studio EARTHSIDE is the regenerative development arm of Florida Water Interiors, creating products, spaces, exhibitions, and systems that honor the land and make room for people to live well together. Founded by Cherub “Chopp” Stewart, Studio EARTHSIDE works at the intersection of design, education, land stewardship, and community care, shaping environments that treat food, shelter, memory, and belonging as shared human needs.

Formerly known as Wild Earth, Studio EARTHSIDE has evolved from public programming and mutual aid into a broader practice of regenerative development, cultural design, and social infrastructure. Rooted in Newark and expanding outward, the work spans free food distribution, public gatherings, land-based programming, and design-led interventions that meet unmet needs with dignity, beauty, and care.

At the center of Studio EARTHSIDE is a belief that development should do more than build structures. Regenerative development asks how we might rebuild what centuries of capitalism and individualism have disrupted: our relationships to land, food, water, shelter, community, and one another. Through collective care, reciprocity, and shared stewardship, we imagine systems where people and land can sustain one another.

studio EARTHSIDE is developing FOOD + SHELTER, a regenerative housing and community development model that provides housing and food to residents at no cost. FOOD + SHELTER brings homes, shared agriculture, individual growing spaces, water stewardship, and collective care into one interconnected system, reimagining how we may live in liberated, loving relationship with land and one another.

A home for studio EARTHSIDE is taking shape online, a dedicated space where the work, stories, and evolving vision can live more fully. The website is currently under construction and growing alongside the work itself.

THE WORK TRAVELS THROUGH RELATIONSHIP

studio EARTHSIDE is rooted in place, but not confined by geography. The work grows through relationships, responding to the land, people, and communities we relate to.

From Newark to the Hudson Valley to Kenya, the question remains: How do we care for what sustains us, and how do we care for one another?

ENKARE WATER SHARE

Water received, water shared, relationship tended.

Enkare Water Share is a water access initiative of studio EARTHSIDE rooted in relationship, reciprocity, and the belief that access to clean water is a shared human right.

The project grew from my relationship with a Maasai community in Kenya, where I first traveled in 2022 and was welcomed. During a period of drought, that relationship became an invitation to consider what it means to respond when people we are connected to are in need.

Enkare Water Share supports the purchase of large-capacity water tanks that store water and allow sharing during periods of limited access. We purchased our first tank in 2025.

The work continues through Wovenland, a collection of handwoven African baskets connecting craft, exchange, and water access. The baskets are available at Seedlings Co-op inside The Pocketbook Hudson in Hudson, New York, with proceeds supporting continued investment in community water access.

At its heart, Enkare Water Share is a practice of reciprocity: water received, water shared, relationship tended.

THE WORK BEGINS WHERE WE ARE

studio EARTHSIDE understands placemaking as a practice of care. We look to the places we already inhabit and ask how they might become more nourishing, connected, beautiful, and responsive to the people who live there.

In Newark, this means creating spaces for gathering, rest, food, memory, play, and collective care, transforming familiar public spaces through the people and relationships already rooted there.

What becomes possible when we treat the places we share as places we are responsible for together?

The videos below highlight The Outdoor Living Room, one of studio EARTHSIDE’s ongoing public initiatives rooted in creative placemaking, healing arts, and community care. Created in response to the pandemic, The Outdoor Living Room reimagined public space as a site for gathering, reflection, and restoration, moving healing arts programming outdoors and into shared community space. What began in 2020 as an immediate response to isolation has grown into a lasting model for land-based public programming in Newark. The initiative invites residents to gather, reconnect, honor the land beneath them, and reimagine what community can feel like when care is made visible. The Outdoor Living Room was supported by Newark Arts’ Creative Catalyst grant in 2021 and 2022, and by the Neighbors Helping Neighbors LISC grant in 2024.

Below are featured excerpts from four programs within The Outdoor Living Room:

Tune Inward
A communal sound bath designed to create space for reflection, listening, and restoration. In this excerpt, sound healer Christina leads a large-scale public sound bath for over 150 participants in Military Park, offering collective stillness and healing in the center of Downtown Newark.

This Land Speaks
An oral storytelling series exploring land, memory, and place. This preview features Newark artist Purple in conversation as part of a series that invites residents to reflect on Newark’s Lenape land, local histories, and the ways place shapes identity, memory, and belonging.

You and I Got to Do For You and I
A free grocery distribution and community gathering created in collaboration with The Yard and Mitch From Marketing. Designed in support of Newark’s creative community and surrounding neighborhoods, this program combines food access, joy, and mutual care through music, connection, and free groceries. Over the last four years, this initiative has redistributed more than 10,000 pounds of fresh produce that would have otherwise gone to waste.

Baby Backyard Boogie
A joyful outdoor musical learning experience for children and families, led by Momma Merikara in partnership with The Yard. Created as part of The Outdoor Living Room, this program offers children a playful space for movement, rhythm, and communal joy.