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City Slicker Farms
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Team Instructacoop Builds a New Home for our Chickens at the West Oakland Farm and Park
As we get closer to the start of construction on the new West Oakland Urban Farm and Park, the staff is abuzz with design plans and dreams of the future. One of the changes we’re most excited about is our new chicken coop--a beautiful 4-section compound that will house a 20-chicken flock.
The new coop is the project of a group of Masters of Architecture and Design MBA graduates from the California College of the Arts who received an IMPACT Award from CCA’s Center for Art and Public Life. Logan Kelley, Leila Khosrovi, Shawn Komlos, Hachem Mahfoud, Frances Reid, and Brendan Williams--Team Instructacoop--have been working on an innovative coop design since March.
"Five of us were in a class together at CCA called Professional Practice and we kind of 'hatched' this idea together," Frances said. "We met with City Slicker Farms folks and were flying a bunch of ideas that would be useful for the new Farm Park. The chicken coop seemed to rise to the top really quickly for all of us."
The design features three paddocks that can be opened or closed via a central vestibule, allowing the chickens to graze in one paddock while the other paddocks regenerate, or providing a dedicated paddock for a chick hatchery. A roost located directly above a worm bin will convert chicken poop into compost. The design also has the potential to include a rainwater catchment system.Team Instructacoop, as the name suggests, has tried to incorporate educational opportunities in every element of the coop. The walls of the coop will feature viewing windows that allow visitors to see the goings-on inside the coop without disturbing the chickens. Educational signage will provide information about the coop and raising chickens.
“The thing for us as recent architecture graduates is that so much of what we study is theoretical," Frances said. "To be able to do a design build for a chicken coop for an organization like City Slicker Farms is great for us.”