Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

There is a need to integrate the ‘urban’ and the ‘spatial’ sides of the food system into future urban and regional planning. (source: Katrin Bohn and Dong Chu 2019)

Katrin Bohn co-edits Special Issue on urban food planning for Wiley journal

The course is now set for a Special Issue in the journal Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems published by Wiley and edited by Sarah Lovell on behalf of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America. The Special Issue will feature selected papers presented at last year’s international 9th AESOP…

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The indoor farm in Högdalen, with lettuce in different stages of development (source and caption: Rebecka Milestad www 2019)

Swedish researchers’ complex study of the pros and cons of urban indoor farming

‘… many assumptions are made, and expectations held, about urban indoor farming from a sustainability, food production and food provisioning point of view. These assumptions and expectations need to be tested and assessed…’ With these words, a recent paper by Swedish researchers from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, and Stockholm University starts. Rebecka…

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E-book cover of Innovative Practices in Portugal: From production to sustainable consumption (source: Delgado, C. (ed) 2020)

Innovative food practices in Portugal

Urban planner and architect Cecília Delgado from Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal, made us aware of her latest publication, the e-book Innovative Practices in Portugal: From production to sustainable consumption [Alimentar boas práticas: da produção ao consumo sustentável]. This is what Cecília says: ‘The e-book, published in Portuguese March 2020, compiles 46 current initiatives that…

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Food production, logistics and marketing near Castrop-Rauxel in the Ruhrgebiet (source: Ulrich Häpke 2020)

Urban agriculture as green infrastructure element in the Ruhrgebiet, Germany

Spatial planner Ulrich Häpke made us aware of an article he recently published in sub\urban, the German journal for critical urban research. His article, Urbane Landwirtschaft im Ruhrgebiet: Verdrängung und kreative Resistenz [Urban agriculture in the Ruhr region: Displacement and creative resistance], explores the changes to agricultural practices and spaces within the Ruhrgebiet due to…

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The 'Trames Vertes', a mosaic connecting green spaces in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, based on the CPUL concept (source: Hamidou Baguian Municipality of Bobo-Dioulasso 2013)

Food for Cities group: Conversations about Covid 19

It is impossible not to think about the influence the coronavirus pandemic has and could have on food systems and the relationships between urban and rural areas. A great deal of proactive, critical and inspiring discussion is underway between academics, practitioners, policymakers and activists worldwide. It reflects the urgency to fight against food insecurity and…

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Bohn&Viljoen’s 1998 proposal for integrating urban agriculture into Sheffield’s Manor Park estate (source: Bohn&Viljoen Architects 1999)

Nature Food: CPULs enable the spatial integration of urban horticulture.

We were very interested to read a Perspective article, The hidden potential of urban horticulture, in the March 2020 edition of the journal Nature Food. The article by Jill L. Edmondson et al. from the University of Sheffield, UK, assesses the potential contribution that urban horticulture (UH) can make to the fresh fruit and vegetable…

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Chatterjee et al. refer to this Integrated Vertical Farming System at Tripura, India, developed and live tested by ICAR Research Complex. (source: Singh, A. KVK South Tripura 2015)

The vision of productive urban landscapes is horizontal and vertical.

February saw the publication of the book chapter Implication of Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming for Future Sustainability by Anwesha Chatterjee, Sanjit Debnath and Harshata Pal. It takes stock of global urban agriculture thought and practice as well as envisioning a sustainable food-focused urban future for Indian cities. Of interest to us is the strong,…

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Artist Åsa Sonjasdotter enfolds Bonnie Fortune and Brett Bloom's Deep Map of Prinzessinnengarten during the 'communal ritual for the end and a new beginning' in December 2019. (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2019)

H A P P Y _ N E W _ Y E A R _ 2 0 2 0 !

For the new year and new decade, we wish you all the best! If you have time between the years – or as a new year resolution, we would like to recommend a recent radio program and a visit to one of our favourite 2019 locations: The Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin, on the 7th December, celebrated…

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The Edible Playground and the Sacred Fields: spatial imaginary for the Bagmati riverbanks in Kathmandu (source: Mitchell, M. and Iglesias, A.R. www 2019)

Productive Urban Landscapes for Kathmandu, Nepal

This month saw the pre-publishing of Urban agriculture in Kathmandu as a catalyst for the civic inclusion of migrants and the making of a greener city, an article by Maurice Mitchell and Amara Roca Iglesias from the CASS School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University. It is a wonderfully illustrated piece of…

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Berlin’s Food Policy Council engages the public in its activities. (source: Ernährungsrat Berlin www 2019)

INVITE: Have your say on the policy paper “Good food for all!”

Berlin’s Food Policy Council [Ernährungsrat Berlin] currently develops in an intense process the policy paper Good food for all! The paper is intended as the basis for further discussions of the Food Policy Council Berlin wit the City’s political decision makers as well as for the City’s wider political discourse. Please do join in a…

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Extract of the book cover of the Urban Agriculture Book Series at Springer (source: Springer www 2019)

Katrin Bohn joins editorial board of Urban Agriculture Book Series

It is an honour for Katrin to have been invited onto the editorial board of the Urban Agriculture Book Series at Springer by the editors Christine Aubry, Éric Duchemin and Joe Nasr. The Urban Agriculture Book Series at Springer is for researchers, professionals, policymakers and  practitioners working on agriculture in and near urban areas. Urban…

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Cover of the publication (source: Urban Design International www 2019)

New publication Urban Design for Food Systems out now

We are happy to share the announcement (on 7th July) of a special issue of Urban Design International on “Urban Design for Food Systems” that June Komisar and Joe Nasr guest edited. Extract from the issue’s introduction: The focus of this special issue of Urban Design International is […] the food system, recognizing that this…

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Cover of the publication Urban Food Sharing (source: Anna Davies / Sharecity www 2019)

Urban food sharing in the 21st century: Come dine with us!

Last week ended with Katrin meeting Dr. Ferne Edwards from RMIT Europe, the Royal Melbourne Institute’s European branch. Amongst the various subjects they explored was the recent (May 2019) publication Urban Food Sharing: rules, tool & networks compiling the results of SHARECITY, a European-funded research project led by Prof. Anna Davies at Trinity College Dublin,…

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Architect and food thinker Carolyn Steel refers to CPUL concept in her new article

“Food is the tissue of civilization, weaving cities and countries together. In her essay, architect and food thinker Carolyn Steel provides a powerful prompt for us to reconsider the geographic and societal interdependency of urban centers and food-providing ecosystems and to find a way to move beyond the perils of the modern industrial food complex.”…

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Berlin develops a charta for its urban green

Last week, Berlin’s (Germany) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz] started the second round of a particiaptory online process aimed at the development of a charta for its urban green [Charta für das Berliner Stadtgrün]. The Charta contains concrete aims and guidelines for the development of…

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Building-integrated agriculture, from the AESOP group’s website (source: AESOP SFPG www 2019)

INVITE: Call for papers for AESOP Sustainable Food Planning conference

The deadline for the call for papers for the 9th AESOP – Sustainable Food Planning Group conference, titled Agroecological transitions confronting climate breakdown: Food planning for the post-carbon city, has been extended to the 22nd of April. The conference will take place on the 7th and 8th of November 2019 and offer side events on…

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Female Firsts, one of three exhibitions accompanying the symposium (source: aia brighton www 2019)

INVITE: Fielding Architecture Symposium

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the international symposium Fielding Architecture: Feminist Practices for a Decolonised Pedagogy to be held at the University of Brighton on June 24th and June 25th 2019. Led by our academic colleagues Dr Catalina Mejia Moreno and Dr Emma Cheatle, the 2-day symposium will be held…

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2010 United Nations’ policy report more relevant than ever!

One of the first publications Dong and Katrin looked at in their joint research is the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies’ policy report on cities, biodiversity and governance published in October 2010. Given the current urgency of climate action, this report could not be more timely. Already in 2010, it made reference to…

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CPUL research in China

Research on Urban Productive Landscape Practices, Wang, K., Wang, Z. and Wang, Z. (2014) Based on the urban landscape situation in China, the article puts forward bringing food planting back to people’s daily life. It focuses on productive urban landscapes (here translated as ‘urban productive landscape’), which reflects agricultural production, current urban lifestyles, environmental quality. After…

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M E R R Y _ C H R I S T M A S _ 2 0 1 8 !

We wish all our readers a peaceful and joyous festive season! If you have time between the years, we recommend a book Katrin was given by her friend Barbara: Wanderlust: A history of walking by Rebecca Solnit has already been written in 2002 yet many of its profound observations – if not all – on…

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