The Food Urbanism Initiative (FUI) aims to examine the overall impact of food on urban design and to study the potential of new architectural and landscape strategies for the integration of food production, processing, distribution and consumption in the contemporary Swiss city.
Prime farmland surrounding the planet’s urban areas is being consumed by low density peri-urban development as the majority of the world’s population moves to the city. At the same time, the need for food to feed the urban population increases. In order to maintain the quality of life in our future cities, secure urban food systems, and protect the broader global environment, the relationship between food and the city must be drastically re-envisioned.
The Food Urbanism Initiative examines the existing fabric of the Swiss city in terms of its potential for incorporating urban agricultural initiatives so to develop design strategies at multiple scales (building, neighborhood and city) and policies for future urban development that integrate both city life and food production cycles into a more harmonious coexistence that is socially, economically, and environmentally responsible.
FUI is piloted by urban designers, architects, and landscape architects and draws on the expertise of researchers in fields ranging from agriculture, our first culture, to digital culture, our latest. These sciences and cultures meet in the spatial realm of the contemporary city. Using a careful analysis of existing urban conditions, agricultural systems, project precedents, public attitudes, and legislative policies, FUI proposes spatial design solutions to inform urbanism, architecture, landscape and the public realm.
The FUI methodology relies upon the development of a set of essential tools including a webportal, public opinion survey, a parametric modeling engine, protoyping and a series of case study pilot projects corresponding to multiple scales of intervention. Food Urbanism proposals, programs and projects are sprouting up across the globe and are beginning to provide valuable insight. FUI hopes to advance these efforts by thoroughly researching the movement to actively develop solutions reinforcing the liaison between theory and practice, between architecture and agriculture, between city and farm.
A comprehensive public opinion survey, distributed among a random sample of 2’500 inhabitants of the FUI case study area, the city of Lausanne is launched in the FUI first phase. The survey inquires about the willingness to purchase urban vegetables and about their perception regarding their characteristics. Preferences regarding leisure time, public space use, gardening and the cultivation of vegetables of fruits are examined. Public interests such as the possible spatial, aesthetic, ecological and social effects of food production are additionally considered. The survey’s evaluations of the market products, leisure opportunities and the public interest are put into the larger context of the respondents’ perceptions regarding topics such as food security, local food supply and the preservation of natural and cultural resources.
FUI creates and incorporates the webportal www.foodurbanism.org as a vital tool for research and implementation, one critical to the success of the short-term, intermediate and long-term goals of the initiative. Foodurbanism.org aims to establish a dynamic, mesh-like connection with the world of urban agriculture and its many actors working in the area of spatial development. It is a mechanism to give identity to the Food Urbanism Movement, to assemble and build an on-line community, to catalyze pluri-disciplinary interaction within our community and to disseminate the research in the field of urban agriculture.
The Food Urbanism Atlas germinates from its genesis Foodurbanism.org. The Atlas is a collection of projects, efforts and initiatives that contribute to the diverse range of endeavors infusing strands of our food cycle into the urban domain. It is an environment where authors of projects across all disciplines, geographies and cultures contribute their work while feedback, input and insight is elicited from other contributors. The Atlas becomes not only a repository of information but a tool for the generation and dissemination of ideas and information enriching the knowledge and dynamism around the projects and the urban agriculture movement.
Projects supporting urban agriculture are in desperate need of support, development and testing. The Food Urbanism Initiative hopes to fertilize the new and promising field of urban agriculture by propelling current research and defining new ground for its implementation. By engaging these two disparate yet essential fields in constructive dialogue so as to examine the complex relationship between farming and the city the FUI seeks to enrich both while producing new strategies for urban quality.
FUI is supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation under the National Research Programme NRP 65 “New Urban Quality”.
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