Mapping food opportunities in Sant Feliu de Llobregat

In September, Katrin Bohn and her team at the University of Brighton started their design research and consultancy with Spanish city Sant Feliu de Llobregat, located within the Barcelona metropolitan area [àrea metropolitana de Barcelona]. Aim of the work is to support the local council in its efforts to integrate food systems activities and productive urban landscapes into the spatial and organisational fabric and the everyday life of the city.

The collaboration with the local council, local agroecological cooperative Arran de Terra and Barcelona-based research institute ICRA is part of a larger food masterplanning program overseen by BOKU University Vienna within the H2020 project EdiCitNet. Within the next year, we aim to co-develop with the local community a series of maps as a tool to identify strategies for urban food planning as well as a method to capture, systematise and visualise those strategies.

Supported by the local city team, we have learned that Sant Feliu de Llobregat is the capital of the Baix Llobregat region, and its municipal area is located on the left bank of the Llobregat river valley, where it coincides with the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park, shared by 14 municipalities. It also borders the Collserola Natural Park, which is an area of natural interest, shared by nine municipalities. Both the Llobregat Agricultural Park and Collserola have significant agricultural activity. This is of great interest as strong, multiple linkages between the urban and rural are a widely recognised advantage when (re)defining the role of food within urban development. At the same time, there exists an increasing number of inner-urban food system and food policy activities in Sant Feliu de Llobregat that we aim to map as part of the 3-stage food opportunity mapping process.

In the University of Brighton team, Katrin, as project lead, works with architect Ian Bailey and with the support of Prof. Andre Viljoen and Gavin Gunter.

For more information on Sant Feliu de Llobregat see here.

For information on Arran de Terra see here.

Image: Green space per inhabitant in Sant Feliu de Llobregat ranging from no (brown) via little to more (light to dark green) to a lot of green space (blue) (source: Adjuntament de Sant Feliu de Llobregat www 2021)