Growing Beyond the Pop-up: Food as a Long-Term Urban Activation

When most people hear “pop-up park”, they picture something temporary – a few weeks of color and activity before the space reverts to concrete. But what if pop-ups could plant roots?

That’s the question I explored recently when Friends of Urban Agriculture (FOUA) partnered with the Rosslyn BID, Monday Properties, and Yellowstone Landscape to co-create the “Grow” zone of the new NOW Park in Rosslyn (a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia). The NOW project provided the opportunity to imagine something different: a living installation that would continue to evolve, feed, and teach long after the ribbon-cutting.

Bridging Placemaking and Foodscaping

At NOW, FOUA’s role centers in the ‘Grow’ zone – a demonstration of what communal food production can look like in even the densest urban settings. The zone is a series of raised beds and a greenhouse designed to be worked, harvested, and learned from – an example of regenerative urban space that bridges placemaking and foodscaping.

At left: Volunteers planting kale at the NOW ribbon-cutting. Photo credit: Alex Sakes @alexsakes and @alexsakesphotography.

This garden only exists because of collaboration. The Rosslyn BID brought the vision and convened the partners. Monday Properties provided the space. Yellowstone Landscape designed and built the raised beds. Area 2 Farms provided composted soil, and Nestlé provided support throughout the project. Local students painted rain barrels. FOUA brought the knowledge and expertise to create a communal garden, created the planting plan, grew the first seedlings, and planted the first seeds. Each partner brought something different – but together we’re cultivating a shared experiment in what long-term activation can look like.

This garden is meant to grow over time – literally and figuratively. Future seasons will bring:

·       Volunteer workdays for residents and nearby employees to connect with nature.

·       Deliveries of fresh produce to local food banks, pantries, and school cafeterias.

·       Hands-on workshops in container gardening, integrated pest management, and organic growing.

·       Seasonal plantings that highlight biodiversity and climate resilience.

Food production offers an ongoing rhythm of engagement. Each planting, harvesting, and community event becomes a new reason to visit – a reminder that activation isn’t a one-time event but a continuous process of tending, growing, and learning.

A Living Prototype

The NOW park demonstrates that public-private partnerships can create not just beautiful spaces, but productive ones. It’s a prototype for how underutilized plazas, terraces, rights-of-way, and other urban spaces can host foodscapes – small but steady contributors to local resilience.

When we grow food together in public, we grow connections, stewardship, and possibility – the very things that make a community thrive.