OHC is an event I try not to miss. Although some years I was in Helsinki that very weekend, and some years, the weather was really horrible, I would make it more often than not.
Each time we go together, Igor comes up with a route we never did before, and each time we explore new places (at least, new to me :))
Last year, there was no OHC due to COVID, and this year, there were way fewer sites than in pre-COVD years, which Igor declared to be a positive thing: planning became easier.
On the first part of our OHC tour, we went to the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The first stop was The Plant – a former slaughterhouse and meat-packing facility converted into a green technology site, housing 20 businesses, including indoor and outdoor farms, beer and kombucha breweries, a bread bakery, and other emerging food producers and distributors. Bubbly Dynamics, who owns the facility, tried to preserve the features of the original building. You can see the signs on the walls identifying different stages of meat processing. Also, the toilets are located in the former walk-in refrigerators. That might sound funny, but I felt very uncomfortable closing a heavy door behind me and putting the latch down. It almost felt like the temperature was about to start dropping right away.
The next stop was Plant Chicago. They converted this former firehouse into a center for circular economy programming. The facility features shared-use indoor growing space for plants and fungi, indoor and outdoor classrooms, a market place, a teaching kitchen, in-vessel composting, and community meeting/event space. When we were there, we could not get inside the greenhouse, because there was a virtual class going on.
More pictures and information can be found here.
We ended the Back of the Yards part of our tour in the Back of the Yards Coffeehouse. It is very much no-rush place, but having a very intense day, we didn’t mind.
To be continued
Hettie's Reflections 