Eco-Urban Agriculture. Design for distributed and networked urban farming in Shanghai

This paper introduces an innovative sustainable design project: “Eco-Urban Agriculture”— Design for distributed and networked urban farming in Shanghai. The goal of this project is to support a paradigm shift in the food model from a rural, disconnected, and monoculture model to an urban, connected and distributed model through creating prototypes of sustainable, urban farming systems. The key to developing these urban farming systems, is determining the functional characteristics and networked associations that contribute to the success of an urban farm. A systems approach is used, a design toolbox and an iterative development process are applied to evaluate the network and its impact on the model. It is important to note that during this prototyping stage, the immediate environment and social fabric will underlie the formation and type of urban farm network that can be created. Local resources will be used to integrate the urban farm into the local social and business networks. Stakeholders in the development of these new models are interdependent, local and include those in the fields of government, business, design, architecture and education. To conclude the paper summarizes the methodology used in this project and explores how the findings can contribute to design development of scalable eco-urban agriculture models.