FOODSCAPES ZURICH

Design for an Agroecological Region

A GLOBAL PROBLEM
What we eat shapes the territory. Today’s food system relies on long-distance, year-round supply, few crop varieties, and industrial systems of agricultural production, that undermine the very foundations of life. Across the world, the intensification of agricultural territories leads to soil degradation, water pollution, and biodiversity loss, while significantly accelerating climate change. In Switzerland, a third of all species and half of all habitats are under threat and over fifty percent of Swiss water systems are in poor ecological condition. At the same time, these industrial agricultural practices are linked to precarious labour conditions, social exploitation, and growing socio-economic inequalities. On average, Swiss farmers work significantly more hours, have higher financial debt and a higher suicide rate, compared to other professions.

THE ZURICH CASE
Agriculture occupies as much as 41 percent of Canton Zurich’s land area—a major part of one of Switzerland’s most densely populated regions. At any location in this territory, agricultural cultivation is shaped by a complex mix of influences, including market forces, agricultural and biodiversity subsidies, ownership structures, cultural landscape preservation, and other factors. Surprisingly, the role of agricultural land in food provision for local inhabitants is just one among many functions that agricultural territories perform. This raises a central question explored by the studio: how should agricultural land be used? How can proximities between urban settlements and agricultural areas create potential for re-embedding food cultivation into the daily lives of the inhabitants?

What would it mean to design a food system that emphasises on feeding the metropolitan region of Zurich, built on the principles of agroecology, including soil health, climate resilience, food sovereignty, social equity, diversity and specificity?

A NEW FOOD CULTURE
The studio tests the hypothesis of agroecological transition: a design exploration developing a new and optimistic food culture for the metropolitan region of Zurich—based on shorter distances, seasonal thinking, diverse varieties, and a regional re-embedding of food distribution networks. Food is the lens through which the studio examines the territory. A “future-proof” diet is not an abstract ideal. It emerges from specific landscapes, farming communities and practices. Designing agroecological landscapes means strengthening ecosystems, regenerating soils and waters, and supporting forms of solidarity-based agriculture and the commons. “Instead of deciding what to eat and then expecting nature to supply it, we need to ask the landscape what it wants to grow”. The central territorial design goal is resilience—social, economic, and ecological.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
We will begin by investigating how food is currently produced and distributed in the Zurich region: what is grown where, and under what conditions (ecological, economic, social)? How are farms, food networks, and supply chains connected? What constraints and potentials can be traced in relation to soils, microclimates, and communities? Having understood better these essential relationships in the first step, we will continue exploring how agricultural practices and diets can be redesigned in line with agroecological principles.

AGRITERRITORIES OF POTENTIALS
The Agriterritories of Potentials are seven distinct landscape typologies of agricultural land of the metropolitan region of Zurich, and they form the basis of our research and design project. This territorial hypothesis, elaborated cartographically, is the result of nearly ten years of research on urbanisation processes in agricultural territories conducted at the Chair of Architecture and Territorial Planning. These landscape typologies combine agricultural and urban characteristics, such as soil and production patterns, and comparable land-use transformation pathways. They highlight specific and shared challenges and show how spatial patterns intersect with socio-economic and environmental processes.

For the semester, each group will focus on one of six selected agricultural landscape typologies:
1) Landscapes of Metropolitan Cores
2) Drained Valley Floors
3) Crop Rotation Plains
4) Mosaic Midheights, and
5) Pastures and Seasonal Lands.
6) Forests, Trees and Canpoies