International | Productive Urban Landscapes

Aerial drawing showing the extend of urban sprawl in Kigali, Rwanda (source: Rapid Planning project www 2019)

Katrin Bohn convenes researchers-experts-audience colloquium on urban food

Under the seducing name “Tasty Cities”, the Fachgebiet Landschaftsarchitektur. Freiraumplanung [Department Landscape Architecture . Open Space Planning] led by Prof. Undine Giseke held a day of presentations and discussions on urban food systems at the Technical University in Berlin. Starting off from a Global-South perspective, aim of the colloquium was to converge knowledge gained in…

Katrin Bohn • 31st October 2019

Chart of the Red Sea mapping transportation routes and loading/unloading points (source: Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) www 2019)

Panel accepted at next year’s “Anthropology and Geography” conference

We are pleased do announce that our proposal for a panel at next year’s international conference Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future has been accepted! The Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future conference is jointly organised by the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the British Academy, the…

Katrin Bohn • 7th October 2019

View of Bohn&Viljoen’s exhibit at Cuba. La singularidad del diseño (source: Jimena Acosta 2019)

CPUL work exhibited at Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City

Tomorrow, the art and design exhibition Cuba. La singularidad del diseño will open in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. Photographs from Bohn&Viljoen’s project Laboratories of Urban Agriculture are shown in this exhibition co-curated by Mexican curators Jimena Acosta and Inbal Miller. Cuba. La singularidad del diseño opens as part of Mexican Design…

Katrin Bohn • 4th October 2019

Extract from the Urbal project’s website (source: Urbal www 2019)

Urbal: Urban-driven innovations for sustainable food systems

Last week, Katrin Bohn participated in a workshop of the international research project Urbal: Urban-driven innovations for sustainable food systems. Urbal uses participatory research in eight cities to develop and test a holistic methodology to map the impact pathways that go from urban innovations to all dimension of sustainability of food systems. More than 35…

Katrin Bohn • 30th September 2019

The Edible Playground and the Sacred Fields: spatial imaginary for the Bagmati riverbanks in Kathmandu (source: Mitchell, M. and Iglesias, A.R. www 2019)

Productive Urban Landscapes for Kathmandu, Nepal

This month saw the pre-publishing of Urban agriculture in Kathmandu as a catalyst for the civic inclusion of migrants and the making of a greener city, an article by Maurice Mitchell and Amara Roca Iglesias from the CASS School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University. It is a wonderfully illustrated piece of…

Katrin Bohn • 9th September 2019

Extract of the book cover of the Urban Agriculture Book Series at Springer (source: Springer www 2019)

Katrin Bohn joins editorial board of Urban Agriculture Book Series

It is an honour for Katrin to have been invited onto the editorial board of the Urban Agriculture Book Series at Springer by the editors Christine Aubry, Éric Duchemin and Joe Nasr. The Urban Agriculture Book Series at Springer is for researchers, professionals, policymakers and practitioners working on agriculture in and near urban areas. Urban…

Katrin Bohn • 9th August 2019

Cover of the publication (source: Urban Design International www 2019)

New publication Urban Design for Food Systems out now

We are happy to share the announcement (on 7th July) of a special issue of Urban Design International on “Urban Design for Food Systems” that June Komisar and Joe Nasr guest edited. Extract from the issue’s introduction: The focus of this special issue of Urban Design International is […] the food system, recognizing that this…

Katrin Bohn • 15th July 2019

Cover of the publication Urban Food Sharing (source: Anna Davies / Sharecity www 2019)

Urban food sharing in the 21st century: Come dine with us!

Last week ended with Katrin meeting Dr. Ferne Edwards from RMIT Europe, the Royal Melbourne Institute’s European branch. Amongst the various subjects they explored was the recent (May 2019) publication Urban Food Sharing: rules, tool & networks compiling the results of SHARECITY, a European-funded research project led by Prof. Anna Davies at Trinity College Dublin,…

Katrin Bohn • 11th July 2019

Opening slide from Prof. Howard Davis’ presentation at the 26th ISUF (source: Howard Davis 2019)

Continuous Productive Industrial Landscapes

During “Cities as Assemblages”, the 2019 International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) held in Nicosia, Cyprus, in early July, Prof. Howard Davis from the School of Architecture and Environment at University of Oregon presented a new concept for Continuous Productive Industrial Landscapes. Reflecting on the needs for large vibrant cities like London and New York…

Andre Viljoen • 8th July 2019

Bohn&Viljoen's Cuba exhibit at Hands On Urbanism (source: Elke Krasny 2013)

INVITE: On Critical Care for a Broken Planet, Lecture by Elke Krasny on 26th June

Professor Elke Krasny will be coming to the University of Brighton on 26th June to give a lecture titled On Critical Care for a Broken Planet –Architecture and Urbanism beyond the Capitalocene, an event sponsored by the Centre for Spatial, Environmental and Cultural Politics. In medical terms, critical care, also known as intensive care, is…

Katrin Bohn • 24th June 2019

Architect and food thinker Carolyn Steel refers to CPUL concept in her new article

“Food is the tissue of civilization, weaving cities and countries together. In her essay, architect and food thinker Carolyn Steel provides a powerful prompt for us to reconsider the geographic and societal interdependency of urban centers and food-providing ecosystems and to find a way to move beyond the perils of the modern industrial food complex.”…

Katrin Bohn • 31st May 2019

(Spatial) opportunity map for London's Eastern expansion zone, the Thames Gateway (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2004)

Knowledge on opportunity and food mapping to be shared internationally

Katrin Bohn has prepared two short lectures to be shown to an international audience of city planners, urban food practitioners and food and water researchers early next month. The lectures use knowledge gathered by Bohn&Viljoen over a number of years through their practice-based CPUL design research and condense it into bite-sized information indented to trigger…

Katrin Bohn • 23rd April 2019

Fridays for Future Global Climate Strike in Berlin (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2019)

INVITE: Do join us for the Global Climate Strike!

This Friday, 15th March 2019, the first Global Climate Strike will happen in many countries of the world. It is inspired by and part of the Fridays for Future movement which, since months, sees school children and young people in many towns and cities take to the streets every Friday to demonstrate for urgent and…

Katrin Bohn • 11th March 2019

Female Firsts, one of three exhibitions accompanying the symposium (source: aia brighton www 2019)

INVITE: Fielding Architecture Symposium

We are pleased to announce the call for papers for the international symposium Fielding Architecture: Feminist Practices for a Decolonised Pedagogy to be held at the University of Brighton on June 24th and June 25th 2019. Led by our academic colleagues Dr Catalina Mejia Moreno and Dr Emma Cheatle, the 2-day symposium will be held…

Katrin Bohn • 31st January 2019

2010 United Nations’ policy report more relevant than ever!

One of the first publications Dong and Katrin looked at in their joint research is the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies’ policy report on cities, biodiversity and governance published in October 2010. Given the current urgency of climate action, this report could not be more timely. Already in 2010, it made reference to…

Katrin Bohn • 7th January 2019

M E R R Y _ C H R I S T M A S _ 2 0 1 8 !

We wish all our readers a peaceful and joyous festive season! If you have time between the years, we recommend a book Katrin was given by her friend Barbara: Wanderlust: A history of walking by Rebecca Solnit has already been written in 2002 yet many of its profound observations – if not all – on…

Katrin Bohn • 24th December 2018

Analysis of the aerial photo of Amir-Abad Garden clarifies the quality of synthesis of the utilitarian agriculture with pleasure gardening. It creates two kinds of sceneries concerning their separation in plants, position, direction, planting design, and application. (source: Khalilnezhad, M.R. (2016) Urban agriculture as a tool for city and landscape planning in Iran with emphasis on the role of Persian Gardens, PhD thesis, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, p 68)

PhD thesis based on Continuous Productive Urban Landscape (CPUL) in Iran

We are happy to share a dissertation written by Dr Mohammad Reza Khalilnezhad from Iran who, by his own words, is one of the first landscape architects in Iran to work scientifically on edible landscapes. His PhD, entitled Urban agriculture as a tool for city and landscape planning in Iran with emphasis on the role…

Dong Chu • 13th November 2018

Edible Mapping, UK

Dr Mikey Tomkins, honorary research fellow at University of Brighton, works within the field of urban agriculture through academic research and artistic practises. Dr Tomkins has worked in Iraq and the US mapping and creating community gardens for refugees. He has also spent time training beekeepers and building over 50 apiaries across London. Dr Mikey…

Jasmine Cook • 2nd October 2017

Turin in Italy aims to use regenerated soil for urban forestry and public green spaces throughout the city. (source: proGIreg www 2022)

Productive Green Infrastructure, Europe

The international project Productive Green Infrastructure for post-industrial urban regeneration (proGIreg) was founded under the umbrella of European Union’s Horizon 2020 innovation action programme and runs until 2023. Just like the CPUL concept, the proGIreg project aims to implement green infrastructure into urban spaces – with less focus on food-producing sites but on the renewal of post-industrial districts. In four front-runner…

Jasmine Cook • 1st May 2017