Since 2009, the office StudioMEB (architecture, planning and landscape), is developing action research in the field of sustainable landscape planning and sustainable food planning design. The office created the research platform GreenEngines, with the aim of exploring the potentialities of productive landscapes to generate a sustainable territory that is respectful to the existing local environment with a multifunctional character, community involvement, heritage and cultural identity. GreenEngines develops as a pedagogic tool in the education of multidisciplinary teams, involving students of architecture, geography, landscape architecture, design, urban planning and environmental studies among others. Through education, students can understand the complexity involved in strategic landscape planning for the preservation, creation or re-invention of productive landscapes, with the objective to reach a sustainable equilibrium between economy, society, culture, the environment, and food production. Our work methodology takes into consideration landscape urbanism, landscape planning, environmental planning and theory of complexity principles. Our premise is the academic and professional collaboration, at an international level, with experts, to create a transversal platform of exchange of knowledge, among different disciplines (geographers, environmentalists, landscape architects, architects, town planners, and designers) that integrate their knowledge in a common goal. For each case study, we establish contact with local governments, town halls and local institutions that collaborate with us, providing information about the real local problematic, and the expertise of the local professionals involved. The research objective is to draw a strategic landscape plan for the future development of the case study site, taking into account flexible dynamics, scenario thinking, actors involved, and processes over time, which relate with changes and re-adaptation. The present chapter describes how sustainable food planning studies fit into the present debate on landscape urbanism and productive landscapes. Landscape urbanism, in our research approach involves social analysis, cultural and community patterns. The chapter explains in detail the research structure of GreenEngines as a pedagogic tool and the response of European schools to our teaching methodology, evaluating obstacles and drivers in this initiative.
Sustainable food planning: evolving theory and practice
EditorsAndré Viljoen and Johannes S.C. Wiskerke
Published: hardback 2012, e-book (PDF) first published 2016 Pages: 600
eISBN: 978-90-8686-826-1 | ISBN: 978-90-8686-187-3
Book Type: Edited Collection
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