Rosa Parks Elementary School Chicken Coop & Garden

Visible from San Francisco’s Japantown Peace Plaza, the Coop and Garden are a joyful contribution to the area’s growing vitality, inspiring children and passersby. The project is part of an ongoing all-volunteer effort to take modest, mending steps in an urban area still-marked by 20th century displacement, division, and resultant cultural degradation. Led by Aidlin Darling Design and made possible by the generosity of Strandberg Engineering, Matarozzi Pelsinger Builders, Golden State Lumber, and others, the project serves as a model for environmental stewardship, bringing excitement to the outdoor education program at Rosa Parks Elementary School.

The interactive display of sustainable agriculture includes a chicken coop, rainwater catchment system, water garden, and solar-powered irrigation system. Resident chickens teach animal care and nutrition, and empathy for the natural world. Cedar gives the coop resilience to pests and weather, and the roof’s form collects rainwater while evoking a sense of flight. Collected rainwater replenishes the 420-gallon irrigation tank for the edible garden, and any excess diverts to the water garden. All is designed to showcase stormwater management in a fun and legible way.