Uzima: Spaces of Nourishment & Healing

This 2.2 acre hospital-based garden at Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (KCMC) in Moshi, Tanzania is designated to support the reflection, healing, teaching and research about the links between ecological and bodily health. In Kiswahili, uzima means holistic health. The garden design will support faculty and students in their efforts to articulate “uzima” and acknowledge the complex notions of health engaged beyond the clinic.

Design Concept

We are not simply nourished by the soil, we are of the soil. The carbon, nitrogen and every mineral and vitamin that is a building block in our own bodies is derived from soil. Therefore, the soil remediation progress will not only initiate ecological restoration, but also inspire new understandings of the healing of human beings. The goal of my design is to improve soil quality of the site, and at the same time provide doctors and medical students an experimental ground where they can gain knowledge about plants, soils and environments needed to assess their contribution to health and healing.

Challenges & Approach

Termites turn out to be the biggest problem of the site, therefore become the starting point of the soil remediation progress. Termites deplete the soil by moving nutrients from the foraging area to their own mound. However, researches suggest that local people have learned to live with termites for a long time. Traditional agricultural practice such as intercropping and crop rotation can increase termite repellency. Learning from such termite-control methods, my design actively takes advantage of the termite mounds on site and offer practical methods to reduce termites’ negative effects.

Termite Control Strategies

According to the studies on termite habit, the main foraging zone of termites is 10m-40m from the mound, where the soil suffers from nutrient depletion. However, the soil in the inner circle (within 10 meters from the mound) is free of foraging and stays nutrition-rich. The difference in soil condition results in completely different vegetation types. Therefore, my strategy is to create termite-repellent landscape in the outer circle, meanwhile set up symbiotic relationship between termite and plants in the inner circle.

How to live along with termites?

Mound with closed ventilation system

Inner Zone with shallow passages underlain by deep radial passages

Main Foraging Zone with network of radial and cross passages

Peripheral Zone with small passages after ending blindly

How to deal with the mounds?

Remove the mounds + Spread mound soil to enrich surrounding area

Offer adequate alternative food sources

Compost Plant Litters

Keep the mounds

+ Set up symbiotic relationships

Raize the termite resistance of the landscape

Manure

Use termite-repellent plants

Intercrop repellent and susceptible species

Rotate between repellent and sesceptible species

Build physical barrier with sand/concrete/ raised planters

Learn from Local Agricultural Landscape

Smallholder farms on Mt. Kilimanjaro, also named “Chagga Homegarden”, contain a variety of landscape types. Some types in kiswahili words have implications of complex dynamics between human and nature which cannot be translated directly. They set a good example of how to make best use of resourses, protect biodiversity and raise resiliency in agricultural practice.

Tuber Crop Plot

-Small plots relatively far away from house

-Intercropping of bean, sweet potatoes and corns

Shamba

-Field

-Lower on the mountain

Buscani

-Something small, not like a farm

-A grassy space always with flowers

-Has to be around the house

Kihamba

-Homesteads in the Kiliminjaro region (up the mountain)

-Small plots surrounding their house

-Both cash crops and fresh vegetables are planted

Kitchen Garden

-Can pick fresh vegetable on a daily basis

-Abundant collection of local varieties of plants

Fresh Fruits & Vegetable

Medicinal Plants

Crop Crop

Ornamental Plants

Timber