Furniture Design Ideas

Andre Viljoen and Katrin Bohn The compact city model is currently favoured as that most likely to support sustainable development. Its major benefit in relation to environmental sustain­ability is the reduction in travelling distances and hence transport, due to compaction and mixed-use development. We see Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (CPULs) complementing compaction, by including the […]

With the introduction of CPULs, habitat for animals and birds will increase and therefore so will bio­diversity, an example of Ecological Intensification. At the same time, the development of composting systems in support of organic urban agriculture will improve soil condition. Sight and sounds within the city will change. Composting will reduce the num­ber of […]

In London, this is achieved by identifying existing patches of un – or under-developed land, of parks or playing fields and then planning and designing their inter-connection. Generally, roads provide the con­necting element. Careful consideration of access requirements and circulation patterns usually indi­cates a number of roads that may be closed to through-traffic (see Plates […]

One of the first questions asked about the viability of urban agriculture in existing cities is: where will the land come from? The answer will depend on whether the urban agriculture is to be located within the built-up area of an existing city or if it is to be sited within a planned urban extension […]

Economic return from ground-use can be meas­ured in two ways: one way is to measure direct economic benefits resulting from new employ­ment and enterprises; and the other, arguably more important in the long term, is to measure reductions in environmental degradation, due to pro­ductive urban landscapes. These benefits, accru­ing from reduced environmental impact, lessen the […]

Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen VARIETY OF OCCUPATION AND OCCUPANTS An important characteristic of CPULs is the way in which a variety of occupations occur, such as gar­dening, farming, commuting, playing sport, leisure time activities like parties and picnics, which are undertaken by a variety of occupants, for example, schoolchildren, market gardeners, city dwellers, retired […]

Rivers and fields contribute to persistent visual stimulation, a characteristic of productive urban landscapes. In some cases direct relationships exist between spaces with different temporal rhythms, for example a river, with its frequent sur­face undulations reflecting a dappled light, and a gentle sound, seen against the slower rhythms of crop lifecycles. The arrangement of furrows […]

Natural landscapes, those that are wild and unman­aged, exist in the city with a diminished significance, Figure 24.8 Newark CPUL: Elevated terraced houses step down towards an adjacent riverbank. The broken-up terrace, sloping Westwards, minimizes overshadowing of urban agriculture fields and provides continuity of surface and access between fields. Figure 24.10   Figure 24.9   […]

Benefits occur no matter what the scale of interven­tion. Modest linear fields (Figure 24.1), can provide space for paths, which connect private and public spaces. Making their adjacency visible encourages movement between the two. The paths and connect­ing landscape can be thought of as interventions Figure 24.5 Newark CPUL: Houses, paths and fields. Figure 24.6 […]

It is reasonable to expect that during the first stages of implementation of CPULs, a series of small interventions will, be made, eventually leading to an extensive network of connected spaces. Such Figure 24.2 Victoria Park CPUL: Small pieces of land, such as this one between two live/work units, can accommodate micro fields that are […]