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New Americans’ Pavilion: A Space of Cosmopolitan Cooperation in Syracuse, New York

David Shanks



Abstract

The New Americans’ Pavilion at Salt City Harvest Farm (SCHF) is an interdisciplinary community-university partnered design project that supports food sovereignty for refugees in Syracuse, New York. The building is an important social hub for the refugee diaspora, and also a research testbed for an innovative off-the-grid, solar-powered cold storage system that is intended to become a model for small community farms. Syracuse is home to more than ten thousand refugees, with origins ranging from Somalia to Bhutan to Cambodia. Many refugees live in areas of the city with limited access to a variety of fresh food. SCHF was established in 2014 to provide the refugee community with farmland where they can grow the kinds of food they want to eat, as well as educational programs where they can learn to farm and bring their produce to market. In 2020, SCHF began a collaboration with faculty and students at Syracuse University to design and build the New Americans’ Pavilion. The pavilion includes covered space for washing, packing, and storing produce from the farm, as well as flexible space for dining and educational events. The building was designed and constructed over a three-year period by a team comprising university faculty and students, community volunteers, professional contractors, and Salt City Harvest Farm staff. The project was supported by funding from the Chobani® Community Impact Fund, the Central New York Community Foundation, the Reisman Foundation, and an Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant from Syracuse University.

Impact Statement *

The completed New Americans' Pavilion operates simultaneously as a productive farm infrastructure, a social hub for diasporic refugee communities, and a clean energy testbed. It integrates core agricultural functions for refugee farmers with community space that hosts social, educational, and dining events, while demonstrating the feasibility of an affordable off-the-grid cold storage operating on 100% solar power.

New Americans’ Pavilion: A Space of Cosmopolitan Cooperation in Syracuse, New York

Published:

November 14, 2024 (222 views)

Project Metadata:

Contributor Roles · Sites and Institutions

Part of:
Creating Knowledge in Common

SIGNIFICANCE

The New American’s Pavilion at Salt City Harvest Farm (SCHF) near Syracuse, New York is a significant example of what Erkin Özay has called “new spaces of encounter and cooperation” for refugees and immigrants in American rust belt cities (sidenote: Erkin Özay, “Rust Belt Cosmopolitanism,” in Buffalo at the Crossroads, ed. Peter Christensen (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020), 181–95. ↩ ) . The pavilion serves a core infrastructural purpose for refugee farmers who grow culturally appropriate food (sidenote: SCHF uses the term "culturally appropriate food" from a commonly accepted definition of food sovereignty that originates in the 2007 Declaration of Nyéléni: "Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems." ↩ ) at SCHF; it provides covered space for growers to wash, pack, and store the daikon radishes, yard-long beans, bitter melons, and other vegetables that they cultivate both for their own consumption and to sell at the regional farmers’ market. The project is also significant as a technological experiment; it includes an innovative, affordable cold-storage room that is powered entirely “off-the-grid” by photovoltaics. In addition, the pavilion shelters a flexible community space that is used for educational programs, markets, social events, and dining, bringing together refugees, immigrants, and long-term Syracuse residents who are otherwise mostly segregated into ethnic enclaves in the urban environment. Design was essential for integrating the infrastructural, technological, and social purposes of the pavilion into a coherent whole that gives SCHF a clear and recognizable identity as a place of cosmopolitan cooperation, where individuals from a variety of backgrounds can come together to grow, share, eat, and learn.
Figure 1: Salt City Harvest Farm apprentices sowing fields outside New Americans' Pavilion.
Two people planting crops in plowed soil in front of a pavilion building.
David Shanks (2023)
Figure 2. New American farmers washing vegetables under the cover of the pavilion.
Three adults and a child stand at waist-high tubs in a roofed outdoor space washing leafy greens.
Jacob Gigler (2023)

CONTEXT

Since the beginning of the millennium, Syracuse has welcomed more than ten-thousand refugees with origins ranging from Somalia to Bhutan to Cambodia (sidenote: “People,” CNY Vitals, Central New York Community Foundation, accessed July 5, 2023, http://cnyvitals.org/people ↩ ) . While Syracuse has suffered economic decline and population loss since the 1950s, the recent influx of refugees has helped to stabilize its population and diversify the culture of the city (see Figure 3). Numerous other American “legacy” cities such as Minneapolis and Buffalo have, like Syracuse, looked to refugee resettlement as a means to compensate for post-industrial losses (sidenote: Vanessa Quirk, “Refugees Could Save America's Legacy Cities - Will We Let Them?” Metropolis Magazine, Oct. 27, 2016, https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/refugees-could-save-america-legacy-cities/ ↩ ) . However, many refugees arrive in their new homes in challenging circumstances, with restricted social networks and limited employment opportunities, and they often live in economically depressed areas with little access to fresh food from their home cuisines. Places such as Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis and the West Side Bazaar in Buffalo bring refugee and immigrant populations together with long-term local residents in marketplaces with diverse culinary offerings. These are examples of what sociologist Elijah Anderson has called the “Cosmopolitan Canopy”: spaces that help break down ethnic divisions and provide economic opportunities for communities with limited means (sidenote: Elijah Anderson, The Cosmopolitan Canopy (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011). ↩ ) .

Figure 3: Data visualization showing how cities including Syracuse would have lost population if not for refugee immigration. In the period shown in the graph, Syracuse's population grew by about 2%, but it would have shrunk by about 5% if not for refugees. Refugees therefore comprise approximately 7% of Syracuse's total population, about 10,0000 people out of 140,000.
Graph showing the population of various small cities, with and without accounting for refugee immigration.
David Montgomery, CityLab (2019) - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-31/resettled-refugees-grow-population-in-shrinking-cities
Figure 4: Newspaper advertisement for immigration to Syracuse, circa 1945, soon before the city's population peaked and began to decline.
Line drawing of a woman, as tall as the surrounding city buildings, with open arms. The caption reads “Syracuse Bids You Welcome.”
- Syracuse Post Standard

It is in the context of these efforts that SCHF received grant funding from the Chobani® Community Impact Fund to construct a new washing and packing pavilion in 2020. The farm had been in operation since 2016, but lacked core infrastructure to support its mission. Prior to the pavilion’s construction, refugee farmers washed and packed vegetables in the full summer sun, and the farm lacked cold storage to keep their produce fresh before it was brought home or to market. These infrastructural deficiencies became a limiting factor for both the productivity of the farm and participation in its programs. Based on experience from prior collaborations, the farm reached out to David Shanks, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Syracuse University (SU) to design the pavilion building, who in turn received further grant funding from SU. The project was completed with donations from the Central New York Community Foundation, the Reisman Foundation, and the C&S Foundation (see Figure 6).

Figure 5: Diagram showing the network of community and university participants who contributed to the New Americans' Pavilion project. The network is centered around Salt City Harvest Farm, which acted as a "hub" to connect community and university parties.
Diagram with a yellow circle in the middle representing Salt City Harvest Farm. Other participating organizations are represented by labeled, colored circles arranged radially around the yellow one.
David Shanks (2024)
Figure 6: Timeline diagram of the multi-year, multi-participant project, showing how it was developed collaboratively by interdisciplinary partners. The diagram also shows the "hand-off" of the completed project to Salt City Harvest Farm, which has achieved long-term sustainability for its programs through funding from the USDA.
Colored bars indicate the timing of work on the project between 2020 and 2024, in the areas of Funding, Design, Construction, and Operation.
David Shanks (2024)

INTEGRATION

Shanks worked closely with SCHF farmers, staff, and board of directors to develop the overall design of the pavilion. The SCHF board included design and construction experts, such as Matthew Potteiger, Professor of Landscape Architecture at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and Brian 'Skip' Letcher, President of the contracting firm Syracuse Constructors. SCHF staff included experienced farmers like Executive Director Jacob Gigler and new Americans such as Farm Manager Jay Regmi. The architect was less the “author” of the project in this case than a facilitator of conversations between the various partners and stakeholders, responsible for integrating the infrastructural, technological, and sociological goals of the project. In order to explore the solar-powered cold storage system, Shanks engaged Dr. Shalabh Maroo, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at SU’s College of Engineering, with whom he successfully applied for a CUSE Innovative and Interdisciplinary Research Grant from SU in 2021. Using this grant funding, the team hired renewable energy expert Phil Hofmeyer, Professor at SUNY Morrisville, to complete a more detailed design and eventually install the system. The design of the electrical system was both a technical and a political challenge. Hofmeyer initially recommended that the farm run new electrical lines to the site in order to create a grid-tied photovoltaic system, which would be more reliable and simpler to maintain than an off-grid system. However, SCHF does not own the land it occupies; board member Skip Letcher allows the farm to use his land rent-free with no lease. While this arrangement is beneficial, it also limits the farm's access to power to make improvements to the land they occupy. The farm decided to pursue an off-grid system which would not require them to invest capital in land they do not own. While the overall pavilion building is not portable, the photovoltaics and off-grid electrical components could be packed up and moved along with the farm operation if necessary.

Figure 7: Perspective drawing from the schematic design phase of the project, showing how the pavilion would be used simultaneously as farm infrastructure and educational space.
Drawing of an open-walled, pitched-roof structure with tables set up under the roof. People sit at the tables and walk through the space, some carrying vegetables.
David Shanks (2021)
Figure 8: Elevation drawing from the schematic design phase of the project showing how the angle of the south-facing roof is optimized for photovoltaics, while the north-facing roof is sloped to the minimum allowed by the roofing manufacturer's warranty to shed rain.
Drawing of a cross-section of a building, divided down the middle. The left side has a steeper roof and open walls. People move and work on both sides.
David Shanks (2020)
Figure 9: Plan drawing from the schematic design phase of the project showing how the pavilion is organized into two primary spaces: an open area for dining and meeting on the south side, and an area for washing and packing on the north side. The western edge of the pavilion contains the cold and dry storage enclosures which help to shade the washing and packing area from the western sun.
Birds-eye floorplan of a rectangular building with rooms labeled “Dining/Meeting Area,” “Cold Storage,” “Dry Storage,” and “Washing/Packing Area.”
David Shanks (2020)
Video 1. An animation illustrates the factors influencing the pavilion's design starting with a broad view of the entire farm site, then taking into account its overall scale and proximity to other activities. It explores the site's environmental conditions, focusing on solar and wind exposure. The animation highlights how the building structure and interior layout were shaped by the photovoltaic systems and various community farming activities.
Jerry Yan (2021)

DISCOVERY

The pavilion was constructed from spring 2021 to summer 2023 by a combination of community volunteers, professional contractors, SCHF staff, and SU faculty and students. Faculty and students partnered with SCHF staff in design-build workshops during the summers of 2021 and 2022, funded by the Syracuse Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Engagement (SOURCE). These workshops provided paid internships for students of architecture, including hands-on learning opportunities which were otherwise unavailable in the Syracuse Architecture curriculum (see Video 2 and Figure 10). Numerous American schools of architecture (such as those at Auburn, Tulane, and Yale) integrate community-engaged design-build education into their curricula; however, despite being situated in one of the nation’s poorest cities, SU’s School of Architecture provided no curricular opportunities for such service learning. The design-build workshops were a valuable pedagogical discovery within the school that have set a precedent for further development of a community-engaged "Directed Research" capstone course beginning in spring 2024.
Video 2. Video of the summer 2021 design-build team constructing the cold-storage enclosure. (From left: Shaan Lakshanan B.Arch student at Syracuse; Jacob Gigler Executive Director of SCHF; Jerry Yan B.Arch student at Syracuse).
(2021)
Figure 10: Photograph of the summer 2022 design-build team with completed storage enclosure and bench in-progress. Student interns were paid for their work by Syracuse University SOURCE grants. (From left: David Shanks, Assistant Professor of Architecture at Syracuse; TJ Farley B.Arch student at Syracuse; Becky Goetzke, B.Arch student at Syracuse)
Photograph of two men and one woman sitting on a bench in a farm pavilion.
(2022)

RESEARCH

While off-grid cold storage powered by photovoltaics and batteries was theoretically feasible based on known science and available technologies, successful demonstrations that such a system can be deployed affordably in the context of a small community farm are rare, and knowledge of such demonstrations is poorly disseminated. Therefore, a major research goal was to build a full-scale demonstration of such a system, from which field data could be gathered to then disseminate knowledge both within the architecture and engineering disciplines, and also to community farming organizations with similar needs to SCHF. The cold storage system has been fully operational since June 2023 and is performing reliably in sunny, overcast, and Canadian wildfire smoke conditions.

Although the cold-storage system was an important part of the project, design research was not limited to technical concerns. The research spanned a broad spectrum, from basic questions of laying out an efficient washing/packing space, to sociological questions of how to facilitate cultural autonomy for refugees. Architecture itself was an important agent in negotiating between the various research aims of the project. A common agricultural building type in Central New York is the "pole-barn," which features widely spaced posts spanned by a lattice of beams, rafters, and purlins, such that the space enclosed under the roof is open and flexible. The pavilion was designed as a modification of the common pole-barn, with unequal roof pitches defining two linked but distinct spaces (see Figures 11 and 12). Sheltering the community space on the pavilion's south side is a roof sloped to the optimal angle for summer photovoltaic electricity production at Syracuse's latitude. Above the washing/packing space is a roof with a lower slope, matching the minimum allowed by the roofing manufacturer's warranty in order to minimize material expenditures. Tracing the design modifications of the pole barn from the generic type to the specific instance becomes a way to understand the various kinds of knowledge that were produced during its design process.

Figure 11. Photograph of structural model built by Shaan Lakshmanan and Jerry Yan. The model shows how the generic pole barn type is modified and adapted for the specific site and programmatic conditions of the pavilion.
Photograph of a model building made of wood beams. One corner is walled interior room, but most of the structure is open-sided, with support beams instead of exterior walls. The two sides of the roof are pitched at different angles so they do not meet at a shared peak.
Shaan Lakshmanan and Jerry Yan (2021)
Figure 12. A structural model built by Shaan Lakshmanan and Jerry Yan.
Close-up photograph of a model building made of wood beams. Vertical support beams are prominent, as is an interior room with door.
Shaan Lakshmanan and Jerry Yan (2021)
Figure 13: Schematic diagram of the off-grid, solar-powered electrical system installed at the pavilion. Photovoltaics power the cold-storage room which relies on a standard window-unit air-conditioner modified by a Coolbot device to allow it to cool the space down to refrigeration temperatures.
Electrical system diagram showing the path of sunlight through the photovoltaic array and onward, to end up powering a lithium battery, miscellaneous appliances, a wifi hotspot, and a cooling system.
Lindsey Brown and David Shanks (2024)
Figure 14: Axonometric diagram of the off-grid, solar-powered electrical system installed at the pavilion. Photovoltaics power the cold-storage room which relies on a standard window-unit air-conditioner modified by a Coolbot device to allow it to cool the space down to refrigeration temperatures.
Electrical system diagram.
Jerry Yan and David Shanks (2024)

REFLECTION

By integrating infrastructural, technological, and social goals into its design, the New Americans’ Pavilion embodies SCHF’s mission statement: “Growing Food, Culture, and Community”  (sidenote: “Home,” Salt City Harvest Farm, accessed July 5, 2023, http://saltcityharvest.farm. ↩ ) . In their 2023 Annual Report, SCHF states that the pavilion's cold-storage system, "was real game changer for us... Our produce sales went from averaging $3,000/year since 2016 to $19,927 in 2023!"  (sidenote: Salt City Harvest Farm, 2023 Annual Report, https://saltcityharvest.farm/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2023-SCHF-Annual-Report.pdf. ↩ ) .  The pavilion has furthermore been used for a wide variety of community events such as courses in healthy nutrition, World Refugee Day celebrations, and fundraising dinners sponsored by Syracuse organization Farm to Fork 101.

At the same time as it serves its community partner, the project advances SU’s primary missions: to create and disseminate interdisciplinary knowledge, and to educate the next generation of responsible citizens. The pavilion demonstrates the feasibility of an affordable, off-grid cold storage powered by renewable energy, and the summer design-build workshops during its construction have paved the way for further community-engaged curricular opportunities at Syracuse. In sum, the project simultaneously advances the missions of its community and university partners while also strengthening connections between the two, setting an example for future productive collaborations.

Figure 15. Manika Gautam (second from left) harvests garlic with her family in the New Americans’ Pavilion. Manika is originally from Nepal and her husband is a refugee from Bhutan. After coming to the United States in 2013, Gautam began farming at SCHF in 2017 in order to access fresh produce from her home cuisine, and she was hired as Farm Manager in 2023.
Photograph of a man, a woman, and two children holding bushels of garlic in a farm pavilion.
Jacob Gigler (2022)
Figure 16. The variety of vegetables harvested from farmers' plots in 2023.
Photograph of vegetables, each labeled: tomato, dill, lettuce mix, kale, potatoes, bell peppers amaranth, cabbage, eggplant, aronia berries, shishito peppers, sungolds, and daikon radish.
Jacob Gigler (2023)
Figure 17. The first Farm to Fork dinner hosted under the pavilion in 2021 while it was still under construction. The dinner brought together SCHF farmers and staff with members of the broader community.
A group of people sit at tables in a farm pavilion. The tables have black tablecloths and vases of flowers, and individual settings have menus and beverages.
Jacob Gigler (2021)
Figure 18. Open Farm Day in 2022, in which local residents were invited to a farmer's market in the pavilion's community space.
Adults and children visit tables in a farm pavilion where farmers are displaying their produce.
David Shanks (2022)
Figure 19. A view of the completed New Americans' Pavilion from the north.
Photograph of an open-sided structure in a green field. Cars are parked next to it and a few people stand nearby.
David Shanks (2022)

References

Anderson, Elijah. The Cosmopolitan Canopy. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.

“Home.” Salt City Harvest Farm. Accessed July 5, 2023. http://saltcityharvest.farm.

Özay, Erkin. “Rust Best Cosmopolitanism.” In Buffalo at the Crossroads, edited by Peter Christensen, 181–95. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020.

Quirk, Vanessa. “Refugees Could Save America's Legacy Cities - Will We Let Them?” Metropolis Magazine, Oct. 27, 2016. https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/refugees-could-save-america-legacy-cities/.

Salt City Harvest Farm. 2023 Annual Report. https://saltcityharvest.farm/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2023-SCHF-Annual-Report.pdf, accessed February 19, 2024.

Footnotes

  1. Erkin Özay, “Rust Belt Cosmopolitanism,” in Buffalo at the Crossroads, ed. Peter Christensen (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020), 181–95. ↩
  2. SCHF uses the term "culturally appropriate food" from a commonly accepted definition of food sovereignty that originates in the 2007 Declaration of Nyéléni: "Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems." ↩
  3. “People,” CNY Vitals, Central New York Community Foundation, accessed July 5, 2023, http://cnyvitals.org/people ↩
  4. Vanessa Quirk, “Refugees Could Save America's Legacy Cities - Will We Let Them?” Metropolis Magazine, Oct. 27, 2016, https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/refugees-could-save-america-legacy-cities/ ↩
  5. Elijah Anderson, The Cosmopolitan Canopy (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011). ↩
  6. “Home,” Salt City Harvest Farm, accessed July 5, 2023, http://saltcityharvest.farm. ↩
  7. Salt City Harvest Farm, 2023 Annual Report, https://saltcityharvest.farm/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2023-SCHF-Annual-Report.pdf. ↩
x

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following funders for their support of this project: Chobani Community Impact Fund, Reisman Foundation, Central New York Community Foundation, C&S Companies, Syracuse University. The author would also like to thank the following individuals for their invaluable contributions to the success of the project: Jacob Gigler, Duane Groesbeck, Lindsey Brown, Yutaka Sho.

Supporting Materials

Syracuse.com, "Chobani grant to expand opportunities for immigrant farmers in Kirkville," November 9, 2019: https://www.syracuse.com/business/2019/11/chobani-grant-to-expand-opportunities-for-immigrant-farmers-in-kirkville.html


Yale Climate Connections, "The sun powers a Syracuse community farm--in more ways than one," June 9, 2023: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/06/the-sun-powers-a-syracuse-community-farm-in-more-ways-than-one/



Contributors

 David Shanks†: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Investigation inquiry, Methodology, Production - Technical, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Project administration, Reflective Analysis, Relationship Development Outreach, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing
Matthew Potteiger: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Relationship Development Outreach, Resources, Supervision
Jacob Gigler: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Production - Creative, Production - Social, Project administration, Relationship Development Outreach, Supervision
Shalabh Maroo: Funding acquisition Production - Technical
Lindsey Brown: Production - Creative Visualization
Shaan Lakshmanan: Production - Creative Visualization
Jerry Yan: Production - Creative Visualization
Sravya Sirigiri: Production - Creative Visualization
TJ Farley: Production - Creative Visualization
Becky Goetzke: Production - Creative Visualization
Phil Hofmeyer: Production - Technical Validation
Javier Rosa: Production - Technical
Brian "Skip" Letcher: Production - Technical Production - Social
McGinnis Nelson Construction: Production - Technical
Jay Regmi: Production - Social Relationship Development Outreach

Roles

 Conceptualization: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger,, Jacob Gigler.
Funding acquisition: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger, Jacob Gigler,, Shalabh Maroo.
Investigation and inquiry: David Shanks†.
Methodology: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger.
Production - Technical: David Shanks†, Shalabh Maroo, Phil Hofmeyer, Javier Rosa, Brian "Skip" Letcher,, McGinnis Nelson Construction.
Production - Creative: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger, Jacob Gigler, Lindsey Brown, Shaan Lakshmanan, Jerry Yan, Sravya Sirigiri, TJ Farley,, Becky Goetzke.
Production - Social: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger, Jacob Gigler, Brian "Skip" Letcher,, Jay Regmi.
Project administration: David Shanks†, Jacob Gigler.
Reflective Analysis: David Shanks†.
Relationship Development and Outreach: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger, Jacob Gigler,, Jay Regmi.
Resources: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger.
Supervision: David Shanks†, Matthew Potteiger,, Jacob Gigler.
Validation: David Shanks†, Phil Hofmeyer.
Visualization: David Shanks†, Lindsey Brown, Shaan Lakshmanan, Jerry Yan, Sravya Sirigiri, TJ Farley,, Becky Goetzke.
Writing – original draft: David Shanks†.
Writing – review & editing: David Shanks†.
† denotes by-line credit.

Completed

 Between June 2020 and July 2023

Sites and Institutes

 Syracuse University School of Architecture
Syracuse University College of Engineering and Computer Science
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Salt City Harvest Farm

Keywords

 Community Engagement Design Build Activism Food Systems

Disciplines

 Architecture Landscape Architecture Food Systems Community Wealth Building Community Development Engineering

Views

 222 views

Collection

 Creating Knowledge in Common

Collection Indexing Tags

 #Design-Build #Placemaking #Service Learning #Funding Model #Reciprocity #Reproducibility #Capacity building #Infrastructure