The culinary rhizome : fostering community growth, economic growth, community inclusion and skills development within Melusi informal settlement

Abstract

The project The Culinary Rhizome is planted within Melusi informal settlement. The Rhizome is a culinary school fostering community growth, celebrating cooking as a participatory practice and aspires to allow for economic growth within Melusi. Its programs offer innovative cooking and recycling methods, inviting the Melusi community to participate in skills and knowledge exchange as well as business creation. The school also welcomes the general public join in on the experience. The Rhizome is a culinary school that facilitates a seminar kitchen, rentable kitchen for the community, restaurant for weekend visitors and market stalls. The Rhizome culinary ethos is based on food sovereignty, health and farm-to-fork cooking. The program aims to teach participants about farm-to fork cooking, food preservation, recycling and running a business through a restaurant and markets. Melusi informal settlement is located on the outskirts of Tshwane, in the industrial side of western Tshwane. The Rhizome is not a stand-alone facility but plants itself within an educational hub in Melusi. This node includes Melusi Youth Development Organization (MYDO), a skills and knowledge exchange facility, which the community takes great pride in, a children’s Creche and a clinic. The users include chefs from the community that will lead the culinary school, community members who wish to take part in the culinary school program or rent market stalls to sell produce. Other users include the public who would like to partake in the culinary school programme or who act as daily visitors to the hub. Through utilizing the Max-Neef Human Scale Development Framework, the first (tangible) and Second (intangible) order meaning was identified within the community. For meaning to be made within a place, the tangible and intangible must be in harmony. Through fieldwork it was found that the intangible programs allow for synergistic need satisfaction. However, the tangible was not able to support that. The project follows the concept of a Rhizome. Not only do rhizomes come forth within plants but also in the human body and city growth. The project aims to bridge the gap between the functional second order meaning and the shortcoming of first order meaning. This will be enabled by the design approach. The design approach is inspired by the innovative usage of reclaimed materials within Melusi and should make use of innovative ways to make small spaces functional through modularity, adaptability and low-tech high-design tangible implementation.