Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 65.15
Liaison Emma Blandford
Submission Date Feb. 29, 2024

STARS v2.2

Georgia Institute of Technology
IN-7: Community Garden

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 0.50 Emma Blandford
Portfolio Manager
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

A brief description of the institution’s community garden:
Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design achieved Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification in 2021. The LBC is the world’s most ambitious and holistic green building achievement. Rather than being less bad for the environment, The Kendeda Building fosters regenerative and restorative relationships amongst humans and nature where people give back more to the environment than they take.

A regenerative site must be able to produce food, and the LBC recognizes this through its Urban Agriculture Imperative. Therefore, The Kendeda Building has 20 percent of the site, or approximately 12,600 square feet, to urban agriculture including a 5,000 sq. ft. rooftop community garden that has an apiary, pollinator garden, and plots for farming.
One of several campus gardens on the Georgia Tech campus, The Kendeda Building's urban agriculture is possible thanks to dedicated student volunteers from an undergraduate student group (Students Organizing for Sustainability) and a graduate student group (Bioengineering and Bioscience Unified Graduate Students). These two organizations serve as the logistics and scheduling organizations for any student who wants to assist with the community garden. While they are supervised by the Building's horticulturalist, Tamsin Leavy, the students decided each harvest's selection of plants, tend to the garden on a weekly basis, and ultimately enjoy the fruits of their labor. The surplus (and there is always more than can be consumed) is for students and staff in The Kendeda Building.


The Georgia Tech Urban Honey Bee Project is an interdisciplinary undergraduate research and education program focused on the impact of urban habitats on honey bees. Researchers, professional beekeepers, and student volunteers tend the apiary and have periodic honey harvesting workshops where Georgia Tech students learn about honeybees, see how honey is harvested, and taste the honey. In October 2023, Janelle Dunlap was hired as the Urban Honey Bee Project's first-ever beekeeper in residence. Throughout her residency, she'll conduct research into the pollinator's place in our ecosystem and how beekeeping may offer relief to veterans dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, while connecting with the bees through art.

With it’s apiary, a blueberry orchard, seasonal vegetable and fruit garden, and a laboratory, The Kendeda Building rooftop community garden not only helps satisfy the Urban Agriculture Imperative requirement of the LBC, it also offers students with valuable volunteer, curriculum, and research opportunities.

In addition to the Kendeda Garden, Students Organizing for Sustainability, among other groups, host a Community Garden in the Center of Campus.

https://news.gatech.edu/news/2023/04/20/community-garden-unveils-expansion

This community garden hosts spaces for campus community members as well as off campus members to join in Community Workdays, typically held on Saturdays. The space recently expanded in 2023, doubling its square footage.

Website URL where information about the community garden is available:

Optional Fields

Estimated number of individuals that use the institution’s community garden annually:
130

Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
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