneida Nation Immersion
On Thursday, September 26, an inter-generational group from the Oneida Nation joined Sweet Water Foundation (SWF) for a Convergence at The Commonwealth that included shared labor on the Community Farm, a farm-to-table meal, a tour of The Commonwealth, and a Civic Arts Talk and Workshop in Civic Arts Church. The Convergence underscored the importance of storytelling, sharing knowledge, and the profound possibilities inherent in values-based practices focused on the regeneration of land and ecosystems.
Carnegie Mellon University Immersion
From October 14 - 16, SWF welcomed 10 graduate students and 2 faculty from Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture for a hands-on immersion at The Commonwealth. The students are a part of a year-long course called Commoning the City, led by Associate Professor Stefan Gruber, who first met SWF Executive Director Emmanuel Pratt during the 2019 Chicago Architectural Biennial.
During the immersion, students experienced the practice of “commoning: first hand alongside the SWF team and community. On Monday, their understanding of commoning was challenged through hands-on farming and gardening activities. Their “disorientation” continued on Tuesday as they engaged in an introduction to carpentry – covering the deconstruction of crates and pallets, an introduction to carpentry tools, and the hands-on reconstruction through making “Prop Blocks.” Through these experiences, students literally deconstructed and reconstructed the notion of commoning through collective labor and dialogue with the SWF community. The immersion culminated on Wednesday with a farm-fresh meal and civic arts activity in Civic Arts Church. After their trip to Chicago, the class visited Detroit, where they plugged in with SWF’s Values-Based Partners.
Work-Shop Wednesdays | Community Building Workshops
As SWF’s Wellness Wednesday ritual of shared labor and a farm-to-table meal concluded in early fall, the Communiversity launched Work-Shop Wednesdays with Community Building Workshops that engaged an inter-generational group of neighbors and community members in carpentry and design. Despite their varying levels of experience, participants have gained exposure to a range of carpentry skills - from using drills and tape measures to cutting wood and the assembly, finishing, and presentation of built products.
Each week, the group has built a different product – seating, shelves, tables, and “Prop Blocks” – with the difficulty level increasing week by week. Finished products have been proudly displayed at weekly Farmer’s Markets for visitors to try out and enjoy. This new Communiversity offering has exposed an intergenerational audience to the regeneration of ‘wastes’ to resources through design. It has also demonstrated how SWF designs can be translated and customized to different locations and scales, based on individual and community needs.
