Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

Image: This is the third webinar in the CRFS Knowledge Exchange Webinar Series. (source: FAO www 2023)

INVITE: Capacity-building for strengthening city region food systems

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the RUAF Global Partnership on Sustainable Urban Agriculture and Food Systems – with whom Bohn&Viljoen have collaborated in the past – and the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) run their third event in the CRFS Knowledge Exchange Webinar Series: Capacity-building for strengthening city region…

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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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Lore of the Wild is an audio storywalk, co-created and written by Bernadette Russell and Sophie Austin. (source: Melanie Smith, walk-listen-create website, 2022)

INVITE: Sound Walk September 2022

Now entering its fifth year, walk · listen · create is very excited to remind us of the open call for soundwalks to be celebrated this autumn, during Sound Walk September. Crowdsourced from around the world, Sound Walk September each year celebrates all forms of soundwalks and sound walking events, culminating in the Sound Walk…

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A Food for Cities discussion started on developing short food supply chains for Ukraine. (politpost-www 2022)

Help needed: Developing short food supply chains in Ukraine

As the sad war in Ukraine enters its sad 7th week, food activists in- and outside of the country try to establish a somewhat secure food supply for the many harassed cities and communities. One such collective effort has come to our attention only yesterday when a researcher at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, posted a…

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2km of hedgerows have been reintroduced to Woodoaks Farm, . (source: Soil Association, video still, 2022)

Hedge planting at the Soil Association’s Woodoaks Farm

‘It takes a community to run a farm’, says Rose Lewis, programme manager at Woodoaks Farm, in a video published today by the Soil Association. Rose is one of many local residents who, last November, helped planting hedges at a new Soil Association farm, Woodoaks Farm in Hertfordshire. The Woodoaks hedge planting campaign had raised…

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The 9th AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Group conference in Madrid formulated key aspects of the food system. (source: AESOP4FOOD www 2022)

AESOP4FOOD online course to start soon

Registration will open soon for this year’s online course on sustainable food planning. The course is part of the Erasmus+ project AESOP4FOOD (Action for Education, Spatial Organization and Planning for Sustainable Food) which aims to address sustainable food planning through a transdisciplinary and participatory approach. Starting from the evidence of serious gaps in knowledge and transformative…

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Haworth Tompkins Green Away Day on 12th November 2021 held at Cecil Sharp House, London (source: Diana Dina 2021)

CPULs at Haworth Tompkins Green Away Day

Last week, Andre Viljoen was invited to present the CPUL concept at Haworth Tompkins Architects’ Green Away Day. This event provided the practice with their first post-lockdown occasion to meet in person and continue discussions about how to address the challenges of the climate crisis. Haworth Tompkins are one of the original UK practices to…

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Stand by me is an invitation to do something really simple that may appear really difficult: to stand next to a tree. (source: Whitehead and Lee 2021)

INVITE: COP26 stand by me

Today, COP 26, the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, has opened in Glasgow. It brings parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. COP26 recognises and highlights that climate change is the greatest threat facing the world. In our Centre…

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Plant Cycle (source: UoB architecture student Lisa Daniel 2017)

INVITE: Launch of the Design of Circular Cities & Regions Research Group

We are pleased to invite you to the public launch (online) of our new Design of Circular Cities & Regions Research and Enterprise Group (REG) at the University of Brighton. The launch happens on Thursday 24th June starting at 10am UK time (11am CET). For the following 4 hours, we have planned an event full…

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Nearly 200 colleagues were nominated for this year's One Staff Brighton Awards. (source: University of Brighton 2021)

Congratulations! Andre and Katrin nominated for University of Brighton award!

We are pleased to announce that Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn have been nominated in the University of Brighton’s One Staff Awards for a Research & Enterprise Award in the Outstanding Research & Enterprise Impact category. Last week, in a university-wide online awards event, nearly 200 nominees were celebrated. The University of Brighton’s One Staff…

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In her project Sea-Meat Seeweed, artist Hanan Alkouh produced meat from seaweed. The project was shown at Food Revolution 5.0 where Bohn&Viljoen exhibited The Edible Terrace. (source: Tom Mannion www 2016)

Should we stop producing meat?

Last Thursday, Katrin Bohn joined Prof. Lisa Jack from the University of Portsmouth in an expert panel discussion chaired by Dr. Neale Davies, Liverpool John Moores University, as part of the one-day (online) event The Future of Food hosted by Clean Growth UK. The panel of experts examined with the audience whether we should stop…

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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…

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The event will be held online on Thursday 25th February. (source: Clean Growth UK 2021)

INVITE: Join Katrin to discuss the future of food

On Thursday, 25th February, from 10 am to 12.30 am, Katrin Bohn will be discussing the future of food with entrepreneurs and academics. Please do join in! Industry leaders will come together to share their insights on the future of food (production) in this online event hosted by Clean Growth UK, a network led by…

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The Glasgow Declaration aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Glasgow Declaration www 2020)

Launch of the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration

On 14th December 2020, the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration was launched during a special webinar gathering cities and local authorities from across the world. In the run up to COP26 in Glasgow next year the Glasgow Declaration is a pledge and call to action by subnational, local and national governments to accelerate the development…

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'An estimate of the global food system’s transgression of planetary boundaries. Here, the safe operating space (green) provides an estimate of the food-related share of the planetary boundaries [...] The zone of uncertainty (yellow) defines dangerous risk, whereas high-risk (red) indicates where production has exceeded the assessed uncertainty range in science [...] E/MSY, extinctions per million species-years; BII, Biodiversity Intactness Index; P, phosphorus; N, nitrogen [...] image credit: PIK, 2019.' (source: Rockström et al. 2020]

In 2030, Berlin feeds itself in a climate and socially just way!

Katrin Bohn took part in the action conference organised by Berlin’s Food Policy Council which happened online from the 19th to the 21st of November 2020. Under the motto ‘2030 ernährt sich Berlin klima- und sozial gerecht! [In 2030, Berlin feeds itself in a climate and socially just way!]’, the conference brought together stakeholders from…

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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…

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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…

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Extract of the flyer advertising the seed exchange at Allmende-Kontor (source: Allmende-Kontor 2020)

INVITE: Resistance with distance! Seed exchange and joint film this Friday

Urban gardeners in Germany embrace new opportunities to allow the gardening seasion to start during the current corona pandemic. Please feel free to join them this Friday 17th April 2020 for two events: At 7pm, the “joint film watching” of O´pflanzt is – 6 Jahre Gemeinschaftsgarten happens on Zoom using these entry details: Meeting-ID: 734…

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Drawing showing part of New York City (Steady) State (source: terreform www 2020)

The passing of Michael Sorkin

On the 26th of March 2020, Michael Sorkin, the New York based architect, academic and critic passed away as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Michael Sorkin was a prominent and prolific advocate for rethinking cities in such a way that they could operate within the limits of the Earth’s carrying capacity while being more…

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From the project brochure of the project Rural Urban Nexus – Global Land Use and Urbanisation that Christoph Kasper presented (source: Umweltbundesamt www 2016)

The CPUL concept proved popular among conference presenters

With great interest did Katrin listen to fellow presenters at the 9th international conference of the AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Group which was held two weeks ago at the Universidad Politecnica in Madrid. Mostly attending the conference track “Agroecological urbanism”, we would like to capture here a number of papers presented that explicitly linked to…

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