From Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes to Food Urbanism

This essay situates Food Urbanism within the development of design approaches to the integration of agriculture within cities. Beginning with the twentieth century’s modern movement in architecture it maps out contributions and stages in this development referencing key texts, research initiatives, exhibitions and organisations. It draws on research and insights from the authors pioneering Continuous Productive Urban Landscape concept, and Viljoen’s role as an advisor to the Food Urbanism initiative, defining key stages in the revaluation of agriculture’s role within urban environments.

The Food Urbanism initiative is then evaluated in relation to its contributions to this field of design research and significant challenges it raises for the future. The fine grained typological and motivational categories defined with in the Food Urbanism study are identified as major contribution to the knowledge base. Viable business models that value environmental and social benefit, the transfer skills from rural to urban domains, new skills for urban farming practitioners and identifying the right amount of space for urban farming are identified as areas requiring future research.