Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

Jasmine Cook's urban farm proposal grows cauliflower on a tiered step structure. (source: Jasmine Cook 2022)

First year architecture students show food-productive designs

This coming Friday, our Architecture & Design Summer Show starts at the School of Architecture and Design, Mithras House, University of Brighton. It will be open to the public on 18-19 June, from 11am – 5pm. The show will include work from first year architecture students who have just completed their design module Design, technology…

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Second Workshop for the Seeing Urban Food Futures Project

After the success of the initial workshop for the Seeing Urban Food Futures project, a second workshop took place on May 25th to look at the value virtual reality may have in this type of project.  The initial workshop involved the edible walk lead by Dr. Mikey Tomkins which highlighted potential areas for food production…

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The key elements of the Opportunity Mapping Process which is rooted in a specific local context and task and will result in a strategy for implementing productive urban landscapes. (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2012)

Spatial and participatory food (systems) mapping at AESOP4FOOD

Last week, Katrin gave a lecture to an international audience at the online sustainable food planning course AESOP4FOOD. AESOP4FOOD (Action for Education, Spatial Organization and Planning for Sustainable Food) is an Erasmus+ project aiming to develop future leadership in sustainable food planning and thereby to contribute to food security, food justice and healthier environments. The lecture…

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A complex network of interdependencies between societal challenges (top), urban spaces (middle) and food system activities (bottom) has been identified during the food and opportunity mapping process. (source: REACT 2022)

How to become an edible city: Carthage, Tunisia

On Wednesday 27th April, Katrin Bohn was invited by the Mayor of Carthage to the first meeting of a new investigation as part of the Tunisian city’s efforts to become an “edible city”. Within the ‘transition process of the City of Carthage towards a resilient and sustainable urban system’, the Municipality of Carthage, represented by…

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Cover of the Special Issue Planning food system transitions (source: UARFS 2022)

Special Issue “Planning food system transitions” out now !

We are happy to inform you that our Special Issue Planning food system transitions is now finalized and published in Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems (Wiley). Here you find the link to the full special issue (open access): https://acsess.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1002/(ISSN)2575-1220.Planning-Food-System-Transitions This Special Issue has grown out of selected contributions to the 9th International AESOP Sustainable…

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Dr Mikey Tomkins' map drawings for Brighton CPUL waiting to be folded (source: Andre Viljoen 2022)

The first CPUL edible map walk through Brighton

Last week, about 20 invited guests took part in the first edible map walk through Brighton following an imaginary CPUL (Continuous Productive Urban Landscape) route. Guided by Dr Mikey Tomkins, participants explored a potential urban edible landscape – a CPUL – made up of inner-urban sites in this UK seaside city. In preparation of the…

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Co-Living in the Countryside by Charles Holland Architects with Quality of Life Foundation, Verity-Jane Keefe, Joseph Zeal-Henry (source: The Davidson Prize / Charles Holland Architects 2022)

A Productive Landscape features in architectural competition shortlist

Congratulations! Our colleague at the University of Brighton, Prof Charles Holland, heads a team that has just been shortlisted for this year’s Davidson Prize which aims to reward transformative architecture of the home. Charles Holland Architects’ proposal, created in conjunction with the Quality of Life Foundation, Verity-Jane Keefe, and Joseph Zeal-Henry, is titled Co-Living in…

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A Food for Cities discussion started on developing short food supply chains for Ukraine. (politpost-www 2022)

Help needed: Developing short food supply chains in Ukraine

As the sad war in Ukraine enters its sad 7th week, food activists in- and outside of the country try to establish a somewhat secure food supply for the many harassed cities and communities. One such collective effort has come to our attention only yesterday when a researcher at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, posted a…

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RSD11 calls for papers that challenge, extend, critique, and diversify established working methods in systemic design. (source: RSD www 2022)

Call for Papers: Possibilities and Practices of Systemic Design

We are proud to announce that RSD11, the 11th Relating Systems Thinking and Design  symposium by the Systemic Design Association, will happen at the University of Brighton in October 2022. The international hybrid event will be hosted by a team of colleagues from our School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering, led by Dr Ben Sweeting…

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Aerial of an urban agriculture project in Oslo (EFUA conference program 2022)

INVITE: Unlocking the potential of Urban Agriculture

On 29th March starts the two-day online FACTS Conference organised by the European Forum on Urban Agriculture (EFUA). The conference will collect, conceptualize and highlight local and global experiences of Urban Agriculture, starting from the perspective of Rome, thanks to a collaboration with the FAO. It aims to open the door to further networks and…

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Final draft of the opportunity mapping diagram An Edible City strategy for Carthage (source: University of Brighton 2022)

Mapping food opportunities for Carthage, Tunisia

Today saw the completion of an important stage in our food-focused masterplanning for the City of Carthage, Tunisia. In a virtual meeting organised by the Institute of Organic Farming at BOKU University Vienna, Katrin Bohn and Ian Bailey (University of Brighton) handed over to the Carthage City Team the results of an 8-months-long participatory design…

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Researchers from the Wild Pollinator Project observe and record cultured and wild plant species in 18 community gardens in Berlin. (source: TU München and Museum für Naturkunde Update Ergebnisse 2021)

Spiel/Feld: The more plant species, the higher the number of wild bee species

The Wildbienenprojekt [Wild Pollinator Project], a collaboration of 18 Berlin community gardens – among them Spiel/Feld Marzahn [Playing/Field Marzahn] -, the National History Museum Berlin [Museum für Naturkunde Berlin], the Technical University of Munich [Technische Universität München] and the Technical University of Berlin [Technische Universität Berlin], will soon – in April – start into its…

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2km of hedgerows have been reintroduced to Woodoaks Farm, . (source: Soil Association, video still, 2022)

Hedge planting at the Soil Association’s Woodoaks Farm

‘It takes a community to run a farm’, says Rose Lewis, programme manager at Woodoaks Farm, in a video published today by the Soil Association. Rose is one of many local residents who, last November, helped planting hedges at a new Soil Association farm, Woodoaks Farm in Hertfordshire. The Woodoaks hedge planting campaign had raised…

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A food future visualisation in the centre of Brighton is planned as both, a physical walk and a virtual event. (source: Andre Viljoen 2022)

Seeing urban food futures: Funding success

We are pleased to let you know that, today, we heard of our success in bidding to Research England’s Participatory Research call. Our cross-disciplinary, community-university project Seeing urban food futures: Co-researching virtual reality as a scenario building tool will launch this month! The project involves staff from two University-of-Brighton schools – School of Architecture Technology…

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The 9th AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Group conference in Madrid formulated key aspects of the food system. (source: AESOP4FOOD www 2022)

AESOP4FOOD online course to start soon

Registration will open soon for this year’s online course on sustainable food planning. The course is part of the Erasmus+ project AESOP4FOOD (Action for Education, Spatial Organization and Planning for Sustainable Food) which aims to address sustainable food planning through a transdisciplinary and participatory approach. Starting from the evidence of serious gaps in knowledge and transformative…

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Haworth Tompkins Green Away Day on 12th November 2021 held at Cecil Sharp House, London (source: Diana Dina 2021)

CPULs at Haworth Tompkins Green Away Day

Last week, Andre Viljoen was invited to present the CPUL concept at Haworth Tompkins Architects’ Green Away Day. This event provided the practice with their first post-lockdown occasion to meet in person and continue discussions about how to address the challenges of the climate crisis. Haworth Tompkins are one of the original UK practices to…

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Katrin Bohn's chapter uses a Berlin food network project to illustrate thoughts on a meso perspective in urban design and planning. (source: Katrin Bohn 2021)

Thoughts on the importance of a meso perspective

We are pleased to announce the publication of a book chapter by Katrin in the book Urban Open Space +, edited by Carolin Mees and published by Jovis in October 2021. Subtitled Strategies in between architecture and open space planning, the bi-lingual publication (English/German) explores ‘commonly used and designed open spaces [as] anchor points in…

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COP26 highlights that the urgency of climate action is being felt by all stakeholder groups of our society. (source: Sustain / NiklasPntk, Pixabay www 2021)

Sustain calls for food on the menu at COP26

The Jellied Eel, a project of London Food Link and Sustain, made us aware of an open letter to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling for action to reduce the climate impacts of food and farming. Coordinated by Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, 50 health, environment and farming organisations have written…

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Stand by me is an invitation to do something really simple that may appear really difficult: to stand next to a tree. (source: Whitehead and Lee 2021)

INVITE: COP26 stand by me

Today, COP 26, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, has opened in Glasgow. It brings parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP26 recognises and highlights that climate change is the greatest threat facing the world. In our Centre…

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In proGIreg, Dortmund (Germany) is one of four cities to host living labs in post-industrial districts where nature-based solutions are developed, tested and implemented. (source Sabina Leopa / proGIreg 2021)

New online course on nature-based urban regeneration

Our colleague Axel Timpe from RWTH University in Aachen, Germany, alerted us to a new 5-week course his institute has been developing as part of the EU-funded project Productive Green Infrastructure for post-industrial urban regeneration (proGIreg). The course starts on the 1st of November on edX, one of the foremost massive open online course (MOOC)…

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