The Chicken Coop, designed to provide roosting for 100 chickens with 30 boxes for egg-laying, taught students how to think inside and outside the box. Students learned how to design and build a small farm building from client interview and presentation through, working drawings, cost estimating material ordering and construction - all in 16 weeks. Students learned that ideas must be grounded in buildable solutions and that detail and craft are as important as big ideas.
Led by Rocco Ceo and Jim Adamson students finished the project and delivered the new home southwest of Miami in Redland to their client: Empower Farms. The small farm has a big mission and looks to provide healthy food without chemicals to its customers while also incorporating people with disabilities into its productive processes of the farm.
In the words of its manager Nicholas Miller: “In addition to seeing the results of their efforts the farms participants learn about growing healthy food without damaging the environment, or better yet; healing it.” The mobile chicken coop allows the chickens to be efficiently located in different areas of the farm where they help control insects and weed growth, while producing some of the best organically-grown eggs in the process.
