Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture

Source: Ryerson University     

Everyone knows they should eat lots of fruits and vegetables. But the produce we eat doesn’t have to come from distant farmlands; it can be cultivated in the heart of the city. A new book by three Ryerson University researchers shows that urban agriculture can lead to visually striking and artistically interesting design solutions which in turn help foster communities and provide residents with immediate access to fresh, healthful ingredients.

Carrot City: Creating Places for Urban Agriculture (The Monacelli Press), which was released this month, is one of the first books of its kind to study the complementary relationship between urban agriculture and design. The book, intended for architects, design students and food-policy makers, presents strategies to enable sustainable food production and reintroduce urban agriculture to cities.

Carrot City was written by Mark Gorgolewski, professor of architectural science and director of the Canada Green Building Council; June Komisar, professor of architectural science and a member of the Toronto Food Policy Council; and Joe Nasr, an instructor in the certificate program in food security offered by Ryerson’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, and a co-ordinator at MetroAg: Alliance for Urban Agriculture. All three authors are associates at Ryerson’s Centre for Studies in Food Security, which promotes food security through research, dissemination, education, community action and professional practice.

“Urban agriculture provides city-dwellers with easy access to fresh veggies and cultural foods,” says Komisar. “It also teaches children about the importance of eating vegetables, and provides more nutritious food than the produce that is trucked in from great distances.”

While agriculture was once part of the urban landscape, it was eventually pushed out by municipal governments and the globalization of food production. Gorgolewski notes that a shift is underway. “In the late 20th century, people began to take notice of food issues and the growing importance of agriculture in urban design. Now, people ask ‘why don’t we create a green roof?’”

Showcasing the best in current design, Carroty City features more than 40 innovative projects, both conceptual and realized, that explore creative approaches to making space for urban food production. Ranging from ambitious urban plans to simple measures for growing food at home, the projects demonstrate what happens when city planning and architecture consider food production a requirement of design. The spectacular results include more community gardens, greenhouses that are tucked under raised highways, walls that bring greenery into dense city blocks, and green roofs on schools and large apartment buildings that can be tended and harvested by students and residents alike.

Carrot City grew out of an ongoing collaboration among Gorgolewski, Komisar and Nasr. With their overlapping interests in urban agriculture and sustainable design, the trio eventually came together and developed a 2008 Ryerson symposium on the role of food and agriculture in the design of buildings and cities.

A Tale of Two Cities - Contrasting Challenges for NZ's Two Largest Cities

2010/2011 saw contrasting fortunes for New Zealand’s two largest cities.

For Auckland, the amalgamation of 7 small local authorities into one “super-sized” Council, making it one of the largest city councils in the world, has finally given the city the opportunity to comprehensively and holistically plan for its future. The new “super-city” mayor has set out on an ambitious journey to prepare a 30 year “spatial plan” with the intention of making Auckland the world’s “most liveable city”.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s second largest city faced a completely contrasting scenario – one of grief, loss and devastation following two major earthquakes. The soon to follow Japanese disaster simply added to the emerging debate over what constitutes an appropriate 21st Century New Zealand urbanism.

Each of these cities is having to recognise the fragile nature of our planet, whilst under pressure to create a resilient, sustainable and adaptable city, one that is able to deal with issues such as population change (either rapid growth or potential decline), economic prosperity, safe location, food production, water conservation, energy, transportation – and the impact of all these issues on our patterns of behaviour.

This presentation will look for lessons learned from the approaches each of these cities is taking in dealing with extremely topical and pressing global and national issues, but faced with vastly contrasting circumstances.

Mr Alistair Ray, Associate Director, Senior Urban Designer, JASMAX New Zealand, a presentation at the International Urban Design Conference in 2011

Making the Pea Change

The overlapping trends of population growth, rezoning of agricultural land and fresh food price increases will be a national crises by 2050 unless comprehensive action is taken today.

Our challenge is increasing local agricultural productivity efficiently and without further compromising the natural environment or encouraging sprawl. By designing communities with the capacity to produce fresh food we are future- proofing the community from a reliance on external food sources and the insecurity associated with that.

The inherent ability for communities to contribute to fresh food production will counteract not only the rising cost of food as a consequence of fuel or freight, but will also contribute to healthier people and reduced medical costs. Our efforts over the past decade to create new, compact, sustainable development on the fringe has robbed the Australian farmer of his workplace.

Historically, food production has been limited to rural agricultural lands. Alternatively, this presentation will explore how the low-tech, original green solution of designing food producing neighbourhoods must be part of the solution. This productive overlay can be applied at varying levels; from urban agriculture where cities are retrofitted to grow food, through to agrarian urbanism where an entire society is dedicated to growing food.

We can no longer afford to develop under the guise of smart growth while depleting our most valuable natural resource- agricultural land. Understanding the various models for neighbourhood food production contributes to a community’s resilience toward the effects of climate change, issues of food security and affordability, depleting land supply and health on a physical and social scale.

Ms Angela Koepp, Senior Urban Designer, Roberts Day - a poster presentation at the International Urban Design Conference 2011

Future Urban Water Security

Sustainable Water Supply and Sewage collection is one of the most significant services and needs careful planning and management, not only in terms of infrastructure development, but also to maintain the minimal standard and continuity of the service.

Water scarcity facing many regions around the world is also critical to Australia. With rapid population growth and resulting urbanization, water demand is on rise, hard pressing the available resources.

Climate change adds further complexity by reducing the water quantity and accessibility and therefore increases the energy inputs and associated emissions to access and treat water. As Melbourne expands and existing areas are redeveloped, energy consumption associated with water distribution will also increase.

In the past decade, the stream flows supplying water to Melbourne have reduced by 40 to 60%. This trend is expected to continue for most major cities in Australia. Action is being taken to counter such changes. For example, the Australian Government recently committed to reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent below 2000 levels by 2050. However, solutions will require much thought, smarter design and innovative implementation.

Therefore, the water authorities need to re-evaluate the traditional approach which considers water supply, sewage disposal and stormwater drainage separately and to seek alternative ways to minimise the impact of urban planning on environment. This can be achieved by a more holistic view allowing all three components of water cycle, energy usage & GHG emissions and their interactions to be considered together throughout the various stages of urban water cycle. Recycling and reuse is the key to future proof our urban water security.

Dr Meenakshi Arora, Lecturer, University of Melbourne

Active Reform: improving opportunities for cycling in Perth, Western Australia

Many Australian cities are currently pursuing policies and strategies to increase rates of cycling.

This is in response to a transport reform agenda given increasing concern about fossil fuel dependence, greenhouse gas emissions and the quality (or lack thereof) of the urban environment. Moreover, there is growing understanding that increased rates of cycling could make a significant contribution to the public health agenda as a form of preventative treatment.

This is because cycling stimulates all major muscle groups, promotes good cardiovascular health and can treat health risk factors such as overweight/ obesity. However, while there is significant discussion around possible health benefits, there is inertia in actually delivering ‘cycleable’ environments.

This paper is arranged in three parts. First, it outlines the opportunities for promoting public health through cycle planning and facilitation. Second, it examines the current debate regarding the suitability of different cycling infrastructure including on-street lanes, shared paths, shared urban boulevards and Copenhagen-style paths. Tt identifies that while ‘no one approach fits all’, a relatively dense network plan that can link origins and nearby destinations (including transit stations), makes users feel safe, is legible and supported by good route information and end-of-trip facilities is likely to be the most successful.

Third, it discusses some current examples of where comprehensive cycle networks are being developed as part of integrated land use and transport plans in Perth, Western Australia.

Dr Ryan Falconer, Senior Transport Planner, Arup, at the International Urban Design Conference in 2011

Embodied Carbon of Commonly Specified Materials in Architecture

Buildings consume 50% of the world’s energy resources. Much attention has been devoted to operational energy use in buildings with increasingly stringent legislation, guidance and standards over the last two decades. Energy efficiency is a commonly used term which is now familiar to most home owners.
Less well understood is the concept of Embodied Energy (EE); the energy needed to transform raw materials in the ground into a completed building, including raw material extraction, processing and manufacturing, transportation, and construction.

It is the energy which has been constructed into a building and which cannot be recovered during the lifetime of the building, regardless of operational efficiencies. Architects and designers are currently handicapped by a lack of usable information in the right form, which can be used to quickly and effectively assess the energy, carbon and/or environmental impact of materials specified. As progress is made towards zero carbon buildings, research shows that the embodied energy of a building will increase both in absolute and percentage terms.

By 2019 embodied carbon, in theory, will make up 100% of a building’s footprint. This paper describes the status quo in embodied energy of materials: its research, policy status and application within the built environment. The paper also describes how the authors adapted current published embodied energy and carbon values, materials ratings and environmental product information into a useable set of pro formas for architectural specification in new build and retrofit projects. A number of commonly specified materials are discussed, and examples of how low carbon design information can be used to inform projects are given.

To advocate truly sustainable and low carbon architecture requires skilled designers to champion low carbon building design issues, and ensure that data is easily applied and information presented in a useable format.

Dr Gillian Menzies Lecturer - Environment and Climate Change Michael Laird Architects - speaker at the International Urban Design Conference in 2011