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Paris Introduces 32 More Sites for Urban Farming

Paris Introduces 32 More Sites for Urban Farming

By Emilie Baliozian

Paris is famous across the world for its food, art and romance. But let it be known that Paris is also a leader when it comes to dedicating public and private land to urban farming.

The city launched its Parisculteurs initiative in 2016 with the ambitious goal of covering the city’s rooftops and walls with 100 hectares (247 acres) of vegetation by 2020. According to the city’s plan, one third of all this new green space will be dedicated to urban farming.

After 2 successful editions of Parisculteurs, where farmers, contractors, designers, architects and more came together to fulfill the goal of greening the city, season 3 of Parsiculteurs was officially launched this January.

This year, the city of Paris introduced 32 new sites suitable for urban agriculture projects. Last week, as part of this season’s call for proposals, deputy mayor of Paris Penelope Komites, in charge of the city’s parks and green spaces, hosted a workshop to present the new call for proposals and to prolong the conversations of Season 1 and 2, as well as to examine the projects that had come to fruition in the last few years.

 

Locations of the  32 Parisculteurs sites  introduced in 2019.

Locations of the 32 Parisculteurs sites introduced in 2019.

 

 

Professionalization of urban farmers

In her opening remarks at the Parisculteurs workshop this year, Komites stressed the importance of urban agriculture as a powerful vehicle for urban resilience, social ties, and job creation. The Parisculteurs program is meant to reinvent our relationship to food, to nature, and to the city by reintroducing the concept of farming, which has historically been excluded from urban contexts. More specifically, the program is meant to reinforce the professionalization and skills-building of urban agriculture professionals who wish to contribute to making Paris a model city for urban sustainability.

The workshop gave prospective farmers the opportunity to turn to urban agriculture professionals for technical advice, and for these professionals to share their experiences building and running urban farms in and around the city. The first half of the workshop was dedicated to a panel of public and private professionals, where technical issues such as operations, regulation, economic modeling, landscaping, and sanitation were explored. The second part of the workshop was dedicated to an activity where groups of 6-8 attendees were assigned a site and in charge of coming up with an urban ag proposal for that site’s specific context.

Transitioning urban ag out of the experimental stage

A major takeaway from the workshop is the need to transition urban agriculture out of the experimental stage and into a more established stage with models that are profitable, modular and replicable to other cities. Paris has made strides with sanitary, architectural, and landscaping issues, but legislation is now the next step in facilitating the rapid and massive deployment of urban agriculture in the city. As of now, prospective farmers must receive permits to operate (autorisation d’exploiter), declare their business to the Agriculture and Food Chamber, secure social protection (Mutualité Sociale Agricole), and thoroughly go through sanitary codes to put out healthy and risk-free produce into the market and to protect consumers and producers alike.

About the author: Emilie Baliozian is Sustainability Analyst at Agritecture Consulting and the founder of Climate Communicators, a platform offering communication tools and consulting services to those leading the fight against climate change.

Read all about this project on the original website of Agritecture here…

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2019

WHEN  Monday, May 13, 2019 – 2pm

WHERE  Auditorium,  CITÉ DE L’ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, 7 AVENUE ALBERT DE MUN – 75016 PARIS

 

Symposium Global Award for Sustainable Architecture™ 2019 with the conferences of the 5 laureates

 

The Global Award, created by the architect and scholar Jana Revedin in 2006, every year rewards five architects who contribute to a more equitable and sustainable development and build an innovative and participatory approach to meet the needs of societies, whether they are experts in eco-construction or self-development actors for whom sustainability is synonymous with social and urban equity. The originality of the prize is to federate them in a unifying scene, enriching the global debate. Attentive to emerging scenes, interdisciplinarity and experimental learning, the Global Award is recognized as a discoverer of 21st century architects : Wang Shu, Alejandro Aravena, Carin Smuts, Francis Kéré, Al Borde, Assemble, Rotor, Bijoy Jain or Marta Maccaglia.

At the Centenary of Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus, the Global Award 2019 honors the multidisciplinary and social-reformatory aim of the Bauhaus: “Architecture is science, art and crafts at the service of society.”

Each year the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture ™ recognizes five architects who share both the principles of sustainable development and a participatory architectural approach to the needs of society, in both the northern and the southern hemispheres.

The Global Award was created in 2006 by the architect and scholar Jana Revedin, in partnership with the Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine and the member institutions of its international scientific committee. In 2010 it was put under patronage of UNESCO.

The work carried out during the past ten years has assured the undisputed international recognition of the Global Award, proving its scientific independence and uniting the award winners in an avant-garde community of collective research and experimentation of architectural and urban self-development projects.

The Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine guarantees the cultural promotion of the prize by publicizing the work of the architects and their contribution to the global debate. Given the cultural and political importance of this movement, since 2017 the Cité produces the Global Awards, counting on its founder prof. Jana Revedin as the president of its scientific jury.

 

The Global Award scientific jury is composed by :

  • Jana Revedin, Founding President Global Award, Paris
  • Benno Albrecht, IUAV, Venise
  • Marie-Hélène Contal, Cité de l’Architecture & du Patrimoine, Paris
  • Spela Hudnik, International Architecture Biennale, Ljubljana
  • Deniz İncedayı, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul

 

 

 

The Founding Principles

Sustainable design is the catalyst for a new participative approach in architectural und urban planning processes. The very fundamentals of a project: durability, flexibility, economic, technical and ecological adequacy, cultural and social acceptance are being readdressed respecting society’s new concerns, fighting inequality, cultural disrespect and unreflected functionalism.

The Global Award Community, which consists of the 60 contemporary architects and teams from around the globe who have received the award, works towards a sustainable architectural ethic and fosters research, experimentation and transmission in the fields of sustainable architecture, urban renewal and academic social responsibility. It defines architecture as an agent of empowerment, self-development and civic rights.

 

 

 

Lauréats 2019 :

 

 

 

 

 

Photosource: www.citedelarchitecture.fr

The Global Award scientific jury honors for their groundbreaking approaches:

– Prof. Dr. Werner Sobek for his innovation and transmission excellency, directing the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design ILEK Stuttgart (Germany) in succession of Frei Otto and Jörg Schlaich.

– Prof. Ersen Gürsel for his lifelong context- and society-concerned Design-pedagogy at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul (Turkey), the school that since 1933 offered a home to major exponents of the Bauhaus movement – Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, on the run from Nazi-persecution.

– Rozana Montiel (Mexico), Ammar Khammash (Jordan) and Jorge Lobos (Chile) for their dedication to interdisciplinary scientific researches as well as artisanal and artistic approaches to architecture and the public, making them understandable, desirable and affordable for all.

The Symposium 2019 will be followed by a presentation of the books:
Sustainable Design VII – Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2018, Marie-Hélène Contal, Jana Revedin; Ed. Alternatives-Gallimard, 2019
Building with the immaterial, under the direction of Jana Revedin, Ed. Alternatives-Gallimard, Manifesto collection