Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

Still from the project’s explanatory video (source: COST Action Circular City 2020)

Cost Action tackles the complexities of circular city planning

On Friday, 23rd October, the 4th day-long meeting of the COST network project Circular City happened online. More than 60 participants from nearly all European countries continued their discussions on the circularity opportunities and challenges that individual nature-based solutions may have to make cities more sustainable and resilient. To visualise to its wide audience what…

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As part of the project, the Letchworth City Team started to map the potential of existing and future food-growing spaces. (source: Amélie André 2020)

Masterplanning for food in Letchworth Garden City

Earlier this month, the Annual General Meeting of the Horizon2020 project EdiCitNet happened online. The University of Brighton, represented by Katrin Bohn and André Viljoen, is one of the members of this multi-national consortium, bringing their expertise to food-centred master planning in 6 international towns and cities with a focus on Great Britain’s Letchworth Garden…

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A group discussions on finding space for urban agriculture (source: Bohn&Viljoen www 2020)

“Mapping the Edible City” showcases the diversity of urban food mapping.

Our conference panel Mapping the Edible City: Making visible communities and food spaces in the city was held successfully at last week’s Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future (online) conference. Co-convenors Ferne Edwards, Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen welcomed a perfectly diverse range of contributions to the virtual stage, all reflecting on aims,…

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18 Berlin community gardens were part of the winning project, apart from Spiel/Feld also the Nachbarschaftsgarten Wiecker Straße. (source: Monika Egerer 2020)

Spiel/Feld Marzahn is part of project to win UN Biodiversity Award

Last week, the Wild Pollinators Project received an Award for Biological Diversity in the UN Decade contest by the German Offices of the United Nations’ Decade on Biodiversity. Spiel/Feld Marzahn has been one of the partners in the project led by the National History Museum Berlin [Museum für Naturkunde Berlin] and the Technical University of…

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Explaining the components of the EdiCitNetToolbox (source: Katrin Bohn 2020)

First presentation of an online toolbox for edible cities

Last week saw the first webinar about the EdiCitnet Toolbox web interface, one of two pillars of the EdiCitNet Toolbox, an online platform aimed ‘to promote knowledge sharing, networking and learning among people involved or willing to get involved with food-related initiatives’. The development of the toolbox is being led by the Catalan Institute for…

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Parzelle X specialises in landscape architecture and nature pedagogy. (source: Parzelle X 2020)

Berlin Senate competitive tender for community garden strategy

We are pleased to have heard today that a team led by landscape architecture practice Parzelle X and comprising Katrin Bohn as consultant was selected into the last round of a competitive tender by the Senate of Berlin. If successful, the team will be working for the next one and a half years with local…

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The online platform invites dialogue on and around Berlin's 212 community gardens. (source: Bundespreis Stadtgrün www 2020)

Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün shortlisted for National Prize!

Congratulations! Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün [Platform Productive Urban Green], a project completed by the AG Stadt & Ernährung in cooperation with local stakeholders and the Senate of Berlin has been nominated by a national jury for the Germany-wide Bundespreis Stadtgrün [Federal Urban Greenery Prize]. For more than one year, Beatrice Walthall and Katrin Bohn from the…

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Four aspects of the urban metabolism will be linked in COST Action Circular City: water, food, resource recovery and the built environment. (source: COST Action Circular City 2019)

First virtual meeting of COST Action Circular City

On Monday 29th June, COST Action Circular City held its first virtual workshop with 60 people from 29 countries participating. The day-long meeting was dedicated to starting the joint development of a Catalogue of Technologies for providing/recovering resources through nature-based solutions (NBS). Aim of the catalogue is to support efforts by municipalities and initiatives to…

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Produktive Stadtlandschaft is one of the five core concepts of the masterplan for Patrick-Henry-Village. (source: IBA Heidelberg and KCAP 2020)

Productive urban landscape becomes part of new urban quarter in Heidelberg, Germany

Last week, Heidelberg City Council approved the Dynamic Master Plan for the implementation of a new mixed-use urban quarter on the site of former Patrick Henry Village (PHV). To create a Produktive Stadtlandschaft is one of the development’s five key concepts, introduced to it by Katrin Bohn during the IBA-led ideas finding phase in 2016-7….

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The schoolgarden, a distinct part of Spiel/Feld, in April, with its new sun shading in place (source: Spiel/Feld www 2020)

Wild Pollinators Project starts at Spiel/Feld Marzahn.

Planned since several months, the Wild Pollinator Project (full title Bienen, Bestäubung und Bürgerwissenschaft in Berlins Gärten'[Bees, pollination and crowd science in the gardens of Berlin]) has just started in the neighbourhood garden Spiel/Feld to the Northeast of Berlin that Katrin had co-initiated in 2011. The project is a collaboration of Spiel/Feld with the National…

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A reference to the saison on the meeting invitation: rhubarb time in Germany (source: Ernährungsrat Berlin www 2020)

INVITE: Plenary assembly of the Food Policy Council Berlin on Monday 18th May

‘We need to be and stay active right now! Corona presents us all with great challenges, but at the same time, the opportunities are growing to do things differently in the future.’ Under this motto, the Food Policy Council Berlin [Ernährungsrat Berlin] is inviting to its bi-annual plenary assembly on Monday 18th May 2020 from…

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Visualisation of the Parkway, the main circular route through the new urban quarter (image: KCAP 2019)

A dynamic masterplan for PHV Heidelberg

The dynamic master plan for the PHV is there! In its last meeting on the 18th of March, the committee that operates all conversion areas in Heidelberg made its majority recommendation to the local council. Due to the corona pandemic, the decision of the local council is still pending. The CPUL concept inspired the proposal…

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One of the four main pages of the new website Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün (source: SenUVK www 2020)

Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün goes live!

It is with great pleasure that we announce the full going-live of the interactive website Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün [Platform Productive Urban Green] ! Commissioned and hosted by the Senate of Berlin, Germany, it can be found here: https://www.berlin.de/gemeinschaftsgaertnern/ Please do use the website abundantly! It is open – and hopefully useful – to anybody, regardless…

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The Werkstatt of Haus der Statistik on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin (source: Haus der Statistik www 2020)

INVITE: Food and Logistic in the House of Statistic in Berlin

The association ZUsammenKUNFT Berlin eG invites to its 7th Thematic Evening on Thursday 12th March from 6 – 8pm in the Werkstatt Haus der Statistik, Karl-Marx-Allee 1 in Berlin. The 7th Thematic Evening is dedicated to the theme Food and Logistic in the House of Statistic. Background for the event is that the House of…

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Within the Playing/Field project, the Dorfplatz, a deck / bench / planting bed, was designed and built by TU Berlin students with help from resident-gardeners. (source: Tobias Birkefeld, Carlo Costabel, Peter Müller, Joshua Obliers 2014)

The Village Green at Playing/Field Marzahn is badly missed.

Yesterday, the first gardeners’ association meeting of the year happened at the community garden Spiel/Feld Marzahn [Playing/Field Marzahn] in Berlin, Germany. About 15 people came to discuss how best to prepare the new gardening season, what to plant, build and repair, how to engage with the neighbourhood and when to come together and celebrate. One…

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The Wynd, a pedestrianised retail and artisan-workshop street in the centre of Letchworth, is lined with two rows of fruit trees. (source: Katrin Bohn 2020)

How do we showcase the Garden City of the Future?

This is one of the central questions that a local team of city representatives, food activists and design researchers explored during last week’s two-day working meeting in Letchworth, UK. Joined by Vic Borrill, Brighton&Hove Food Partnership, and André Viljoen and Katrin Bohn, University of Brighton, as their consultants, the local team discussed visions for (food-)productive…

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Mapping food and its producers in an urban district in the City of Cologne, Germany, as part of the DQE urban regeneration project Urbane Agrikultur in Köln-Ehrenfeld. (source: Bohn&Viljoen Architects and DQE 2011)

INVITE: Be part of our conference panel “Mapping the Edible City” !

Please allow us to remind you of our call for papers/contributions for next year’s Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present, and Future conference on 4-7th June 2020 hosted by The Royal Anthropological Institute, The British Academy, The British Museum, the Royal Geographical Society and SOAS University of London. Our panel, Mapping the Edible City: Making…

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Proposal for an “urban agriculture path” and public gathering space passing through part of Mr Shiraishi’s farm in Nerima City, Tokyo. (source: Andre Viljoen 2019)

A CPUL design for Tokyo

Early December 2019, Andre Viljoen returned from his second visit to Tokyo at the invitation of Nerima City’s Mayor.  As part of this trip, he was invited to develop a CPUL proposal for an urban farm belonging to Mr Shiraishi, who, with his family, is one of several farmers cultivating land in Nerima for many…

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Preston Park Demo Garden, one of the visited projects and Brighton & Hove Food Partnership’s first spatial intervention in Brighton. (source: Brighton & Hove Food Partnership www 2019)

Letchworth Garden City team visits Brighton food provision projects

This Monday, Vic Borrill (Brighton & Hove Food Partnership) and Katrin Bohn (University of Brighton) welcomed visitors from Letchworth Garden City to the City of Brighton & Hove. As part of the Horizon2020 innovation action project EdiCitNet, the Letchworth team came to study community food projects in Brighton many of whom are linked to the…

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After the actual live testing of the website, participants discussed its role in the development of Berlin's city-wide concept for community gardens and allotments. (source: Beatrice Walthall 2019)

Successful launch of the Platform Productive Urban Green for Berlin

About 40 people attended the (test)launch of Berlin’s new Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün [Platform Productive Urban Green] on Tuesday 26th November 2019 to which the Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz] had invited. Ursula Renker, Head of the Office for Open Space Planning and Urban Green [Referat…

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