Architecture for a Green Capital: Beyond the environmental handbook

Last week, Peter Clegg, founding partner of FCB Studios and part of the design team behind the new Bristol Arena, gave his keynote lecture - Architecture for a Green Capital: Beyond the environmental handbook.

Presenting lessons learnt from a three-decade pursuit of new environmental approaches to architecture - from self-built experiments in passive solar design at the domestic scale in the 1980s to the increasingly complex social and political issues that shape our contemporary cities - Clegg set out his definition of Architecture for a Green Capital that will help shape the agenda for the City Ideas Studio programme,

Listen to the audio recording of this lecture here.

This event was part of Bristol's Big Green Week, with hexagonal planters made by Bee Bristol, one of which is now outside the front door of the Architecture Centre. Bee Bristol will be featured in the Nature element of the studio too.

For information about upcoming City Ideas Studio events, visit:
http://architecturecentre.co.uk/events

Knitiffi: Makers of the knitted fruit and veg in the City Ideas Studio

Want to know more about the knitted fruit and veg that features in the City Ideas Studio: Food?



Knitiffi is a collective of knit artists, including both service users and staff and friends of Milestones Trust.

The Knitiffi project is developed and facilitated by artist Ali Brown: “We create large scale knitted installations, usually based around the concept of knit graffiti. Our mission is to make the world a brighter, happier place; to highlight our immediate surroundings by animating the inanimate. Through ‘chance’ encounters with our installations we hope to provoke reactions to alter peoples’ perspectives on everyday objects."

Read about the latest Knitiffi projects on their blog, and look out for their yarn insects in the next element of the City Ideas Studio - Nature (15 July - September 2015).

Event Reminder: Urban Wanderings - Green Routes

Guided walk: Wednesday 17 June 2015, 18:00, £6/£4

Meeting place given at time of booking: 0117 922 1540

Urban design and conservation specialist Alistar Brook guides this walk from Brunel's Mile to Temple Meads, using the five Bristol Green Capital themes (Food, Nature, Resources, Energy and Transport) to explore ideas and projects en route that are working to make Bristol a happier, helathier, better connected and more resourceful city.

Pop-up speakers for this event include Melissa Mean (Redcliffe Forum) talking about plans for Redcliffe Way and Claire Raikes from Incredible Edible Bristol talking about that project, food sovereignty and their Urban Growing Trail which runs from Millennium Square to Bristol Temple Meads. 

The walk will last up to 90 minutes. The walk passes over some uneven. Please wear suitable footwear and clothing.

This event is part of BIG Green Week, as is the City Ideas Studio keynote lecture on Tuesday 16 June - find out more and book now.

Join Grow Bristol on Thursday 11 June for the launch of the Urban Growing Trail

Incredible Edible Bristol, Grow Bristol and Bee The Change are collaborating on an exciting project that is bringing food growing to the centre of the city. You will see a trail of food growing spaces springing up as you walk from Platform 3 at Temple Meads past the council offices at 100 Temple Street and along Redcliffe Way to Millennium Square. Its aim is to inspire and educate – showing that food growing can be, and is, relevant in the urban landscape, as well as to provide free food for people and pollinators. Take a look at the most recent #UrbanFoodTrail Map above (which will be updated as more gardens appear) and find out what’s planted where and when to harvest.

June 11th: Urban Growing Trail Opening 

At Engine Shed, from 2-5pm, Incredible Edible Bristol and Grow Bristol, collaborating partners on the Urban Growing Trail, will be holding an afternoon where you're invited to come along and see the Grow Bristol aquaponics pod as well as see some of the Urban Growing Trail gardens. 

The team looks forward to seeing you and talking to you about the trail, how it came about as well as their hopes for how it will progress into the future and help both communities and businesses engage with urban food production as we move forwards as a city.

Feeding the Future City family event

On Saturday 23 May the Architecture Centre held a fun and creative drop-in workshop where families were asked to ponder how cities of the future will feed themselves, as part of the Architecture Centre’s City Ideas Studio food season. Models of possible designs for a future city were built; demonstrating various ways cities of the future could feed themselves sustainably, using buildings and spaces to maximise the amount of food it grows. This is important because as the population of the world increases and more people in cities (some in Megacities of 10 million+ people), transport and space will be limited and expensive, we will need to grow more food and more in our cities to decrease transport costs.

Families were asked to think of ways we can utilise any public space to grow food locally, growing food on and in houses/flats, urban food farms and reducing food waste, transport and energy costs. The models were added to our future model city and there were many innovative and creative ideas including:

• Bananas grown from lampposts
• Vertical farming in the form of a ‘tower of carrots’
• Open top buses that will grow food on the roof
• A ferry that transports and grows plums, utilising water space

Families who took part were given edible seedlings to take home and grow into tasty beans. Children that were inspired by the drop-in workshop were encouraged to enter the Architecture Centre’s My Green City Design Challenge for schools. #mygreencity

You can download a copy of the Feeding the Future City Family Activity here and the Image Montage sheet here.

This event was part of the Architecture Centre’s My Green City 2015 Learning and Participation programme and took place during our City Ideas Studio food residency.

Your Green Future event at University of the West of England

On the 19 and 20 May the Architecture Centre took the City Ideas Studio food theme on tour - taking part in the Your Green Future 2015 event held at the University of the West of England. Over 300 secondary school students signed up to work alongside over 40 businesses in a range of interactive workshops. Your Green Future recognises that a low carbon economy and new environmental technologies are key growth sectors for the region. The event aimed to actively engage young people in thinking about an environmentally friendly and sustainable future city.

The Architecture Centre’s workshop Your Green City focused on the theme of food, asking the big question ‘How will cities feed themselves in the future?’ We asked the students to think about how our cities will need to be designed differently as the population of the world increases and most people will be living in cities (many in Megacities of 10 million+ people). Space and land will be limited and expensive, costs of transporting food will increase, it is time to think about how we can utilise any space we can find to grow our food more locally, helping to meet the predicted 70% increase in global food production in a sustainable and creative way.

Groups of 35-40 students were split into teams of 6/7. Architects from White Design, Noma Architects, Buro Happold, Askew Architects and Skanska as well as two current UWE Architecture and Planning students worked with the student teams as mentors. The groups were asked to take on the role of architect, landscape architect or master planner and develop 2D and 3D design ideas for a future city, thinking about how public spaces could be used to grow food, (eg. roundabouts, graveyards, roadside verges). Students could also think about designing vertical farms, indoor growing spaces on a domestic and industrial scale and altering buildings so they can grow as much food as possible (using wall and roof spaces).

After a kickstarter presentation the students had to develop their own designs, first drawing 2D plans and then constructing 3D models. At the end of each workshop students shared their ideas with the rest of the group, highlighting the key design solutions to the challenge ‘how will cities feed themselves in the future’. With the support of their professional mentors, the students came up with some innovative ideas, including:

• A tiered cake-stand inspired tall building for growing vegetables (with light loving plants such tomatoes/strawberries grown nearest the top)
• Turning  disused  mines into underground mushroom farms
• Boat farms to utilise space on water which could also transport food to where it was needed whilst growing it
• Using wind turbines to create energy to pump rainwater around buildings to water food crops growing on walls and roofs 

Students and teachers who were inspired by the workshop were encouraged to:

• enter the Architecture Centre’s My Green City Design Challenge for Schools
• attend the Architecture Centre’s free Feeding the Future City Family event

#YourGreenFuture   #mygreencity

City Ideas Studio: Food - the private view

Want to see what makes Bristol a green capital, bursting with eco ideas? Hundreds of interested people who came along to the launch of the City Ideas Studio earlier this month did too. Exploring food solutions for a sustainable future, the Food exhibition is on until 5 July.

Special thanks to catering partner, Source Food Hall & Cafe.

Thanks to Frances Gard for the photography.

Food: The organisations involved

A city like Bristol, known for its vibrant foodie scene, has as many organisations working to improve the production, supply, cooking and eating of food as you'd expect. Maybe more.

When programme manager Rob Gregory and exhibitions and events curator Jodie Marks began pulling together the content for the first of the five City Ideas Studio exhibitions, they looked at global research from pioneers such as CJ Lim. They also spoke to plenty of well known Bristol organisations specialising in various aspects of food, and those operating well off the mainstream radar alike.

Here, we introduce you to the groups that are showcasing their work within the Food exhibition:

C J Lim

CJ Lim has over 20 years experience in the design of the built environment. Winner of the 2006 Royal Academy of Arts London Summer Exhibition Grand Architecture Prize, he is also the Professor of Architecture and Cultural Design at the Bartlett, University College London.
Lim is author of Food City. Published in 2014, the book addresses the frameworks of over 25 international cities through the medium of food and how the city is governed. It then explores how a secondary infrastructure could function as a living environmental and food system operating as a sustainable stratum over the city of London.

Good Food Plan 

The Good Food Plan for Bristol is a vision for an achievable future in which the city is truly sustainable, known for the vibrancy and diversity of its food culture, and for a food system which is good for people, places and the planet. Visible and celebrated in every corner, fresh, seasonal, local, organic and fairly traded food that is tasty, healthy and affordable would be available to all. City-dwellers of every age and from every background develop skills in growing and cooking, and are practically involved in creating a positive and inclusive food culture in their own communities.

Bristol Food Network

Bristol Food Network supports, informs and connects individuals, community projects, organisations and businesses who share a vision to transform Bristol into a sustainable food city, taking its wider objectives from A Good Food Plan for Bristol (above).

Food Connections

Bristol Food Connections is a unique, citywide food festival (1-9 May) that celebrates Bristol’s diverse food culture and community. Visitors of all ages will be taken on a journey through the city to discover and enjoy new foods, eateries, discussions and opportunities.

Grow Bristol

Grow Bristol is a new urban farming enterprise developing, demonstrating and delivering innovative and sustainable ways of growing food in the city spaces of Bristol for the benefit of all its inhabitants and the wider world.

The Fish Project aquaponics

Bristol Fish Project is a community-supported aquaponics farm in Bristol experimenting with the commercial viability of urban aquaponic farming, to explore how aquaponic farming can help to close urban material loops, and to build community through innovative, collaborative local food systems.

Incredible Edible

Incredible Edible Bristol is a community food growing movement inspired by the global urban edible and food sovereignty movements and the Incredible Edible Todmorden story, bring together the citizens of Bristol to grow food – and community – in underused and loved spaces.

Kitchen on Prescription

Kitchen on Prescription aims to make the provision of healthy eating and cooking courses at community training kitchens part of mainstream healthcare – where GPs refer patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and obesity to a local healthy-eating cooking course.

FareShare South West

FareShare South West is an independent franchise of the national charity, FareShare, working with the food industry to minimise fit-for-purpose fresh, frozen and long-life food going to waste, and send this food into organisations working with the most vulnerable people in the community.

Food Route

Food Route redistributes food that is destined for landfill to community groups and charities that can use the food to feed people in myriad ways.

The Matthew Tree Project FOODTURES

FOODTURES is a sustainable city-wide plan to fight the underlying causes of poverty, improve health and connect communities. FOODTURES is a pioneering initiative that has the potential to provide a real step-change for society in addressing local, healthy food, teaching people new skills, providing qualifications, creating jobs, and transforming communities. .

Chelsea Fringe

The Chelsea Fringe in Bristol (16 May - 7 June) is a festival for everyone who’s interested in gardens and gardening, community growing initiatives and having a bit of fun.

Bristol Food Producers

Bristol Food Producers is a new endeavor, funded through the Bristol Green Capital strategic fund, to help to support the scaling up of the local food system in Bristol.

Trinity Art Centre: Grow It Cook It Eat It project

A project chosen by the community for the community, Grow It, Cook It, Eat It is funded by the European Green Capital for the Easton and Lawrence Hill areas to get excited about growing, cooking and enjoying healthy food together.