Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

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Author: Archdeacon, Katharine Frances × Start date: 2010 × Subject: resilience ×

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    Urban agriculture design for resilient cities
    Archdeacon, Katharine Frances ( 2015)
    How might urban agriculture practices be more explicitly designed and managed to contribute to the resilience of urban socio-technical-ecological systems? The observed and potential impacts on cities of climate change and resource scarcity are being identified as motivations for theoretical and practical research into urban resilience. Urban agriculture (UA)–the production of food in urban environments–is argued by theorists and practitioners as one way to increase the resilience of cities by reducing vulnerabilities of current food supply systems. The anticipated value of UA in resilient cities contributes in part to a growing field of theory and practice focused on the task of designing and integrating UA into existing urban landscapes. This thesis reframes UA as a socio-technical-ecological system (STES) in which practitioners–consciously or otherwise–manage resources and relationships to produce ecosystem services. Framing UA in this way informed the selection of four case studies–three in the UK and one in the Netherlands–that seek to generate multiple benefits by creating UA networks across several sites in a city. Design research methods used in the fieldwork data collection and analysis stages revealed patterns that describe methods of working with UA as a STES that has cycles of growth and collapse. The patterns tested positively for coherence through discussion with urban agriculture practitioners in Melbourne. A comparison of the case studies and patterns with resilience methods and principles revealed correlations and gaps between the two. Working with social and ecological diversity, embracing experimentation and risk in socio-ecological systems are resilience-building principles that occurred in the case studies. Working at multiple scales and preparing innovative projects in anticipation of disturbance in the STES are resilience-building principles that were not identified in the case studies or patterns. The scope of the case studies in this thesis was limited to those that worked on multiple sites in a city because the presence of distributed urban agriculture is anticipated to contribute to urban resilience. The thesis found, within these limitations, that there are some correlations between resilience-building principles developed from rural and peri-urban case studies and the UA practices investigated. It also found gaps between the principles and the UA practices. The UA case studies demonstrated some common patterns of practice that were recognisable, if unusual, to UA practitioners in Melbourne. There is some possibility that UA network practices might be more explicitly aligned with resilience-building principles and that patterns might continue to be drawn from them, allowing such methods to be applied in different cities.