1. Vale da Lama
Pedagogic Pizza Garden
Co-Created by Josh Gomez & Rosie Stonehill

2. Clients Requests
Garden that produces all the ingredients of a
pizza ( including base and toppings)
Pizza shaped
Some small livestock for egg, cheese, meat
Trees, esp olive, maybe some fruit & nuts
Children and family friendly
Pedagogic education centre – for children to
learn about the origins of all ingredients on a
pizza, have contact with animals and possible
hands on connection to the vegetable garden

3. Design Challenges
Before we started this design we looked at the proposed area
for this garden, the “pizza” spans 70 m across with the two 35
m halves either side of the road, the client wanted one half for
topping and the other for the grain. We repeatedly told the
client that we felt this arrangement was disproportionate to
the quantities of ingredients needed to make pizza i.e. too
much vegetable topping and not enough grain to make
equivalent amount of bases. We also estimated that, on this
large a scale it would take 15 full time workers just to keep the
vegetable garden from becoming a mess of grass and weeds.
But after all this he still really loved the idea and wanted a
design from us for his pizza garden. We also liked the basic
concept of a pizza garden and this was an interesting situation
in that there were no limits to financial input. So, as we enjoy
new design challenges and we wanted to try to accommodate
all the requests of the client into a more functional design, we
created this design proposal.

4. The Site

5. Garden features
• Two styles of chicken tractor, one the
eggloo dome structure in the forest
garden, the other a long hooped
tunnel tractor, with a nesting box on
one end, to go on top of the raised
beds, clear up, de-pest, weed,
scratch/till, fertilise the beds ready for
re-seeding/planting.

6. Garden features
•Synergistic raised beds marking out
the shape of a pizza in a continuous
rotation of crops, except permanent
tomato beds which create a red ring
around the perimeter.
•Integrated deciduous fruit trees
provide some summer shade, supply
niches for more shade loving species
and lengthen the growing season.

7. Garden features
•Around the outside, creating the
“crust” is a mixture of pepper and chilli
bushes and some soft fruit shrubs
creating a sheltering belt of more
perennial crops and bridging the
annual garden with the more long
term forest garden.

8. Garden features
•On the other side of the road there is
a rotating system of grain crops and
pasture using an adapted version of
the Fukuoka method including Rye,
Oats, Corn, Spelt, Buckwheat, Favas
and Clover. It is likely that, to provide
sufficient grain to be able to make
bases on a scale equivalent to the
vegetable toppings, there would need
to be other areas in the farm allotted
for growing grain.
•Around the outside of the field there
is a proposed windbreaking shelter
belt of trees which create a beneficial
microclimate for the grain crops.

9. Garden features
•Alongside, and rotating with, the
grain crops are two pastures for small
to medium livestock (a relevant and
compatible selection from: geese,
ducks, guinea pigs, rabbits, pot bellied
pigs, sheep, goats etc...). Small
livestock and pigs could stay in the
pastures, in rotation with the grain,
and can also be brought kitchen and
garden scraps to supplement their
diet. The larger grazing animals (sheep
and goats) would only be in the
pastures when there are visiting
school groups for the children to have
contact with the animals and see
where the milk comes from. These
animals would need to be grazed and
housed elsewhere for them to have
enough food and a proper place to
sleep.

10. Garden features
•There are two ponds within the
design, at the centre of the pizza, on
either side of the road, which serve to
collect excess runoff from road and
field. The pond in the grain / pasture
rotation provides water for the
animals and, when soiled, can be filled
from the irrigation, overflowing into
the grain fields giving more
fertilisation. The pond in the
vegetable garden would functions as a
small aquaculture with some fish e.g
carp, tilapia.

11. Garden features
•Pedagogic education centre and pizza
prep house with solar parabolic
concentrating pizza oven, with outdoor
dining area, water collection from roof
and educational signs explaining the
comparisons between the pizza hut
industrial pizza and the Vale Da Lama
permaculture pizza

12. Design Summary
Process Review
Examples of Ethics & Principles applied in Design
Earth Care: This design, if effectively put into
practise and once fully established, attempts to
provide all the elements of a pizza reducing the
need for any off site agriculture and allowing
more land to be left to return to nature.
 The Problem is the Solution: The site of the
pond in the centre of the raised beds half of the
pizza was a place which we observed was boggy
due to run off collecting. Rather than suggest
that this be drained for planting it made more
sense to turn this into a pond and take
advantage of this natural water collection.
Maintain/Encourage Polyculture and Diversity
: This design mixes so many different elements:
huge variety of vegetables, trees, shrubs, grain
and animals that it is hugely boosting diversity in
this area.
Use Appropriate Technology: Parabolic Solar KEY
Collector Oven provides the energy for an Ethics
element which would normally consume vast
Basic Principles
quantities of non renewable, highly polluting,
energy. Design Principles

13. Final Design Conclusions
Reflecting on this design, we feel that all the elements in their present arrangement could work
very well as a pedagogic pizza garden. At certain times it may be necessary to augment some of the
ingredients with produce which is either grown on other parts of the site or bought from local
organic producers.
There is great value in the basic idea of an educational pizza garden which teaches children about
the origins of all the elements of a pizza, how they could be sourced in the most ecological way and
clearly illustrating the difference between this method and a very industrial mass produced,
destructively farmed pizza. This type of centre could provide children with opportunities to learn
about a selection of the wide variety of different plants which produce the majority of the foods we
eat and to meet and interact with the animals which will also either make or become part of their
food.
Although we found this design challenging, we have learnt much through the experience, both
about physical elements in large scale design and also about important considerations within the
client / designer dynamic. It has given us confidence in the fact that, at times, we need to take
more into account what is practical and sustainable and less the overall vision of the clients, placing
and scaling the elements where we see fit and not solely adhering to the clients specification if we
can see how it could be made into a more efficient system. In terms of design, it has shown us
again about the importance of placement of elements within a design and that it is not enough to
simply consider the isolated elements of a design or a disconnected concept.
© Copyright 2011 Rosie Stonehill and Josh Gomez