Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

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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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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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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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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Cover extract of one of the new titles in the Urban Agriculture Book Series (source: Springer www 2021)

Two new books in the Springer Urban Agriculture series

Seven years have passed since the first publication of the Springer Urban Agriculture Book Series in October 2014. We celebrate this with two new books: Teaching and Learning in Urban Agricultural Community Contexts and Research Approaches in Urban Agriculture and Community Contexts. The books are companion volumes, edited by the same team, and both of…

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Aerial view of Carthage, today a borough of Tunis (source: University of Brighton and www 2021)

Supporting Carthage to become an ‘edible city’

Today, Katrin and her team at the University of Brighton began their consultancy and design research with the Tunisian City of Carthage in a first (online) co-design meeting. This Spring, we have joined the Carthaginian city team – consisting of local council representatives, research institutes and interested citizens – to co-develop with the local community…

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The Vier- und Marschlande, located in the south-east of the City of Hamburg, are a 14,000ha agricultural and horticultural area. (source: HafenCity University 2021)

New prospects for a cultivated landscape in Hamburg

Last week, Katrin Bohn was invited as a guest critic to the presentation of design projects by Masters’ students of the Architecture and Landscape program at HafenCity University Hamburg in Germany. The urban planning and architecture students, under the guidance of Prof. Antje Stokman and Anne Kittel, were tasked to think about strategies for the…

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The development of the Gemeinschaftsgarten-Programm is led by Undine Giseke and Lisa Reis (bgmr landschaftsarchitekten) and Carolin Mees (mees architecture). (source: bgmr 2021)

Interim presentation of Berlin’s Community Garden Program

Last Thursday, Berlin’s Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz] invited to the interim presentation of its Gemeinschaftsgarten-Programm [Community Garden Program]. The Community Garden Program is the next step in consolidating a future for Berlin’s more than 200 community gardens and closely linked to the Plattform Produktives…

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Cover of the new book Food Urbanism by Craig Verzone (source: Birkhäuser www 2021)

From CPUL to Food Urbanism

The beginning of July saw the publication of Food Urbanism, a book edited by Craig Verzone and published by Birkhäuser. Subtitled Typologies, Strategies, Case Studies, the book ‘introduces typologies, tools, evaluation methods and strategies [of urban food production] and shows the practical applications of the methods’. Multiple projects illustrate solutions that augment quality of nutrition…

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Sandy Lane Farm in Oxfordshire is one of the farms considered in the report. (source: Nina Osswald Veg Cities www 2021)

Improving access to land for food production in Oxfordshire, GB

Mark Stein, author of the very active twitter feed @MarkSteinLancs, made us aware of a recently published research report on the ‘huge potential to convert land to horticulture’ in the County of Oxfordshire. The research by local network Good Food Oxford focuses on ‘how land might be made more accessible to promote a diverse, resilient,…

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The South East London Green Chain is being discussed in the paper by Katrin Bohn and Dong Chu. (source: Greenchain.com www 2019)

Special Issue on sustainable food planning released

Planning food system transitions is the title of an open access Special Issue in the journal Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems that has been released in April 2021. The Special Issue features selected papers presented at the 9th international  conference of the Sustainable Food Planning Group at AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning)….

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Nearly 200 colleagues were nominated for this year's One Staff Brighton Awards. (source: University of Brighton 2021)

Congratulations! Andre and Katrin nominated for University of Brighton award!

We are pleased to announce that Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn have been nominated in the University of Brighton’s One Staff Awards for a Research & Enterprise Award in the Outstanding Research & Enterprise Impact category. Last week, in a university-wide online awards event, nearly 200 nominees were celebrated. The University of Brighton’s One Staff…

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The site is situated close to the former village of Öjendorf and borders agricultural and nature protection areas. (image: büro luchterhandt, project documentation 2021)

A new type of garden city for Hamburg-Öjendorf, Germany

Bohn&Viljoen have been appointed as productive urban landscape and urban agriculture consultants in the development process for a new urban quarter to the Northeast of Hamburg’s  city centre. Earlier in April, Katrin attended their second multi-stakeholder workshop aimed at  defining a framework plan for the quarter’s housing and landscape strategies as well as for the…

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Cover page of New York's newly released food policy plan (source: Mayoral Office of Food Policy New York City 2021)

First ever 10-Year Food Policy Plan for New York released

In the last week of March, the Urban Food Policy Institute at City University of New York (CUNY) hosted the Urban Food Policy Forum Food Forward NYC: Food Policy in New York City for the Next Decade and Steps toward Implementation. You may remember that, a few months ago, we reported on the Institute’s public…

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Sealed wild bees nest in a tree stump (source: Monika Egerer, Forschungs-Update für Gemeinschaftsgärten-Projekt März 2021)

Spiel/Feld Marzahn counts high number of plant species.

The research team behind the Wild Pollinator Project has just published the 2020 report about its work in and with 18 Berlin community gardens, including Spiel/Feld Marzahn. A scientific recording of numbers and types of plant species in the gardens was one aspect of the research aiming to better understand relationships between pollinators, pollen and…

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Bohn&Viljoen's public lectured about their urban design concept Continuous Productive Urban Landscape. (source: IAAC/B&V 2021)

Bohn&Viljoen present their work at IAAC Barcelona

The week before last, Katrin was invited to give a talk at the Institute for advanced architecture in Catalonia (IAAC) Lecture Series which, due to the Covid pandemic, happened online. In the first part of the event, Katrin reflected on the development of urban agriculture as a subject within urban design and architecture using the…

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Bohn&Viljoen developed a matrix to compare existing urban agriculture repositories some of which already contain tools. (source: André Viljoen 2020)

Finding the right tools for implementing urban agriculture

Yesterday, André Viljoen and Katrin Bohn met with an interdisciplinary group of agronomists, scientists and urban designers that is developing an online Toolbox ‘to promote knowledge sharing, networking and learning among people involved or willing to get involved with food-related initiatives’ as part of the EU-funded EdiCitNet project. The group, led by the Catalan Institute…

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Madeira Terrace's location between the sea and the city (source: Max Martin 2019)

Design a place for food growing, preparing and eating on Madeira Terrace, Brighton!

This academic year, Katrin and André are involved in the studio teaching of Year 1 architecture students at the University of Brighton, André as a design tutor and Katrin – starting last week – as a visiting lecturer and critic. For their main design project, students are being asked to design both, ‘a new space…

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Urban circularity challenges (source: Atanasova et al. (2021): Nature-based solutions and circularity in cities (book chapter, submitted))

A catalogue of technologies for nature-based solutions

At the end of January, the COST Action Circular City group met for its 6th virtual workshop. The day-long meeting – attended by 70 participants from 28 countries, including Katrin Bohn – continued work towards the ultimate aim of the project: to provide local councils and the public with ‘guidelines on the combined possibilities of…

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