Food City

How to feed one million city?

Spring 2010/2011 @ TU Delft
MSc 1/2 / AR1TWF010, AR2TWF010
31 January 2011 / 07 June 2011

The old Rome with its large storage of grain had only enough reserves for about three days. For today’s cities, this is even less. Cities have a symbiotic relationship with food. They are highly dependent on reliable supply, while what is left over after consumption forms a challenge for the cities’ infrastructure. If either fails, consequences can be lethal. Food means safety for the city.

The assignment of the studio was to design a city for 100.000 inhabitants, which is providing itself with all the food necessary for its inhabitants. There is no import and no export. All processes related to food production (farming, processing, distribution, recycling) are provided within the outline of the city.

The research for this studio focussed on technical and spatial requirements for a city that is self-sufficient for food: 1) Diet and surface: A quantification of how much food an average EU citizen annually consumes and how much agricultural surface is required to provide this food. 2) Hidden diet: An elaborated map which illustrates the above surfaces and combines them with quantified flows of water, food and waste. 3) Technology toolbox: A first set-up for a toolbox of technologies, which support space efficient agriculture. 4) Nutrient cycle: An analysis of different cycles of nutrients and fertilizer

Based on the analysis, four designs for the food city were developed: Food machine, Biological City and Integrated City.

Tutors

Prof. Winy Maas, Ulf Hackauf, Jeronimo Mejia

Students

Brendan Bakker, Hadas Eidaw, Phillipa Elliott, Imre van der Gaag, Tsz Kwan Law, Martijn van Mier, Lara Tomholt, Roland Freymond, Tanja Grubic, Andreas Ieridis, Natalia Kozyra, Francis Liesting, Julia Tin Yan Mok, Pierre Payot, Yi Tang, Jonathan Telkamp, Wang Wang

Guest Critics

midterm: Jago van Bergen (van Bergen Kolpa Architecten), Peter den Rooden (Stroom Den Haag) / final: Hans Rutten (Innovatienetwerk), Hiske de Ridder (Innovatienetwerk), Aukje van Rossel (De Groene Amsterdammer)

Collaborators

Innovatie Netwerk, Stroom Den Haag, van Bergen Kolpa Architecten, De Groene Amsterdammer

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