Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: Designing Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities

Urban Farm DB summary

A pioneering work proposing the concept of 'Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPUL)' that integrates urban agriculture into urban spatial planning. It frames urban agriculture as green infrastructure linking food-producing sites with other open spaces into a continuous linear landscape across the city, and has become a theoretical starting point for productive green infrastructure and edible-city research.

An important characteristic of CPULs is the way in which a variety of occupations occur, such as gardening, farming, commuting, playing sport, leisure time activities like parties and picnics, which are undertaken by a variety of occupants, for example, schoolchildren, market gardeners, city dwellers, retired people. . . . This variety of occupants may engage with one or more of the occupations found within CPULs. The range of possible permutations between an individual occupant of a CPUL and their single, or many, activities or occupations is large and greater than in many public facilities, such as leisure centres. CPULs combine the tranquil qualities of a park with physical activities. They are as likely to be occupied by someone seeking a place to rest and read, as by someone else wanting physical exercise (Figure 25.1). Continuous networks or local areas of productive urban landscape will provide the space for a variety of activities. Open-air sports areas can be imagined, not bounded by a fence, or enclosed by a roof, but rather a loose network of paths for running and fields for games, like an open-air gym. Schools, leisure centres and clubs overlooking Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes gain access to a shared public realm, providing external space for a number of activities and occupations.