Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

The neighbourhood garden is part of a more-than-human vision of future cities. (source: Katrin Bohn 2023)

Mühlhausen guests visit community gardens in Berlin

It is always an experience to visit a community garden in Berlin, Germany. Last week, Katrin led a tour of  Spiel/Feld Marzahn and Prinzessinnengarten Moritzplatz for representatives of the city administration of Mühlhausen/Thür. The Thuringian town in the centre of Germany plans a community garden as part of their 5-year-long Smart City urban development project….

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The focus of the green infrastructural project is an area characterised by multi-storey housing with generous open space provision. (source: Stadt Mühlhausen und Katrin Bohn 2023)

Students begin design work for a green Martini in Mühlhausen

The city of Mühlhausen’s Smart City project is now receiving support from Fachhochschule Erfurt [Erfurt University of Applied Sciences] to advance its plans for green infrastructure connections and a neighbourhood garden [Quartiersgarten] in its Martini suburb. Landscape architecture students, led by Prof. Inga Hahn and her team, are currently developing design proposals for the area….

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The 2nd day of the meeting was organised by project partner Prinzessinnengärten on their site at Neue Jakobifriedhof. (source: Prinzessinnengärten 2023)

Final project meeting of the EdiCitNet project

During the last two days, the final meeting of the Horizon2020 EdiCitNet innovation action project took place in Berlin. The more than 30 consortium partners joined once more to reflect on the successes, challenges and failures of this international project, funded by the EU under their programme group “Smart and Sustainable Cities” in the subject…

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Image: This food map was created for and with the Municipality as part of a participatory process aimed at making Carthage an 'edible city'. (source: Katrin Bohn with Ian Bailey, University of Brighton, and City Team Carthage 2021)

City Team Carthage finalises food advocacy note

Since Spring 2021, Katrin Bohn and her small University of Brighton team, have been advising the City of Carthage, Tunisia, in their efforts to establish sustainable urban planning strategies with a food system focus. On 5th April 2023, the City approved one of two important documents aimed at supporting this process: an advocacy note laying…

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Image: The Institute of Urban Agriculture (IUA) has recently embarked on an ambitious productive urban landscape project on its own site. (source: IUA www 2022)

DCZ Forum provides Sino-German Exchange in agricultural sciences

On the 13th of December 2022 the 4th Exchange Forum on Sino-German Collaboration in Agricultural Sciences took place online. The Sino-German Agricultural Centre [Deutsch-Chinesisches Agrarzentrum] had invited several experts to discuss the potentials of collaboration projects between China’s Institute of Urban Agriculture (IUA) and German research institutions. The Sino-German Agricultural Centre [Deutsch-Chinesisches Agrarzentrum], located in…

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Title page of the Community Garden Program (source: Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection Berlin, 2022)

Berlin’s Community Garden Program goes live

On the 12th of September, Berlin’s first network evening “Berlin gärtnert [ Berlin is gardening]” took place at Prinzessinnengarten Hermannstraße. Many long-standing community gardening activists and new urban gardeners followed the invitation by the Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz [Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection] via its Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün, coordinated…

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At the vineyard of the Biotechnical School in Šempeter, students and researchers observe field of 10 rows of grapevine each planted with local varieties and treated differently. (source: Katrin Bohn 2022)

How to become an edible city: Šempeter pri Gorici, Slovenia

The Municipality of Šempeter-Vrtojba (6,300 inhabitants) is located on the western edge of Slovenia, right next to the Italian border, only 150 km from Venice, and is characterised by vibrant green woodlands, vineyards, fields and meadows. The Vrtojba-Bilje knolls, along with a large part of the surrounding plains offer optimum conditions for viticulture, fruit farming,…

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The VR system, tested by Jasmine Cook, has quite a few new functions. (source: Andre Viljoen 2022)

Third Workshop for the Seeing Urban Food Futures Project

The third workshop for the Seeing Urban Food Futures project was held on July 28th. Attendees from the previous two workshops operated the newest iteration of the VR system developed by Alex Judd and Simon Boseley and the team from the School of Architecture, Technology and Engineering at the University of Brighton. Aim of the…

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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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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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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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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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The first stage of work compares the general characteristics of the two cities in relation to food. (source: UoB using material selected by City Team Carthage 2021)

City teams of Carthage and Sant Feliu de Llobregat meet to exchange on local food

Last week, the interdisciplinary teams of city officials, local food initiatives, research organisations and members of the public of Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Spain) and Carthage (Tunisia) met online to discuss the status quo of their local food systems. The meeting was co-led by researchers from the Institute of Organic Farming at BOKU University Vienna…

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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)

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…

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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 plenary decided on the development of the food policy council's structure based on sociocratic principles. (source: Ernährungsrat Berlin www 2021)

Food Policy Council Berlin plenary elects new board and structure

On the 1st of July 2021, the plenary assembly of Berlin’s Food Policy Council [Ernährungsrat Berlin] took place online. Almost 70 people discussed and decided on two main issues, the election of a new board of speakers and the development of the Council’s organisational structure. On its website, the initiative informs about a successful election:…

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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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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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