Feeding cities: new trans-scale scenarios for Urban Agriculture

Yona Friedman’s vision of employing Urban Agriculture to eliminate the city’s dependence on the countryside by liberating agricultural land from exploitation is more pertinent than ever. In a world where cities are sustained by food produced in increasingly remote locations and the environmental impact of the agri-food supply chain grows ever more unsustainable, it is imperative to reconsider the relationship between urbanised areas and food production. Advances in soil-free cultivation technologies present new opportunities to integrate productive vegetation into urban and residential spaces. If deprived of utopian connotations, this approach invites reflection on the need for innovative design paradigms that integrate the built environment with cultivated spaces, fostering widespread and symbiotic interactions to promote sustainable regeneration.