Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

The hardcover version of the Urban Food Mapping book (source: Mikey Tomkins, 2024)

INVITE: The Urban Food Mapping online book launch

Our new book is out! To celebrate, we would like to invite you to the public online LAUNCH of this collaborative book project! And to catch all our contributors from around the globe, there will be 2 online launches: Thursday 21st of March 8am-9am UK time (= 9:00-10:00 CET) at this link (https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MjVkM2RmMzUtYjgyZS00ZTAzLThkYTItOWUwOWVhOGMzNTRh%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22a900bb90-94fe-4658-8b34-dd72084c5064%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fc4e2f0c-5dec-4e57-8086-2fa74fd2f738%22%7d) and Friday…

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The CPUL Opportunity Mapping Method explained (source: Bohn&Viljoen Architects [2012] with Ian Bailey, University of Brighton, 2021)

Coming soon: A book chapter on urban design for food

One of the contributions to Katrin Bohn’s and Mikey Tomkins’ edited volume Urban Food Mapping: Making visible the Edible City will be Katrin’s chapter on food opportunity mapping. Fully titled Food in urban design and planning: The CPUL Opportunity Mapping Method, the chapter starts of from the observation that sustainable urban food planning is still…

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Draft book cover for the Urban Food Mapping book. (source: Mikey Tomkins and Routledge 2023)

Coming soon: The Urban Food Mapping book

We are pleased to announce that the book Urban Food Mapping: Making visible the Edible City, edited by Katrin Bohn and Mikey Tomkins will publish soon. This month, Mikey and Katrin, supported by the editorial board and all contributors, reviewed the draft proofs, and they look great! Richly explored, using over 200 mapping images in…

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In his chapter, André Viljoen describes how place-based mappings can support farmers and local authorities in urban development planning. (source: André Viljoen 2023)

Manuscript submitted for the Urban Food Mapping book

Today, Mikey Tomkins and Katrin Bohn submitted the manuscript for the book Urban Food Mapping: Making visible the Edible City. Please watch out for its publication later this year! This first publication to systematise urban food mapping identifies urban food mapping as a distinct activity and area of research that enables a more nuanced way…

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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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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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Ten-step recommendation for urban designers, planners, and local decision makers supporting development of green infrastructure with an agroecological focus (source: Katrin Bohn 2019)

Bohn and Chu publish article on food-productive green infrastructure

We are pleased to announce that, two weeks ago, the open-access article Food-productive green infrastructure: Enabling agroecological transitions from an urban design perspective by Dr. Dong Chu and Katrin Bohn was published in the Wiley journal Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems, edited by Prof. Sarah Lovell. The peer-reviewed article is part of the journal’s…

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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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Chicago’s Urban Agricultural Networks: Mapping the future of thriving metropolitan foodsheds (source: Gundula Proksch conference presentation 2020)

Editorial board selects proposals for Mapping the Edible City book

During the last weeks, our eight-people-strong editorial board had the near-impossible task to select more than 20 thematically, geographically and disciplinarily balanced contributions for our forthcoming book Mapping the Edible City (working title). Our call earlier this Spring attracted more than 50 high-quality submissions from all over the world mainly focusing on either a specific…

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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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Register card for locally-grown produce as part of the urban regeneration project Urbane Agrikultur in Köln-Ehrenfeld (source: Bohn&Viljoen and DQE 2011)

INVITE: Mapping the Edible City: Call for expressions of interest to contribute to book

It is our great pleasure to invite you to submit your expression of interest to our forthcoming book project Mapping the Edible City. Together with colleagues from Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, Norway and the USA, Katrin and Andre are members of the book’s editorial group. Please find below our call for expressions of interest that…

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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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The RIBA Journal’s contents page included the statement: 'Sustainability defined; air-con bad, urban farms good'. (source: Andre Viljoen 2020)

Sustainability defined; air-con bad, urban farms good

In September 2020, the editor of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Journal asked readers to respond to the question ‘How best do you define ‘sustainability’, that very elastic word?’ We were pleased to see that ours was one of three letters to be published in the October edition of the RIBAJ as response…

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Roxana Triboi, one of our winners, shared details of her project on Urban Pastoralism. (source: Petrut Calinescu From the Series 'Living on the edge: Bucharest' 2017)
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Productive Urban Landscapes blog celebration: The winners are…

Last month, we celebrated the publication of THE 100TH POST on this blog which happened somewhen in August 2020. We had invited our readers to send us their answers to the question “What is a productive urban landscape?” Thanks to everybody who responded with their thoughts or congratulations! It has been (is) a pleasure to…

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LET’S CELEBRATE: Our blog “Productive Urban Landscapes” turned 100!

Dear colleagues, friends and followers, Whilst we all were away on summer vacation, the Productive Urban Landscapes blog turned 100! This is, it turned out 100 news posts since its inauguration. To mark the occasion and celebrate, we give away 5 goodie bags with treasures from our work to the first 5 respondents who send…

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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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There is a need to integrate the ‘urban’ and the ‘spatial’ sides of the food system into future urban and regional planning. (source: Katrin Bohn and Dong Chu 2019)

Katrin Bohn co-edits Special Issue on urban food planning for Wiley journal

The course is now set for a Special Issue in the journal Urban Agriculture & Regional Food Systems published by Wiley and edited by Sarah Lovell on behalf of the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America. The Special Issue will feature selected papers presented at last year’s international 9th AESOP…

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A resilient food system will be distributed and evenly spread, so that, if shocks occur, small amounts of food from many produces can be sent to places in need. The Kato Farm in Nerima City, Tokyo, is a good example of how this resilient urban landscape may look and how it can be used. Socially embedded food systems working as part of a larger network, like this one, have much to offer as we rethink post Covid 19 and in the midst of climate change adaptation and mitigation. (image: Bohn&Viljoen 2019)

Thoughts on Covid-19, food and urban design

One month into the Covid19 lockdown It is now a month since the UK went into lockdown as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. Germany started a short while earlier and is now experimenting with a targeted relaxation of some measures. Nevertheless, we are all still socially isolating and no longer travelling, working patterns have…

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Cover of Bohn & Viljoen's chapter in the volume Achieving sustainable urban agriculture, edited by Johannes Wiskerke (source: Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing www 2020)

Building continuous productive (peri-)urban landscapes: New book chapter out

An invited book chapter by André Viljoen and Katrin Bohn, titled Building continuous productive (peri-)urban landscapes, has been published last week in a new book edited by Prof Johannes Wiskerke of Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and published by Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing. This volume, titled Achieving sustainable urban agriculture, reviews research on building urban and…

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Resource streams in urban metabolism. This diagram, drawn for the participatory PHVision project in Heidelberg, shows how food and the food system are located as part of other resource streams into and out of the city. (source: Katrin Bohn with Rachel Shotliff 2016)

New paper on urban agriculture published !

As part of COST Action Circular City, Katrin Bohn has co-published a new paper on urban agriculture as a keystone contribution towards sustainable cities in the journal Blue-Green Systems by IWA Publishing. The paper contends that ‘research and practice during the last 20 years has shown that urban agriculture can contribute to minimising the effects…

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