Agricultural Productive Public Space: “An Alternative for Increasing Ecological Services, Social Development and Urban Sustainability”

Abstract

The problems affecting major cities are expected to increase under the pressure exerted by climate change, population growth and the incremental nature of urban consumption. Therefore, it becomes necessary to increase urban sustainability and resilience in a way that improves the urban landscape and the lives of urban communities in the aspects of economic income, food vulnerability and the limited access to environmental justice. This study lays the ground basis for the consolidation of a new typology public space through urban agriculture on its different modes (geoponics, aquaponics, geoponics and hydroponics) and derived activities that address the needs of urban centers as it harbors environmental and urban improvement in a profitable way for the stakeholders involved in continuous productive urban landscape. Through a multi-cluster quantitative, and design research, this paper collects the different modes, urban agriculture can be employed in cities and describes a methodology for establishing an agricultural productive public space within the participation of communities, and how it can widen the spectrum of public participation based on a followed-up case study with a community located in the Huangpu district, adjacent to commercial and tourist activities in Shanghai, China. The results of this research represent a methodological approximation for the formalization of the local spatial development with a focus on the participatory approach, for the sake of increasing urban sustainability along with the socioeconomic needs of neighboring communities. The results also evidence the state of consciousness that architecture graduate and postgraduate students have about environmental limits and their conception for the creation of urban value in terms of sustainability.