April 07,2022

JetBlue’s Farm at JFK Airport Faced Design Challenges

by David Stewart

JetBlue recently announced that it partnered with GrowNYC to create a farm at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, and this unconventional, years-in-the-making project faced a particular set of challenges.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which governs JFK, was worried that the plants would bring unwelcome guests. “But the universal desire for good design and green space meant everyone was willing to work through any challenges,” says Sophia Mendelsohn, JetBlue’s Head of Sustainability.

“We were careful to choose plants that weren’t of particular interest to birds,” says Marcel Van Ooyen, executive director of GrowNYC. That also meant no direct seeding.

The 24,000-square-foot space, called the T5 Farm, contains more than 2,500 plastic milk crates planted with potatoes, herbs, and other produce, like kale, arugula, lettuce, carrots, and beets.

The project originally had a bigger scope, with more plantings and varieties of vegetables, but the Port Authority wanted to pare down the project, says the farm’s designer, Thomas Kosbau, the founder and director of ORE Design + Technology and a longtime GrowNYC collaborator. “We told them from the get-go that we were not bird-control experts,” he says.

“The planters are modular, so you can arrange them any way you want,” Kosbau notes.“We have them at varying angles to give the maximum impression of green.” He says the Port Authority wanted all the planters to be secured to the ground to keep them from getting airborne in the case of a storm or high winds.

Beyond worries about birds and flying planters, though, is it safe to eat produce grown at an airport? “Most of the concerns stem from the health of the soil,” Van Ooyen says. “We use soil from a farm upstate, and we will continue to monitor it to make sure it doesn’t contain contaminants. We don’t recommend directly planting in the ground in New York City.”

Also, the plants are nowhere near any jet fuel or airplanes – those are on the other side of the building, notes Mendelsohn.

Though green roofs and urban gardens are on the rise nationwide, they’re a rarity at airports. In 2011, the Chicago Department of Aviation and HMSHost installed an aeroponic garden at O’Hare , the first in the world at an airport. But perhaps the T5 Farm will change things.

“I’m hoping this is a catalyst,” Kosbau says, “because it makes a lot of sense.”

  • David Stewart
  • April 07,2022

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