projects related to the CPUL concept publications related to the CPUL concept

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…

Katrin Bohn • 12th April 2021

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…

Katrin Bohn • 5th April 2021

'Consumed: Communicating energy use with land art infographics' by Kristian Megyeri, Overlook Field School, Workshop 'Landscapes of Power' 2014 (source: Fuller Center for Productive Landscapes www 2021)

Productive Landscapes and Productive Urban Landscapes for sustainable futures

While completing a review for a book proposal, we came across the Fuller Center for Productive Landscapes (FCPL) at the University of Oregon, USA. Headed up by Prof. Roxi Thoren, who is also the department head for Landscape Architecture, the FCPL is a teaching center for ‘research-based design and design as research, focused on the…

Andre Viljoen • 29th March 2021

The community garden Peace of Land, one of the guest speakers at the launch event, presented not only its garden spaces but also its managerial structure. (source: Peace of Land 2021)

A community garden programme for Berlin

On the 3rd of March 2021, more than 100 people gathered online to kick-off a long-awaited project by Berlin’s Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz]: the participatory creation of the city’s first community garden programme. Organised and run by Berlin-based landscape architecture firm bgmr Landschaftsarchitekten with…

Katrin Bohn • 15th March 2021

The TNOC Festival happens from 22nd to 26th February 2021 online. (source: TNOC www 2021)

INVITE: The Nature of Cities Festival

We are pleased to share this invitation to The Nature of Cities (TNOC) Festival which will happen online from 22nd to 26th February 2021. Since our first contribution to TNOC in 2016 – now making it one of the earlier contributions – we have closely followed its many conversations on subjects around urban nature. The…

Katrin Bohn • 9th February 2021

Thamesmead is home to about 45,000 people. (source: Architect's Journal www 2021)

Green and blue landscapes will be part of new housing scheme in London

We are pleased to announce that White Arkitekter’s team which includes Bohn&Viljoen has been selected as one of ten teams to bid for the design and planning of the Thamesmead Waterfront development in East London. The two-stage Town of Tomorrow competition – organised by Colander Associates – will select a ‘visionary and strategic’ masterplanner to…

Katrin Bohn • 14th January 2021

“Another world is necessary. Another world is possible. Another world is happening.” An enormous message summed up by the words of Grace Lee Boggs has become the cover image of the project. (source: Hannah Lewis www 2021)

Ten policy recommendations on Food Policy Priorities for 2021 & beyond

In November and December of last year, the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute, based at the City University New York, USA, asked the public two questions: What do you think should be the top priority for federal action on food policy in 2021? In your view, what should be the top priorities for federal action…

Katrin Bohn • 5th January 2021

A dessert produced in a Made in Hackney Vegan Baking Masterclass (source: The Jellied Eel www 2020)

H A P P Y _ N E W _ Y E A R _ 2 0 2 1 !

What a year has just passed! One of the few really positive aspects of it may be the time for reflection that it allowed, at least for us, here at the Productive Urban Landscapes blog. For the new year, we wish our readers benefits from some of your reflections, and we wish you health and…

Katrin Bohn • 30th December 2020

One of Markthalle Neun's entrances (on Eisenbahnstraße 42/43) during Covid-19 (source: Markthalle 9Neun www 2020)

INVITE: Markthalle Neun Berlin: We are open! For everything.

Adapted in its organisation to Berlin’s re-tightened Covid-19 regulations, Markthalle Neun invites to an Open Sunday this coming Sunday 20th December from 1 to 7 pm. Markthalle Neun is one of the few remaining original 19th-century market halls in the German capital having reopened in 2011 after many years of local campaigning and negotiating its…

Katrin Bohn • 15th December 2020

Irena Pivka and Brane Zorman of Cona Institute Ljubljana were shortlisted for the Museum of Walking's Sound Walk September 2020 Awards for their work Sandbox. (source: Irena Pivka www 2020)

Sound walks offer a new way to travel

Referring to the current Covid-19 pandemic, an article in last week’s Guardian newspaper reported about urban and landscape walking tours ‘at a time when many people are struggling to make it too far beyond their front door’. The featured sound walks are one of the activities that the Museum of Walking is heavily involved with,…

Katrin Bohn • 20th November 2020

Elevated light-weight bridges allow for flowing agricultural landscape and unhindered production as well for unexpected views. (source: Alkisti Volonasis and Romila Faye Strub 2020)

Productive urban landscapes as a response to intense urbanisation in Peru

We are pleased to share the Masters’ thesis project Lima 4.0: Territorial fragility as an agent of agricultural innovation by Alkisti Volonasis and Romila Faye Strub who recently graduated from Politecnico di Milano’s MSc in Architecture. Alkisti contacted us about a month ago, and since then we have exchanged several emails about their design research…

Katrin Bohn • 17th November 2020

A dedicated website follows the project process and informs about its results. (source: Kantine Zukunft www 2020)

INVITE: Kantine Zukunft Berlin presents its work

This coming Wednesday 26th August 2020, at 12 noon, there will be a public press conference to present Kantine Zukunft [Future Canteen], the flagship project of Berlin’s Senatsverwaltung für Justiz, Verbraucherschutz und Antidiskriminierung [Senate Department for Justice, Consumer Protection and Anti-Discrimination]. The event will happen at Kantine Zukunft’s new work space at Markthalle 9 [Market…

Katrin Bohn • 20th August 2020

Extract of a digitalised visualisation of Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata und Fuge in D-Moll (BWV 565), video still (source: Wolf Siegert, DaybyDay, 2020)

Digitalisation: What comes next?

Katrin Bohn was interviewed as part of the ongoing project Was kommt nach der Digitalisierung? [Digitalisation: What comes next?] which was set up by German philosopher and digital media expert Dr. Wolf Siegert who is still coordinating it. The results of Siegert’s 2019 Berlin interviews have now been made available on his blog DaybyDay. Since…

Katrin Bohn • 7th August 2020

Tim Rodber and Dominic Walker Greater London Agriculture (source: RIBA www 2020)

Rethink 2025 for our post-pandemic world (and London in 2045)

Yesterday, the RIBA Journal has announced three joint winners for the architectural competition Rethink 2025 set up as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The competition proposed that ‘Now more than ever, we need to design spaces and buildings that contribute to the health and wellbeing of everyone. Architects have a vital role to play…

Andre Viljoen • 27th July 2020

The deceptively simple four-box decision-making framework developed by the RSA and discussed in relation to food (source: Sustain webinar 2020)

Making sense of it: Tools for developing food strategies

Last week, Andre Viljoen participated in the webinar Making sense of it: What’s happened and what next? about tools for developing food strategies following on from the Covid-19 pandemic. The webinar was hosted by two UK organisations, SUSTAIN The alliance for better food and farming and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures…

Andre Viljoen • 20th July 2020

Cultivative Design: First phase of use: Sowing the Seed (source: Casey Parsons www 2020)

Cultivating Architecture at Uni Brighton’s end-of-year show

After a turbulent (online) pre-view night (with live music!) on Friday 3rd July, the School of Architecture and Design’s end-of-year show is now open. We were both not teaching this year but would like to share the Master’s of Architecture project of Casey Parsons who, this year, has been taught by our colleague Charles Holland….

Katrin Bohn • 13th July 2020

A “Covid-19 lockdown” micro rooftop farm in Southwark, South London (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2020)

Bottom-up & top-down CPUL City Actions in Southwark, London

During London’s Covid-19 lockdown, it has been very evident how spaces immediately adjacent to homes started to be reclaimed and reused. As well as noticing people using the traditional deep window sills as places to sit, food growing has become evident. Taking a five-minute walk from our base in the London borough of Southwark, one…

Andre Viljoen • 7th July 2020

Building work at the future Parc Agro-Urbain in Bernex in June 2020 (source: Verzone Woods Architectes 2020)

Works started on urban agriculture park near Geneva, Switzerland.

In June, the grading and path works started on one of Europe’s first designated urban agriculture parks in Bernex-Confignon, near the Swiss city of Geneva. Swiss practice Verzone Woods Architectes are leading the project who won its public competition in 2013. The Parc Agro-Urbain Bernex et Confignon in Geneva’s metropolitan region reveals the image of…

Katrin Bohn • 29th June 2020

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…

Katrin Bohn • 19th June 2020

Video still from "A European Green Deal: Striving to be the first climate-neutral continent" (source: European Commission www 2020)

Shaping the European Green Deal call

Katrin Bohn has contributed to the shaping of Area 7 Restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services for the European Green Deal call. The prominence of “food” as a subject of the call and hence of the European Green Deal is a major achievement. Both, the recently adopted Farm to Fork Strategy and the EU Biodiversity Strategy…

Katrin Bohn • 27th May 2020