A Brain Spa for Contemporary Sustainability
After Leyla was named Champion of the Earth by the UNEP, she identified a personal knowledge gap she wanted to fill: how does nature do its magic? She set about seeking a deeper, connected approach to working within nature’s systems and understanding how nature works from a hands-on perspective. After living in New York for years, Leyla decided to take on a challenge that would immerse her in an experience requiring entirely new skill development and allowing for a very embedded approach to regenerative practice.
With the CO part of CO Project standing for Creative Optimism, the CO Project Farm was envisaged as a brain spa where you would go to recharge your neurons and learn more about systems and sustainability in practice.
What emerged was a beautiful, regenerative space, open to the community and filled with life. When Leyla took on the farm, it had been abandoned for over twenty years and required significant revitalization to revive its soul and productivity, including the restoration of hundreds of olive and citrus trees. The once dilapidated buildings were brought back to life using eco-design principles to create a contemporary sustainability retreat space.
This deep participatory project became a living-learning lab and brain spa, offering a collaborative learning space for exploring the possibilities of contemporary sustainability and working within nature’s systems.
Programs
The Farm Experience
Leyla and the farm team developed a unique set of programs and experiences, including off-site corporate retreat programs and farm-based immersive learning experiences, like summer camps and community activation days. People who came were free to explore the organic agriculture and creative change-making in the classroom, bringing in hundreds of visitors every year. The last Sunday of the month, community open days were held, where people from far and wide would come together for a collaborative cook, using farm produce to create a delicious vegetarian meal to share, accompanied by local wine.
Magic
Where is it now?
The magic of the CO Project Farm thrived for three years until 2021, when COVID-19 forced its closure—but the experience planted seeds of inspiration for regeneration, sustainable agriculture and sustainable design in those who visited and are carrying it forward.
The farm inspired many things, including the cookbook HeroVeg that Emma and Leyla co-authored during the first lockdown in early 2020.
Food
The HeroVeg Cookbook
Food played a prominent role in the CO Project Farm’s operations, and during the (first) 2020 lockdown, Leyla partnered with long-time collaborator Emma Segal to create a planet-positive cookbook.
All about loving and enjoying nutrient-packed vegetables, the recipes in The HeroVeg Cookbook were tried and true, having been tested through the thousands of meals served on the farm. With over 180 easy-to-make recipes, this 250+ page, illustrated vegetarian and vegan-friendly cookbook makes plant-based eating accessible to anyone and everyone.
Watch the Farm Video
How She Did It
Despite having no prior farming training, Leyla had a long-time dream of having some sort of agricultural experience to explore how nature worked and systems played out around her. So, she took on this project, literally rolling up her sleeves, getting right into regeneration and having a lot of failures and problems along the way!
She started by establishing inputs that would add nutrients and support restoration of the soil for food production, bringing in animals like goats, chickens, sheep and donkeys to clear overgrown blackberries and poop out nutrients to give life back to the soil. She planted new trees and worked with local experts to restore the olive and citrus trees. Several small-scale organic agriculture techniques were experimented with, including hugelkultur and keyhole gardens.
Next, she and a small crew began restoring the farmhouses. Using local, found and recycled materials, they converted the old animal stores, wine cellars and farmhouse rooms into a small eco retreat facility that could accommodate 10 people and an on-site farm caretaker’s house. They then turned their focus to converting outdoor spaces into communal areas, such as a huge outdoor kitchen and dining area to host all of the community events. Then, an old concrete water tank was converted into a natural swimming pool by adding three water filtration ponds and utilising a reticulation system to naturally clean the water. It was a little slice of heaven.
With regeneration being embedded in the farm’s ethos and operational practices from the start, they also adopted a zero-waste, circular philosophy and designed ways to transform excess products. For example, they produced a lot of chilies and would ferment the excess, creating different sauces and things that could be used on the farm for events.
As an experimental lab, one of the key aspects was to invite people in different formats. From the very beginning, the farm opened its doors for community open days, where anyone could join in a lunch (non-obligatory donation-based) and then take a tour of the farm, exploring all of the different organic and sustainable practices and experiments.
The CO Project Farm was incredible, a truly life-changing experience for me to participate in the whole system—the food system, the water system, the land—it was all very incredible to be a part of this system and for it to nourish me in a dynamic way. To be able to host people, learn alongside them and share the knowledge in situ was transformative, changing my entire creative practice and worldview. And I’m also now obsessed with growing any food I can, anywhere I am, and I definitely learned that shit is magic—it’s the foundation of the circle of life.
– Leyla Acaroglu
Programs on the Farm
From monthly community open days to summer camps, Disruptive Design and UnSchool Workshops, the CO Project farm had hundreds of people come and enjoy the beautiful space.
Looking to start an initiative?
Get in touch with a team member to discuss how we can develop a project for you
