Greening the Grid was a project done in conjunction with the U.S. State Department examining alternative energy uses and energy-saving projects nationally and internationally. The website documents sustainable energy practices in the United States and the Czech Republic as a way to show how the need for sources of renewable energy is critical as urban centers grow on both continents.
Role: videographer, video editor
Congestion and construction are the fiber of city life, but a large herb farm grows amid Miami-Dade County’s concrete jungle. GROW, or Green Railway Organic Workshop, is a 2.5 acre farm growing between industrial warehouses near Miami International Airport.
Started in 2007 on an abandoned railway track, GROW is now home to more than 9,000 herb plants. It cost more than $100,00 to start. The grassroots organization hopes to reclaim up to 100 acres of vacant railway within the next several years.
GROW’s mission, however, is more about people than the planet. The farm, which is in the process of applying to be a nonprofit organization, has a strong educational component. Students of all ages and skill-level learn about agriculture by preparing the land, planting, watering and harvesting the more than 15 varieties of herbs grown at the farm.
Those herbs are then packed and distributed to grocery stores and restaurants through Rock Garden Warehouse, a wholesale distributor next door to the garden and owned by GROW Founder Charlie Coiner.
Builders of Hope, a non-profit organization in Raleigh, NC, relocates and recycles homes slated for demolition, offering working-class families the chance to live in affordable houses in safe neighborhoods.
While preserving as much of the home’s original wooden structure as possible, the organization upgrades salvaged homes and utilizes green techniques. All houses are sold at prices high enough to recapture the building costs but well below their new appraised values.
This video was produced by Shell Zun Zhu and Akilah Johnson for the multimedia project Greening the Grid.
City Concrete Gardens is a documentary web project that examines how community gardens stimulate economic development and improve public health in Miami-Dade County’s low-income and minority communities. It is the capstone project for my master’s degree in journalism from the University of Miami in Spring 2010.
I gathered and produced all the content—both written and filmed—as well as designed, planned and programmed the site. This website is culmination of three semesters of very, very long days spent studying multimedia journalism— everything from usability, navigation, design, production to audio and storytelling.
Role: producer/project manager, videographer, web designer, programmer and writer
Akilah Johnson 