In today's episode, we talk with UGA professor Alfie Vick about eating plants, taking biophilic principals to all communities, environmental ethics and his deep understanding of the Southern Native American tribes. He talks about how their history, culture, and practices are an example in living a balanced life in-tune with nature. Alfie also talks about the thousands of native plant species in Georgia and designing natural spaces such as the Children's Garden at the State Botanical Gardens in Athens, Georgia and Serenbe's own medicinal garden and he's also working on a future Serenbe neighborhood.
Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned
Auburn University Rural Studio
UGA Office of Global Engagement
U.S. Research Geological Survey
University of Georgia College of Environment & Design
In today's episode, we talk with UGA professor Alfie Vick about eating plants, taking biophilic principals to all communities, environmental ethics and his deep understanding of the Southern Native American tribes. He talks about how their history, culture, and practices are an example in living a balanced life in-tune with nature. Alfie also talks about the thousands of native plant species in Georgia and designing natural spaces such as the Children's Garden at the State Botanical Gardens in Athens, Georgia and Serenbe's own medicinal garden and he's also working on a future Serenbe neighborhood.
Definitions, People + Organizations Mentioned
Auburn University Rural Studio
UGA Office of Global Engagement
U.S. Research Geological Survey
University of Georgia College of Environment & Design
Monica Olsen (1s):
Hey guys, it's Monica here. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast that I've started with my very good friend, Jennifer Walsh called Biophilic Solutions. Our last season of Serenbe Stories, Building a Biophilic Movement, was so popular that we decided to dedicate an entire podcast to it. Every other week Jennifer and I will sit down with leaders in the growing field of biophilia. We'll talk about local and global solutions to help nurture the living, social, and economic systems that we all need to sustain future generations. More often than not nature has the answers. You can find Biophilic Solutions on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and follow us today so you don't miss an episode.
Monica Olsen (41s):
All right, now let's get back to Serenbe Stories. Serenbe is a place where people live, work, learn, and play in celebration of life's beauty. And we're here to share the stories that connect residents and guests to each other, and to nature. This is Serenbe Stories.
Monica Olsen (1m 23s):
Today's episode we're going to talk with UGA professor Alfie Vick about eating plants, taking biophilic principles into all communities, environmental ethics, which he teaches at UGA, as well as his deep understanding of the Native American tribes right here in the Southeastern United States. He talks about their history, culture, and practices, which are a great example of living in a balanced life in tune with nature. Alfie also talks about the thousands of native plant species that are here in Georgia, as well as designing natural spaces, such as the children's garden at the state botanical gardens, right in Athens, Georgia. He also talks about Serenbe's own medicinal garden, and he's also working on a future neighborhood in Serenbe. But first Serenbe Stories is brought to you by The Inn at Serenbe.
Monica Olsen (2m 6s):
The Inn is nestled in the rolling countryside of bucolic Serenbe, where guests can walk on the 15 miles of trails through preserved forest land, the wildflower meadow, and the animal village. You can relax by the pool, hot tub, or in rocking chairs on the wraparound porch. Play on the croquet lawn, swings, and in-ground trampolines. Connect with nature and each other all while staying in luxurious rooms on The Inn grounds or within the community of Serenbe. Book your stay today at serenbeinn.com.
Monica Olsen (2m 32s):
All right, well, we want to welcome everybody back to Serenbe Stories. I'm Monica Olsen, and I've got Steve Nygren here with Alfie Vick.
Alfie Vick (2m 40s):
Hello
Steve Nygren (2m 40s):
Hi Monica.
Monica Olsen (2m 41s):
Hi guys. How are you?
Alfie Vick (2m 42s):
Glad to be here.
Monica Olsen (2m 42s):
Yeah, thank you. Alfie is the Georgia power professor in environmental ethics at UGA, which is the University of Georgia here outside of Atlanta.
Monica Olsen (2m 51s):
He is a licensed landscape architect, a LEED fellow, and has worked closely with Serenbe to create the Mado food forest and medicinal garden over the years. But that is just a tiny bit of what you've been up to. And so we want to hear all about your story, your Serenbe story, and what you're most excited about these days. So I kind of kick it off to Steve to hear how you guys first met, which I don't think I know.
Steve Nygren (3m 16s):
I actually first met Alfie, he was just sitting at a desk at ECOS because ECOS was the planning company that had won the award for the Chattahoochee Hill country, master plan, community engagement. And this is back in 2001, but someone else in the office- so Alfie at that point was just on the end and the, the sort of outskirts and various things that happened ran across to Alfie. And then when we launched Chattahoochee Now to look at the river, now this is my memory so you can give your memory if it's the same, but Alfie was was a key part. And of course, a lot of key people, environmentalists and, and horticulturalists, you know, Alfie was, was becoming more and more of a figure in that world
Steve Nygren (4m 7s):
Once he went to University of Georgia to become a professor. And so he was more involved at those public meetings or stakeholder meetings we showed up and it was one meeting that I think Alfie had presented something and I said, you know, we're doing this third phase at Serenbe and it's going to be a lot of medicinal and, and plus hopefully Alfie will tell us about his studies on Indians and, and he's become a real expert on, on that and some of the things. And so that intrigued me. So I invited Alfie to come down and see what we were up to. And then that led to developing the relationship we have today.
Alfie Vick (4m 44s):
Yeah. I remember those early meetings at ECOS, where I was sitting at a desk and you and Shannon Kettering and Kerry Blind were in the conference room. And I think I had a chance to poke my head into a couple of those meetings. And then when you guys had the stakeholder meetings for the Chattahoochee Hill country planning, I did come and attend and, and participate in some of that, that effort as a staff member of ECOS. And that was, that was really the beginning of how I got to know this part of Fulton county and, and, and really the area that is now Serenbe.
Monica Olsen (5m 20s):
That's great. And so tell me a little bit about what, what was ECOS specifically and how did you go from there to UGA?
Alfie Vick (5m 26s):
ECOS was, I say was because ECOS has, has now been, you know, subsumed or purchased by one of the other companies in town, but ECOS was a full service landscape architecture firm. And we were really, I think, pushing the edges of, of sustainable design and, and sustainable landscape architecture and site design at, at the time. And, and I think that's part of the reason why we were selected to be the, the planning team for Chattahoochee Hills country.
Monica Olsen (5m 53s):
Steve is nodding here that yes that is the right reason.
Steve Nygren (5m 55s):
Yes, absolutely.
Steve Nygren (5m 56s):
I mean, we, we had a lot of large national in various cities apply and we really looked at them, ECOS was on that cutting edge and we thought that they would join us in, in, in imagining something very different and lead that effort.
Monica Olsen (6m 13s):
So this was early on before Serenbe was even here, or,
Steve Nygren (6m 18s):
Oh, yes, this is, this is when we were bringing the community together in a community engagement. And this is, we had received a, we partnered with the Nature Conservancy and applied for a grant and received a grant from the Fulton county economic development. And that allowed us to put an RFP out and ECOS won that RFP.
Alfie Vick (6m 46s):
And, and as Steve said, I was kind of on the periphery of that. I was, I was really running our sustainable design green building studio, and it was Shannon Kettering that was running the planning studio that, and she led the effort here. And so had that involvement. And that was what almost 20 years ago. And then fast forward to four years ago, four or five years ago, and I was involved with Chattahoochee Now, as Steve said, and after a couple of our, you know, big stakeholder meetings with Chattahoochee Now, Steve, I think had learned about some of my interest in Cherokee ethnobotany and, and American Indian ethnoecology, and said, Hey, you need to come out to Serenbe and see what we've done, because we have some, some pretty cool sites that, that seem to be, you know, seem to have some, some resources, some, some cultural resources that need to be explored.
Alfie Vick (7m 38s):
And I said, yeah, I'd love to come take a look. And so that was probably 2015 or 16.
Steve Nygren (7m 43s):
About that.
Alfie Vick (7m 44s):
Yeah. I came out and, and from that point on, I've been a, I've been hooked, you know, hooked on that's what's going on out here.
Steve Nygren (7m 51s):
So Alfie's the one cause that's right, that, that was our first you're really visited and my walking the land with you. So this was before I really talked about Mado and our third phase and it was to look at our Indian sites. And I've always been curious about the Indian rock that I always called it a, a, an Indian still. And Alfie was the one who was really able to validate on a way that this was probably the Mississippians, I believe you said it.
Alfie Vick (8m 22s):
Yeah. I think it actually predates the Mississippians. I think it goes back to the Woodland era.
Steve Nygren (8m 26s):
Before that, but you were able to point out one of the most likely Mississippian sites and it was a mound that you can see from that rock. And because of where it is, according to the stream and the perfect round, he was pretty sure that, that it really helped us put some, some names on some of these things that we just sort of knew they were Indian, but didn't really understand them.
Monica Olsen (8m 50s):
And go ahead, tell me a little bit more about that time when you were walking the land, because I've been out there, but I don't know much about the history.
Alfie Vick (8m 57s):
Yeah. It's one of those sites that I, you know, I think that there's not as many, Serenbe residents and visitors get to see as, as should, because it is accessible and there are trails that lead to it. And it's really an amazing site. You get out to a pretty steep hillside, and there is a large Boulder with two symmetrical basins carved out of a Boulder. And the two basins come together into a central flume that pours off the side of the Boulder. So imagine two sinks that come together into a, into a central drainage flume, and it's way too symmetrical and geometric to be of some kind of natural origin.
Alfie Vick (9m 44s):
And in, in seeing this, I thought, oh my gosh, this clearly this is, this is something of human creation. And I did some research and there are a number of basins that are identical to the one that, that is here. Some of them are single basins with those single flume. Some of them are double basins with a single flume. There's a number of different configurations and the best that we can tell, and this has been documented by research through the US geological survey and, and it's been published in peer review publications is that this thing was created to process acorns into an edible product.
Alfie Vick (10m 25s):
So you think of acorns, the product of all the Oak trees that are out there, we've got 25 or 30 different species of Oaks that are native to this area. Some of them are more palatable than others. I think the white Oak is probably one of the more sweeter acorns that are out there, but none of them are, are, are acorns that you can just pick off the tree or pick off the ground and pop them into your mouth and eat them. They would make you pucker in there. They're just not palatable because they've got so many tannins in them. So what the basin is is you mush up these acorns, crushed them with a rock or, you know, pestle or something. And then you pour water in there, let the water soak, and it actually leaches the tannins out of the acorn and they pour some more water in.
Alfie Vick (11m 9s):
And as you're filling up the basins, it's pouring over the flume. And basically you're, you're rinsing the tannins out of the acorn and eventually you end up with an edible acorn mush, which then you dry. And then you ground it up with a mortar and pestle, turn it into an acorn powder and it can be turned into all kinds of things at that point.
Monica Olsen (11m 29s):
Oh interesting.
Steve Nygren (11m 29s):
And so you think that's the Woodlands now, which is what 2000 years ago. And it could even date before that. Because I remember our archeological dig we had here and one small item that they thought was probably an agrarian tool, carbon dates at 9,000 years old.
Alfie Vick (11m 51s):
Wow. And we know from archeology that there has been human inhabitation of the Southeastern United States, what is now the United States, for at least 14,000 years, maybe 16,000 years or more.
Steve Nygren (12m 2s):
And some of this area you said was actually agrarian rather than nomadic and, and hunters.
Alfie Vick (12m 8s):
Yep. Well, it transitioned from nomadic. And then when corn was introduced, it started to become more sedentary communities. And I think the location of our basin here that we were just describing and the mound that Steve mentioned, you know, those things are located basically on two edges of the flood, plain of Cedar Creek. And then the flood plain would have been where corn would have been grown. And you can just imagine, and there are historical accounts, William Bartram, and, and other explorers that came through the Southeast that described miles of cornfields in the floodplains of, of rivers. And I can just imagine that floodplain here being either a massive corn field, or if that cornfield is left fallow, which they would be done after a few years that it lost its fertility.
Alfie Vick (12m 58s):
You'd let it lay fallow. And then it would be grown up in river cane and river cane, which is our native bamboo species is still found along the rivers here in, in, you know, in Serenbe. And, and that is an important species that would be used for making baskets and all kinds of other things. And Thomas Peters, who's the director of natural resources and landscape here actually did his master's thesis on river cane. So he's the expert. You guys could have him on another episode later to talk about river cane.
Monica Olsen (13m 23s):
Oh that sounds like a great idea.
Steve Nygren (13m 27s):
Are you still teaching the course on Indian history and doing the field trips in the summer?
Alfie Vick (13m 33s):
Yes. Every, every other year I teach a Cherokee ethnobotany course where I take students on a two and a half week field excursion. We started in North Carolina in Cherokee, North Carolina, and then come back through north Georgia and follow the Northern route of the trail of tears all the way to Oklahoma. And we're basically looking at the transition of the Cherokee people from the Southern Appalachians to Oklahoma as a result of removal and the trail of tears, which is a really tragic episode, but it's also a story of resilience and an adaptation that the Cherokee nation, as it exists in Oklahoma today is thriving by all accounts, they really are doing amazing things.
Alfie Vick (14m 18s):
And actually you've seen them probably in the news recently as there are, re-establishing some of their sovereign rights as a, an independent nation. And so it's really amazing to look at at that transition and, and those lessons learned and think about how it applies to communities today, as we face all kinds of challenges with climate change and, and, and threats to our communities and how we can look at the Cherokee nation and how they have as a people maintained their identity, their sense of community, their sovereignty and persevered in hardships that will hopefully we'll never understand.
Steve Nygren (14m 59s):
Every time I hear about the trail of tears, I think about when we first bought this land and a dear friend, Austin Ford, an Episcopal priest, he was very concerned on what side of the river we'd purchased on. And I thought a minute and I said, well, we're on the east side of the Chattahoochee river. And he said, oh, thank goodness. And I said, well, why what's the difference? And he said, oh, he said, the Creek Indians were on the west side. And there was the trauma of the trail of tears. But the Creek Indians in this area were on the east side of the river and they were not moved and they were left there and in integrated into society. So it's interesting today, you know, where are the Creeks?
Steve Nygren (15m 40s):
Are they just integrated into our society versus the Cherokees,
Alfie Vick (15m 44s):
Each of the Southeastern tribes had their own trail of tears. You know, the Cherokee get all the, the press about the trail of tears. And that's understandable. They were the last tribe to really be removed from the Southeast. But each of the Southeastern tribes, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole, each of them had their own removal story. And I think that needs to be recognized. Definitely.
Steve Nygren (16m 9s):
Well we do know that there was at least one family of Creek Indians still at our waterfall as late as 1860, because when the Robinsons bought the 600 acres that that's part of on the bottom of the two-page deed, which was all a transfer for shotguns and murals and there was no money, there was a note, there are Indians at the waterfall.
Alfie Vick (16m 32s):
That is amazing.
Steve Nygren (16m 34s):
We have no idea how many or what was the community that was there.
Alfie Vick (16m 37s):
Yeah. And that, and that's not unheard of, you know, of course the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians, which is located in North Carolina, that's a similar story where there were folks that, you know, that hid out in the mountains that were not rounded up. And then there, you know, there's other, other reasons why there were Cherokee people that remained in North Carolina and that's the core of the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians. And so I can understand that there were, you know, Creek Indians that, that were able to escape removal as well.
Steve Nygren (17m 10s):
And then when we decided we were going to develop this rather than a groundbreaking Serenbe, where we penetrated the dirt with a shovel, we found a Creek Indian chief, and we had a blessing of the land and he brought smoke and we honored the four directions and everyone who had put a reservation on a lot came and we all joined hands together and sort of had a bonding moment there.
Monica Olsen (17m 40s):
No, that's great. Well, and you also ended up naming the third neighborhood Mado, which my understanding is the Creek Indian word for sort of life and balance, is that correct?
Alfie Vick (17m 50s):
Yeah. And, and balance is a really important concept in the Southeastern, what is technically called the Southeastern cultural complex and, and really understanding, you know, all of the Southeastern tribes, Creek, you know, the ones I just mentioned that, you know, and so it's the five civilized tribes plus their predecessors, you know, which would have been the Mississippian cultural complex and prior to that, but balance was the driving force in the community. And, and, and it's probably beyond what we are really ready to, to understand, I think in a lot of ways, but it's physical balance, it's cultural balance, it's family balance.
Alfie Vick (18m 34s):
And a lot of things that, that made it difficult for Europeans who were encountering the native people here to understand why they were making the decisions they made, why, why their community function, the way it did, and really balance was the driving factor. And it's just a different, a different way of thinking than, than what we operate under today in, you know, our culture at large. And, and it's not to say that that, you know, maybe, maybe there are opportunities to, to learn from the past, I think,
Monica Olsen (19m 10s):
Oh, I completely agree. I mean, I think that we, as a culture, at least America, we definitely are all about this sort of, short-term thinking, how are we progressing? It's all about moving forward and forward and forward. And we're really not thinking about the here and now and the presence and actually what we're doing today that might affect tomorrow. It really has kind of turned into this. It's all about forward progression. And I don't know where that came from, but we need to possibly reconsider that.
Alfie Vick (19m 43s):
Well, I hope that there is a, a way to, to merge, you know, different ways of thinking together. This is maybe getting out of my wheelhouse.
Monica Olsen (19m 54s):
No, go go. No we talk about anything you want.
Steve Nygren (19m 56s):
If you get way off they can edit it out.
Monica Olsen (20m 0s):
No, I think it's an important topic.
Alfie Vick (20m 2s):
Yeah, no, I, I mean, obviously what you're talking about in terms of the way things are, is very driven by capitalism in the, in the need for growth. And I think native cultures were about balance and maintaining a, a healthy, I don't want to say status quo cause that's not the right term, but a healthy balance. And, and, and that means a lot of things in a, in a good way for the perseverance of the, of the culture. And so, you know, I think there are ways to incorporate prosperity into an idea of balance. It's just, how do we measure prosperity?
Monica Olsen (20m 42s):
Right.
Alfie Vick (20m 44s):
And I think, I think what's going on here at Serenbe is helping to shift that, that narrative about prosperity from, you know, just how much money do you make or whatever, whatever your typical capitalist measure of prosperity is, to things that get back to community and you know, how many of your neighbors do you know? How can you rely on the community around you to support you in times of need? And, and those kinds of things that really are at the core of probably the more traditional concept of balance.
Monica Olsen (21m 21s):
No and I, go ahead Steve, yeah.
Steve Nygren (21m 23s):
Today, Alfie and I had a tour of almost 40 developers and planners, architects from around the country. And they arrived with curiosity and I believe as we said goodbye to them, they, they left with passion. And it's it's, they understood the balance that you're talking about, Alfie. I really think from the various presentations we had, they had not necessarily connected the dots that because of the importance of connecting to nature, the plants you put in, the trees, and how the built environment connect us to one another. And it was just fun watching the faces when they arrived of curiosity, when they left, I don't know how many people, the messages you got, but several people said, I'm going home,
Steve Nygren (22m 14s):
I'm changing it. I'm bringing people here. I'm on fire. I'm inspired. It was just, it was great.
Monica Olsen (22m 21s):
Yeah. It's important. I think it's sort of time to wake people up. And part of that awakening is to really rethink how we're living and everybody's going to have a different version of that. But I think we have to think about what does prosperity mean? What does wealth mean? How do I consider, again I think your point about connecting with, with neighbors. And I think, you know, to me, wealth is being able to walk outside and, you know, just be connected to trees and see birds and have fresh air to me that's prosperity. So I think what you do and what you're doing with the college of environment and design and, and the students that you're teaching is sort of the future to sort of invigorate the next generation to, to care maybe more than we have, I hate to say.
Alfie Vick (23m 10s):
Well, yeah, thank you. No pressure. Right?
Monica Olsen (23m 14s):
It's all about you Alfie. It's on your shoulders.
Alfie Vick (23m 19s):
Speaking of pressure, you know, the, the big question that everyone in Atlanta has been asking is what about gentrification? And, you know, you know, we got the BeltLine going in and we've seen some of the gentrification going on there. And then we see, you know, Serenbe, you know, which I think for all good reasons is a fairly high priced real estate market. One of my students is, is working on his thesis now, and he's looking at how do we take the ideas of biophilic design, the lessons learned from Serenbe, and how do we, how do we bring those to low-income communities? And I think this is a really important question and an important effort.
Alfie Vick (24m 2s):
And I've, I've heard Steve say it so many times that what's going on here at Serenbe doesn't have to be high priced. But there are some strategies that are important. You know, like if you're looking at a impoverished community that has suffered disinvestment for years and years, and is in really tough times, you don't come in and you, you don't put in artists designed lampposts that that is not the right solution for that community at that time. But there are strategies to begin the process of restoring that community, using the lessons learned here at Serenbe as a target for where that community wants to be.
Alfie Vick (24m 48s):
And you, you work in steps, maybe it's installing street trees to get the forest canopy back. Maybe it's restoring the connectivity of the sidewalks to connect the communities to each other, so that they're not disconnected by multi-lane highways that, you know, that forced this, you know, disconnection of the neighborhood. And then as you, as you start to restore those connections, you're facilitating the next step. And so I think it's, it's not, it's not coming in and imposing a grand park to save a community, but it is looking at what is the target and what are the steps that might happen over 10 or 20 years to get to that target, to let the community be a part of the restoration of their own community in a biophilic way.
Alfie Vick (25m 43s):
And I, I think this, I think this is the, I'm really excited about my student who's going to do this thesis and I I'm going to hold his feet to the fire to do it well. But I think, I think this is how we take the Serenbe model and take it to affordable communities and, and, and, and replicate it everywhere.
Monica Olsen (26m 6s):
Yeah.
Steve Nygren (26m 7s):
And I'm anxious, you know, to do that somewhere because we have a lot of ideas on how that can happen. And even in the future, you know, pieces of the Chattahoochee hill country, you know, right now we have a lot of affordable housing in Palmetto and the Chattahoochee Hills. So that's not the need. It's, it's, it's more balanced tax base growth. But our, our partnership with Rural Studio is a real key example because we have the first two cottages that were built outside their program to help demonstrate the reality of building these, what they call 20 K houses. And that was because that was what the teams got. And so we really were able to permit these, certify these, bid them out to builders and, and bring that forward.
Steve Nygren (26m 53s):
And the great thing that what they talk about is affordable housing should still have architectural integrity, and it should still have key qualities that door knob should still feel good. And w we have been in a tendency of trying to build the same size house cheaper, and it ends up not feeling good. And if we look at good design, a lot of communal spaces, smaller things, and I think it's absolutely a crime to have affordable housing that has any kind of an energy bill, because today we can do various ways to really reduce that energy demand. And then we're talking about true housing for people that, that maybe can't afford a place like Serenbe.
Monica Olsen (27m 38s):
So tell us about some other projects that you're working on right now Alfie. One of my favorites is the botanical gardens at UGA. I took my kids over there who are just about aging out of botanical garden kid area, the children's area, but it was the most phenomenal place. I encourage everybody to go and go on the website and look at pictures, but it was the coolest children's garden I've ever been to tell me about how that came to fruition and how you're a part of it.
Alfie Vick (28m 4s):
Sure. Yeah. I'm very proud to be a part of what's going on at the state botanical gardens of Georgia in Athens. And it's really become a destination spot. You know, the state botanical gardens got started in the 1980s and, and they have really come into their own in the last, I think, 10 years or so. And my involvement started well, my gosh, you can go back to my time as a student at University of Georgia, when I would go out to the state botanical gardens to study plants. But really my contribution to the state Botanical garden was in 2012 when myself and a colleague of mine, John Calabria, and two of our grad students who had an assistantship, basically produced the master plan update for the state Botanical garden.
Alfie Vick (28m 51s):
And some of the things we proposed were a children's garden, which would replace an asphalt parking lot that was located, it was an existing asphalt parking lot located right adjacent to the visitor center. And, and turn that into a children's garden. We proposed creating a new gateway building that would orient people as they came into the Botanical garden and welcome them to the, to the place and a number of other improvements. And I am so happy to say that as I go out there today, I see these things happening. And my involvement now is more of a bystander because the design has gone, you know, the detailed design has gone to other consultants and I'm there watching this idea come to life.
Alfie Vick (29m 38s):
The children's garden exists. It was designed by Koons Environmental Design, which happens to be a graduate of the college of environment design. So Josh Koons and his, his staff member Cam Berglund did the design and, and you're right. It is an amazing place. They, they really thought about natural materials, a lot of granite and, and wood, and it's all the kind of place that makes a kid want to just get out and not only explore, but manipulate the environment they can get in that stream channel and clog it up with stones.
Monica Olsen (30m 12s):
There's water and sand.
Alfie Vick (30m 16s):
They can move the sticks around and create forts, but it's all within the kind of the structure of this children's garden that, that is curated by the garden staff there,
Monica Olsen (30m 27s):
It's incredible with incredible fresh food is going. So there's sort of two sides like you, when you come into the entrance, there's sort of maybe if you call like a younger children's area. And then once you kind of weave your way down a little bit further, there's that huge, almost like nest in the woods. And that's where the sticks are, which I know I took pictures and brought them back for Steve. And it's just like law, or like stumps with huge sticks and so the stumps are of varying sizes and you can put the sticks from one stump to the next and you start making this little like fort. And so like my kids, my husband, were all out there, like making forts. And then there's this crazy. I don't know what what's the, where you can crawl up and it's almost like you're in, on a huge netting.
Alfie Vick (31m 10s):
Yeah it's like a squirrel, I think they call it the squirrel's nest.
Monica Olsen (31m 13s):
It was so cool. And you just wanted to sit there and look up into the trees. So, I mean, I think it's great for kids and adults.
Alfie Vick (31m 17s):
Yeah. It appeals to kids and adults. Yep, absolutely. And, you know, I think about, you know, the Spella hamlet that is probably next in line has got a four acre public park in the middle of it. And one of my students right now is working on some conceptual designs based on Steve's input. And, and some of the programming that's, that's been communicated to us and his concept is incorporating a lot of those features. I mean, really taking the idea of how do you, how do you make up a place, a play space for kids and adults that, using all natural materials, you're basically using the forest around us, to incentivize that, that, that sense of whimsy and play.
Alfie Vick (32m 5s):
And I think it's going to be a great feature to have here. And we're seeing really seeing it, you know, around the country and popping up in other countries too, of course. And maybe, maybe we're taking some inspiration from some other countries, I think when it comes to this
Steve Nygren (32m 21s):
And we're going to make sure that this is play of all ages, because you can imagine from the children's garden, some of the things we're going to have a, but on, on the tower, we'll, we'll be sort of like a, a tree house or an observation tower. We're going to have a zip line down to the wine bar, which is in several cutout containers.
Monica Olsen (32m 43s):
You only go down once, once you've had your wine, you can't go back up.
Steve Nygren (32m 45s):
That's up to you. I don't know if we're going to have to monitor that.
Alfie Vick (32m 50s):
There's no going back up the zip line. It's a one way.
Monica Olsen (32m 53s):
Right, one way down.
Alfie Vick (32m 56s):
No, but I think it will be, I think it'll be a, a very cool place. And I think it's, it's, it's a place that, you know, I can see parents when they're feeling energetic, wanting to, to jump in and play. But really, you know, I think a lot of times it's going to be parents feeling comfortable sitting at the wine bar or the coffee bar, watching their kids play and going probably berserk in excitement, exploring these things and probably taking some risks, being daring in a, a safe setting, but the parents can feel like they might be okay with being a little bit removed from some of that risk.
Alfie Vick (33m 39s):
You know, we don't want to encourage the helicopter parenting where you feel like you're always have to be, you know, two feet behind your kid, making sure they're not doing something. And I think what we're, what we want to create is a setting where parents feel comfortable letting their kids explore a little bit. And, and, and I, I want to make a diff a distinction between risk and danger. And it's an important distinction because risk is good, risk exposure to risk helps a kid learn to navigate risk and navigate life. Danger, we don't want, we don't want kids exposed to danger and we need to, you know, make sure we're not having spikes sticking out of a tree. Whatever it is. There's not rusty nails sticking out of things.
Alfie Vick (34m 26s):
But, but risk is important. The ability to, to walk, you know, walk across a log and learn to balance, you know, to learn that if you, if you don't balance or look where you're going, you might fall and, and you don't want to fall.
Alfie Vick (34m 43s):
So you learn, you learn to pay attention.
Monica Olsen (34m 47s):
Yeah. It's usually important. We just had Richard Louv in who did a Last Child in the Woods and talked about nature deficit disorder. And it's absolutely vital for kids to grow up with a little bit of risk because you can't learn and you can't make good decisions if you don't have a little bit of that in your life.
Alfie Vick (35m 1s):
Yeah we don't want kids growing up in a bubble.
Monica Olsen (35m 3s):
No, we don't want them to grow up in a bubble. One of the things I want to touch on, cause I sort of mentioned it at the top of the episode is the food forest and medicinal garden. And so for people who are like, what is that? You know, this is sort of a common word that we use a lot and you obviously hear a lot. Can you give us a little bit of history and background on food forests, medicinal garden, and sort of what that means and what it's going to be?
Alfie Vick (35m 27s):
Sure. Yep. Well, you think about, there are many different ways to incorporate agriculture and food production into an urban environment. There are community gardens, there are people now who are doing foraging in urban environments to be able to find the edible edible plants. And a food forest is simply a intentional landscape that is a food producing landscape that mimics the native forest in terms of its structure. It's got canopy trees, understory trees, shrubs, ground layer, species herbaceous perennials, vines, and root crops.
Alfie Vick (36m 9s):
And all of these different layers of the, of the landscape are food producing. And it's, it's intended to be something that does not require annual replanting. So it's something you, you plant once and it hopefully perpetuates and continues to produce edible products, food, as we go into the future. And so that's what this, this design is. It's, it's pretty much all native plants. There's a couple of exceptions. Like there's some Rosemary out there and some other herbs, but for the most part, it's all native species. And really, I describe it as a microcosm of, of our Piedmont forest. Of what you would find
Alfie Vick (36m 51s):
If you were to leave the food forest, walk out on the trails and explore some of the of 700 acres of, of, of natural areas around Serenbe, you would find the same species growing out there as you find planted in the food forest and medicinal garden. And the idea is to build a confidence in people that are native plants are edible. You know, now every single one of them,
Monica Olsen (37m 19s):
I know, wild right?
Alfie Vick (37m 21s):
but many of them are. I mean, I think there are 30,000 plant species, the 300, oh man, I'm going to get the numbers wrong. Don't quote me. It's either 300,000 or 30,000 plant species. I'm going to say 300,000 around the world and we rely on 30 of them for 90% of our plant-based food.
Monica Olsen (37m 48s):
Wow. 30? Only 30.
Alfie Vick (37m 51s):
There, you can think of what that you can think of. I bet you can name the 30 species.
Monica Olsen (37m 52s):
Definitely.
Alfie Vick (37m 54s):
Corn.
Monica Olsen (37m 55s):
Wheat.
Alfie Vick (37m 55s):
Rice. Wheat. Potatoes. Soy beans. So you know.
Monica Olsen (37m 58s):
Tomatoes. Et cetera.
Alfie Vick (38m 1s):
And so there's 30 species we rely on for 90% of our plant-based food. So what about all the other thousands of species that are out there that are edible, but we're just not utilizing them as a resource?
Steve Nygren (38m 16s):
Chances are they don't have shelf life.
Alfie Vick (38m 18s):
Really.
Steve Nygren (38m 19s):
In today's society.
Monica Olsen (38m 22s):
Right, where they have to travel hundreds of miles.
Alfie Vick (38m 25s):
Yeah and. But you know, these are all things that are pretty easily overcome by, you know, even traditional plant breeding as you, as, as we, as humans, select individual plants for their good qualities. And there's some great research going on by the Smithsonian Institute. And some of the researchers there to look at, you know, there were native species here in the Southeast, some of the native sunflowers, sumpweed, chenopodium, smartweed, you know, a bunch of native plants that are now, we pretty much, other than the sunflower, we consider these things to be weeds, but they were the food sources of the Native Americans going back prior to the introduction of corn because they relied on, on these native species.
Alfie Vick (39m 14s):
And at the time that they were important food products, their food production of those species was much more productive. And in essence, the human population had been selecting the better producing individuals of those species. And so the seeds were bigger and you were getting more product from those plants. Now that we don't rely on them, they've kind of reverted back to their relatively unproductive state. But so what these research researchers have shown is that you go back to the archeology and the seeds of sumpweed or chenopodium or whatever, were much larger, you know, 6,000 years ago than they are today, because that was a food source and they were selectively essentially genetically encouraging the more productive individuals.
Monica Olsen (40m 10s):
And do you think that those were those use, like, would they be used as an equivalent to a grain?
Alfie Vick (40m 14s):
Yeah. Yeah.
Monica Olsen (40m 15s):
Okay. And so you would do the same thing that you would do any grain.
Alfie Vick (40m 17s):
Absolutely. Yeah. So if we decided all of a sudden that
Alfie Vick (40m 22s):
Oak species were going to be an important food product, we would be looking for the Oak trees that produced the biggest sweetest acorns. And we would say that tree produces the biggest sweetest acorns. We're going to take those acorns and plant those acorns from that tree. And then see what, and then eventually you start encouraging larger sweeter acorns.
Monica Olsen (40m 45s):
That who knows could be much larger and larger than a typical little acorn that we think of today.
Alfie Vick (40m 47s):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Monica Olsen (40m 49s):
And it's something that we, I had met a gentlemen, Bob Quinn recently who brought back, or I don't mind, I'm going to, again, fact check me that. Am I going to say it wrong kamat? Kamut? K A M A T or K A M U T seed. Wheat, it's like a grain and he's in Montana and he has basically brought it back and it's now sort of a grain that is, he's produced and on his thousands of acres. And so I wonder if it would be the same thing that we could do that here, if there was a south Eastern grain that could be productive. I mean, you hear all these challenges with GMO and conventional wheat, you know, nobody wants to eat it anymore for the various reasons.
Alfie Vick (41m 30s):
Yep. Yeah, I think, I think the potential is there. And, and I think the key to making sure that that potential remains is that we preserve biodiversity and we conserve natural areas and we work to, you know, manage our natural areas well and, you know, prevent the spread of invasive, exotic species. You know, there's a lot of just general responsible land management to preserve biodiversity that ensures that we have these genetic resources into the future when we determine that it is necessary for us to explore that resource more.
Monica Olsen (42m 10s):
So is there anything else you want to share with us that you're doing or you're working on? I love to hear about your graduate student. Is there anybody, any other projects?
Alfie Vick (42m 17s):
Well, you know, I always talk about Serenbe as a living laboratory for my students, and I hope that that's okay with you guys that we can kind of study you all.
Steve Nygren (42m 28s):
Absolutely, we love it. That's what we're here for.
Alfie Vick (42m 31s):
You guys are under the microscope. No, we've, we've got a, a water quality monitoring program in place for Serenbe now that we're looking at you know really wanting to look at the watershed and, and, and, and understand how all the development practices that are going on here, how are those impacting water quality, you know, through the, through the period of development and construction, and then through, you know, before and after.
Alfie Vick (43m 2s):
And so we're looking at all of that. I had a student recently do her thesis on biophilic design, and she interviewed Serenbe residents and non Serenbe residents and looked at the, the impact on health and wellbeing of biophilic design. And that was, you know, amazing research that showed statistically significant higher levels of health and well-being, environmental awareness, and then nature connectedness. And those are three actual measures that have been surveyed around the world, you know, for many years. So those three values were, you know, there's, there's some precedents for those three things.
Alfie Vick (43m 43s):
And Serenbe residents scored higher on all three of those in a statistically significant way. There's ongoing research that needs to happen to understand why that is. I think, I think part of it is that living at Serenbe and, you know, a community like this, where you have access to nature does help to improve those, those measures. I think there's a little bit of self-selecting that people who are drawn to nature want to come to Serenbe. So we, what we want to do is do future studies where we can say, you know, how do we sift this out and understand how much of the benefit is self-selection of people that choose to come here because of what it is and how much of the benefit is people, you know, moving here and, and reaping the benefit of, of living at Serenbe.
Alfie Vick (44m 34s):
So there's that kind of stuff going on. We're, I'm working with Steve on a, a summer study away. It's, we're calling it the UGA biophilic academy at Serenbe. And this will be an eight week program that is open to design students of any discipline, architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, et cetera, to come to Serenbe and for eight weeks be here over the summer, studying biophilic design placemaking and environmental ethics. And, and, and they'll do that, you know, through UGA, but it'll be open to students from any university around the country and to professionals.
Alfie Vick (45m 17s):
And ideally that's just the tip of the iceberg to really opening the door to year round programming that, that, you know, that we're working on.
Monica Olsen (45m 26s):
It's incredible. Now, how do students apply to that?
Alfie Vick (45m 29s):
That would be through the university of Georgia office of global engagement.
Monica Olsen (45m 34s):
Perfect. And how do we get in touch with you Alfie? Do you have any social media that you want us to follow you on, or?
Alfie Vick (45m 40s):
Yep. I think the easiest way to, to contact me would be through the college of environment and design at the university of Georgia. That's ced.uga.edu. And you can find me on the faculty webpage there, and my contact info is all, all located there. I'm happy to certainly respond to any emails or. I think you can track me down through you folks here at Serenbe as well.
Monica Olsen (46m 6s):
Perfect. Well we'll put up some links on our website. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been fascinating. And I feel like I want you to start doing some tours to educate everybody about the Creek Indians and take them on walks so I can learn more about the history.
Alfie Vick (46m 18s):
We did one a couple of years ago and we, I think we need, we need a new one.
Monica Olsen (46m 22s):
Okay.
Steve Nygren (46m 24s):
It's great.
Monica Olsen (46m 25s):
Alright, look out for one next spring, maybe.
Alfie Vick (46m 27s):
Yep, absolutely.
Steve Nygren (46m 28s):
Alfie it's been such fun just talking about all the things that we've done in the past and even more exciting what's happening in the future.
Alfie Vick (46m 34s):
Right absolutely.
Steve Nygren (46m 35s):
We really appreciate your, your passion and knowledge and how you're applying it here at Serenbe and in a way that, that we can expose other people to these very simple principles.
Alfie Vick (46m 45s):
Thank you.
Monica Olsen (46m 46s):
Thank you.
Monica Olsen (46m 51s):
Thank you for listening to Serenbe Stories. New episodes are available on Mondays. Please rate and review the podcast and make sure to email your questions for Steve Nygren to stories@serenbe.com. You may even get to hear them on the podcast. More details about episodes and guests are available on our website, serenbestories.com.
