Productive Urban Landscapes

Research and practice around the CPUL design concept

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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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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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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The panel discussion is part of the exhibition Eco-Visionaries which is on show at the Royal Academy of Arts from 23th November 2019 until 23th February 2020. (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2020)

Eco-Visionairies panel discussion at the Royal Academy of Arts, London

On Monday, Katrin Bohn presented her and Andre Viljoen’s work at London’s Royal Academy of Arts Designing from a depleted world event, as part of the RA’s Eco-Visionaries: Confronting a planet in a state of emergency exhibition. Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator of General Ecology at the Serpentine Galleries, chaired a three-way presentation and dialogue with artist-architect…

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Mapping food and its producers in an urban district in the City of Cologne, Germany, as part of the DQE urban generation project Urbane Agrikultur in Köln-Ehrenfeld. (source: Dirk Melzer 2011)

Paper accepted for Anthropology and Geography conference

Katrin Bohn will be presenting at the Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present, and Future conference in London later this year. Her abstract was accepted for the panel Mapping the Edible City: Making visible communities and food spaces in the city which she is also co-convening with Dr Ferne Edwards (RMIT), Prof Andre Viljoen (University…

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The Breast Milk of the Volcano by Unknown Fields, panellists with Smout Allen and Katrin Bohn (source: Unkown Fields www 2016-8)

INVITE: “Designing from a depleted world” at the Royal Academy of Arts in London

On Monday 27th January 2020, 6.30 — 8pm, the second public panel discussion accompanying the RA’s Eco-Visionaries exhibition will take place at the Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The panellists, including Katrin Bohn, reflect on the impact of human action on Earth’s depleting resources and discuss…

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Mapping food and its producers in an urban district in the City of Cologne, Germany, as part of the DQE urban regeneration project Urbane Agrikultur in Köln-Ehrenfeld. (source: Bohn&Viljoen Architects and DQE 2011)

INVITE: Be part of our conference panel “Mapping the Edible City” !

Please allow us to remind you of our call for papers/contributions for next year’s Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present, and Future conference on 4-7th June 2020 hosted by The Royal Anthropological Institute, The British Academy, The British Museum, the Royal Geographical Society and SOAS University of London. Our panel, Mapping the Edible City: Making…

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The Skip Garden (source: Global Generation www 2019)

Visit of the Skip Garden in London

Today, we are lucky to have our Japanese academic visitor Akane Bessho here to jointly visit several community-based urban agriculture projects in Central London and discussed the commonalities and differences of urban agriculture between London, China and Tokyo. We would like to introduce a lovely community garden named Skip Garden, run by the charity Global…

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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.”…

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A Mulberry Tree in the London Borough of Hampstead (source: Museum of Walking / Peter Coles www 2019)

INVITE: Midweek Midday Mulberries this Wednesday 16th of January

This Wednesday, 16th of January, the Museum of Walking is inviting to one of its famous London lunchtime walking tours. Please meet at 12.30 pm at Belsize Park Underground Station for about an hour of exploring the wealth of London’s food-productive urban landscape. This is what the Museum of Walking says: This lunchtime walk starts…

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Illistration of a perspective of someone's view outward at agriculture and the Thames as they eat. (Source: Future Architecture, 2021)

Greater London Agriculture, UK

During first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) launched the architectural competition Rethink: 2025. Considering the role of architectural industry in shaping a better post-pandemic world, architects and students were asked to think of life in 2025 and submit positive and tangible responses to issues arising from the pandemic, specifically…

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Map of the South-East London Green Chain (Source: Gov.Co.Uk, 2022)

The South-East London Green Chain, UK

The South-East London Green Chain was created in 1977 by the Greater London Council and four London boroughs – Bexley, Bromley, Lewisham and Royal Greenwich in order to protect the green areas from inappropriate building. Today it includes a fifth borough – Southwick – and links over 300 open spaces. The spaces are a combination…

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