Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

Participants in the AESOP4FOOD intensive programme enjoy a working lunch at the Stads Academie, Ghent. (source: Konrad Ruskowiak 2023)

Agroecological Urbanism – Future Heritage

Andre Viljoen was invited to participate in the AESOP4FOOD Intensive Programme Agroecological Urbanism – Future Heritage hosted between the 8th and 15th July by the Stads Academy Ghent, Belgium, a collaboratory for transdisciplinary research and education on complex and urgent sustainability issues of the City of Ghent and Ghent University. Funded by the EU’s Erasmus+…

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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: Church Street CPUL Bridge Hotel by Wilson Ng (source: Wilson Ng 2023)

Productive urban landscape projects amongst the winners

Last Friday, the end of year show of the Architecture and Design courses at the University of Brighton closed with the student award ceremony followed by a big party. Amongst the winners of the much coveted, more than 15 different prizes was Wilson Ng, architecture student in Andre Viljoen’s MArch studio, who won the runner-up…

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INVITE: End of Year Show at the University of Brighton

Please come along and join the Architecture and Design courses at the University of Brighton at their annual End of Year Show. Included in the exhibition will be work from: BA(Hons) Architecture, MArch Architecture, BA(Hons) Interior Architecture, BSc(Hons) Product Design, MA Interior Design, MA Sustainable Design and the Architecture and Design Integrated Foundation. After it…

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Jasmine Cook's urban farm proposal grows cauliflower on a tiered step structure. (source: Jasmine Cook 2022)

First year architecture students show food-productive designs

This coming Friday, our Architecture & Design Summer Show starts at the School of Architecture and Design, Mithras House, University of Brighton. It will be open to the public on 18-19 June, from 11am – 5pm. The show will include work from first year architecture students who have just completed their design module Design, technology…

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In proGIreg, Dortmund (Germany) is one of four cities to host living labs in post-industrial districts where nature-based solutions are developed, tested and implemented. (source Sabina Leopa / proGIreg 2021)

New online course on nature-based urban regeneration

Our colleague Axel Timpe from RWTH University in Aachen, Germany, alerted us to a new 5-week course his institute has been developing as part of the EU-funded project Productive Green Infrastructure for post-industrial urban regeneration (proGIreg). The course starts on the 1st of November on edX, one of the foremost massive open online course (MOOC)…

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Cover extract of one of the new titles in the Urban Agriculture Book Series (source: Springer www 2021)

Two new books in the Springer Urban Agriculture series

Seven years have passed since the first publication of the Springer Urban Agriculture Book Series in October 2014. We celebrate this with two new books: Teaching and Learning in Urban Agricultural Community Contexts and Research Approaches in Urban Agriculture and Community Contexts. The books are companion volumes, edited by the same team, and both of…

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The Vier- und Marschlande, located in the south-east of the City of Hamburg, are a 14,000ha agricultural and horticultural area. (source: HafenCity University 2021)

New prospects for a cultivated landscape in Hamburg

Last week, Katrin Bohn was invited as a guest critic to the presentation of design projects by Masters’ students of the Architecture and Landscape program at HafenCity University Hamburg in Germany. The urban planning and architecture students, under the guidance of Prof. Antje Stokman and Anne Kittel, were tasked to think about strategies for the…

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Ingredients catalogue sample documenting resources within an office building (source: Ugne Neveckaite 2021)

Farming and banqueting in useless buildings

All of last week, Andre has been co-leading a design studio in the UoB Summer School of Re-construction, part of the EU-funded Interreg program Facilitating the circulation of reclaimed building elements in North-Western Europe. Working with students from Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Morocco and the multi-disciplinary artist Inês Neto dos Santos, we are looking at…

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'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…

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Madeira Terrace's location between the sea and the city (source: Max Martin 2019)

Design a place for food growing, preparing and eating on Madeira Terrace, Brighton!

This academic year, Katrin and André are involved in the studio teaching of Year 1 architecture students at the University of Brighton, André as a design tutor and Katrin – starting last week – as a visiting lecturer and critic. For their main design project, students are being asked to design both, ‘a new space…

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Grassroots climate activism across UK universities (source: Ben Holland (2021) Grassroots activism will give power to climate action, in: RIBA Journal, 8th January 2021)

Your education is failing you!

The RIBA Journal‘s January edition features ‘a rallying cry’ by Ben Holland ‘to unite with the activism of students and young professionals across the UK and really act on the climate emergency’ . Starting with the tagline of the Climate Curriculum Campaign – Calling all architecture students, graduates, professionals. Your education is failing you! -,…

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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…

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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….

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