About Me
I am an architect, lecturer and writer. My chief interest is in exploring the inner lives of cities, and my work has focused on developing a lateral approach to urban design that looks at the everyday routines that shape cities and the way we inhabit them. I have run design studios at the London School of Economics, London Metropolitan University and at Cambridge University, where my lecture course ‘Food and the City’ is an established part of the degree programme.
Perhaps because I was born and bred in central London, I have always been interested in buildings. But my interest was never limited to their physical form. More than anything else, I wanted to know how buildings were inhabited: where the food came in, how it got cooked, where the horses were stabled, what happened to the rubbish – these details fascinated me as much as the perfect proportions of their facades. I loved the public/private, upstairs/downstairs divisions within buildings, and the way they were subtly interwoven. I suppose I have always been drawn to the hidden relationships between things.
It was only years later that I realised that my twin passions for food and architecture were really two aspects of the same thing. It was architecture that I pursued as a career, first studying it at Cambridge, and then, two years after qualifying, returning there to teach. But I felt increasingly that in order to study architecture, one had to look away from it – only then could one see it for what it really was.
I began to look for ways of bringing life into architecture, and architecture to life. My search took me to Rome in the 1990s, where I studied the everyday habits of a local neighbourhood over the course of two thousand years; and to the London School of Economics, where I was studio director of the Cities, Architecture and Engineering programme. At the LSE there were architects, politicians, economists, developers, sociologists, housing experts and engineers all gathered together in one room, struggling to find a common language with which to discuss cities. It was then that I hit on the idea of using food as a common medium. How would it be, I wondered, if one tried to describe a city through food? I was confident that such a thing could be done, but had no idea how one might go about it, or where it would lead. Seven years later, Hungry City is the result.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Hi Carolyn,
We met briefly at the growing food for london conference – i was the time-keeper… I am running Jeanette’s review of your book in the next issue of FANMail which is the newsletter for the Food Access Network. Do you have a high res. image of the front cover of the book or could direct me where to get one?
Sarah Cannon
July 18th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Carolyn,
I studied the exact same topic for my Architectural Diploma Project.
I find it fascinating that someone else takes an interest in the joint positions of food and architecture and the roles the two play in the society’s health & well being.
I also made a focus towards growing food within our cities which you also seem to have discussed.
I will be purchasing your book & look forward to reading it.
(If anyone is interested – the website I have displayed illustrates a selection of the work done)
James
July 21st, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Hi
I was delighted to hear on the Radio 4 programme today about the issues surrounding the Hungary City.
Anyone interested in creating solutions to these issue, which predominantly are around organisations working together in collaborations, should explore the opportunity presented by OpenStrategy, from New Zealand. http://www.openstrategy.co.uk
Best wishes
Ian
August 31st, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Hi
Enjoyed the book. Would love if you could write a book about the olympic cities, in light of the way in which London is selling itself on legacy.
There are 4 years till 2012 😉
Leslie
October 31st, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I have just read the wonderful review in Metropolis Magazine http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=3550 and send you my compliments. I see from your schedule that you are making a TED appearance in the coming year. I am sure you are aware of Micheal Pollan’s writing and appearances including TED. There is such a synergy between the perceptions you both have. Thank you for your work and commitment to improving the life of city living.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Hi Carolyn,
I met you yesterday in the BM.
We talked about Gray’s Inn Road, known as Gray’s Inn Lane in the past, and Euston Rd, built to clear Oxford Street of the livestock transit.
Would love to know more and look at the pictures.
Thanks, Regards,
Eli
March 25th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Hi Carolyn,
What a wunderfull world… thank you for the interview today in The Haque! Kind regards
April 20th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Dear Carolyn
I’m a student at the Welsh School of Architecture and greatly enjoyed your brief lecture on Hungry City in February. Just wanted to let you know that we had our Cities and Landscapes exam today, and can safely say that reading your book was the most enjoyable ‘revision’ I’ve ever had to do for an exam!
Regards
Yvonne
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Hello Carolyn.
Congratulations on the book which I have just devoured (not literally of course) with great interest. It was quite an insight into the dynamic of food, and other supplies, and the city.
You might be intersted to view an article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk, search- ‘Agritopia’. Surely a sign of these times of change that farming on the Steiner principles can appear in print without apology?
A lot more to say on the changes to come, but I will not bore you with that one.
All the best from Maurice Rolfe. (A retired architect)
July 24th, 2009 at 2:18 am
I’m trying to find your direct email to wish you good luck in the morning. You’re a brilliant person (please read without the American accent so this complement will feel more significant).
Be passionate and honest.
Beau Lotto
July 28th, 2009 at 2:45 am
[…] Stefana Broadbent and Food Urbanist Carolyn Steel reflected on the social and urban consequences of the industrial revolution on modern society. […]
July 31st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Hello Carolyn.
I have just come across your work and am very grateful for it. I have posted blurb about you and a link to your site on http://www.ooooby.org
Ooooby is a network of food growers who are in support of relocalising our food systems.
I am also interested in making your book available for purchase from our online store which will be launching soon.
Kind regards,
Pete
August 24th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
[…] Food is a design tool The second speaker was Carolyn Steel, author of the excellent book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives. Hungry City traces how food […]
September 15th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Each year the Sheffield University Architecture Society [SUAS] organises a lecture series, for which speakers from all over the world are invited to come and speak to students about their work. This lecture series is curate by the students, and we are currently inviting speakers for the upcoming academic year (09-10). This event has in the past attracted such names as Michael Hopkins, Malcolm Fraser, Carmody Groake, A.O.C, Urban Splash and Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
This year we are inviting a broad range of speakers, both from inside and outside of the architectural profession in the hope of bringing fresh influences into the school. We would be really interested to find out more about your work, and would therefore like to invite you to give a lecture at Sheffield University as part of the [SUAS] Lecture Series.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Hello Carolyn,
I very much enjoyed your book, which I found most instructive, particularly as it overlaps with things I have learnt from my companion who is a town planner here in France. I hope, for her sake, a French version will one day be published. Is this on the cards?
thank you for all your work
Harry
October 6th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Dear Carolyn,
I am a 3rd year architecture and planning student at the University of the West of England, Bristol.
I have just recently finished reading your book. I think it is absolutely brilliant. The issues you discuss are so important and I think everyone should read this book. I am always mentioning your book, trying to get others to read it and spreading the word about your talk with Anna Minton in Bristol that is coming up.
I have, of course, bought a front row seat ticket and am looking forward to Tristan Stuart’s talk after.
I am basing my dissertion on your idea of sitopia and desiging cities around food and other important issues regarding food.
I wanted to enquire whether you would be interested in doing a lecture about your book and your ideas at the Department of Planning and Architecture here at the University of the West of England (UWE).
We run a lecture series at the university and have weekly talks from visiting architects.
I think it is so important that students in the Department of Planning and Architecture here at UWE are made aware of the issues you discuss in your book.
Regards,
Steve Anderson
October 7th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Dear Carolyn,
Congratulations and thank you very much for your wonderful work.
I’m originally from Istanbul – Turkey, currently writing a dissertation at the SUM Center for Development and the Environment in Oslo on Food Systems and how we can better understand the needs for creating resiliency. My case study is the Transition Town Totnes.
I would love to be in touch and meet at some time in the beginning of 2010.
I loved your presentation at TED and some of the images you used; may I ask you whether it would be possible to share a powerpoint presentation with me? I certainly would not use any of it without your consent.
With best wishes,
aLp
October 12th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Ms. Steel,
I just returned from farming on a city rooftop in NYC and spent the day removing tomatoes and getting the soil ready for the winter’s cover crop. And then coincidentally watched your lecture at TED this evening. As much as I agree with your message/vision of moving food sources back to the country side of cities, I hope that we can do better than that and use the existing city infrastructure to produce food. Although I don’t think we can raise all of our food within the walls of the city, I know, based on my personal experience, that we can raise much of it within the city walls using currently squandered rooftops. I look forward to reading your book and appreciate your interesting approach to the history of urban development.
October 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Dear Michelle,
Many thanks for your message. Actually, I believe that urban agriculture and the ‘post-fitting’ of existing cities with food growing are an important part of the solution to making our cities more sustainable – I didn’t have much time to talk about it in my 15 minutes, but I discuss it at some length in the book!
October 13th, 2009 at 8:08 am
[…] Food is a design tool The second speaker was Carolyn Steel, author of the excellent book Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives. Hungry City traces how food […]
October 19th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Dear Carolyn,
I’m based in Paris, travelling through London on Friday Oct 23rd, on my way to meet with Transition Town Friends near Sevenoaks, and would love to meet you if, by any chance, you had time then.
I’m building a Do Tank for the “post-carbon city”, built around 4 work programmes: food relocalisation, home insulation, urban micro-freight, cottage industries.
best wishes,
Julien
November 16th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Carolyn,
Just watched your TED talk for the second time.
I live in Madrid and I thought you’d be interested in knowing that the city have done something truly remarkable here with our old market near the Plaza Mayor, converting it into a a new market where the vendors of each stand sell tapas as well as their usual produce.
This is working really well and it’s always busy.
The market is called, “San Miguel”.
Regards,
Patrick
December 24th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
[…] I can usually find something fascinating or funny to watch, and sometimes, as was the case with Carolyn Steel, learn something completely new to […]
December 26th, 2009 at 7:08 am
Hi Carolyn
Perhaps this is answered in your book as I only came across your TED video yesterday, but are you involved with the concept of Vertical Farms, given your achitectural background too?
Fabulous TED presentation btw.:)
Cheers
Matt
January 14th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Hello Carolyn,
I’ve just finished the book and wanted to congratulate you on such an ambitious call to arms. I am an artist (in the widest possible sense of the word) and have developed a project called ‘What Will the Harvest Be?’ in East London near the Olympic site, it may interest you – the site is protected by English Heritage and with a local resident group we now have a largescale open access harvest garden for communal food -growing – 2009 was its first year and was an abundant success. Sam Clark from Moro cooked at our Harvest festival and (a la Bible!) cooked for 150 straight from the garden without seemingly making an impact on the amount of produce still growing! I myself live in the Lakes on a hillfarm once owned by Ruskin (www.lawsonpark.org) where we (its run by the arts organisation Grizedale Arts) have a big commitment to bringing the land back into use. BTW I was thrilled to see David Bass namechecked at the end – I was at the BSR with him in the early 90’s and he was a hilarious companion on many a trip to a (for me anyhow) inpenetrable Roman ruin – and I will always remember the hysteria of practising the past tense in our Italian lessons. Do pass on my best wishes to him.
Best wishes for 2010, Karen Guthrie
January 14th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Dear Karen,
Great to hear from you. Your Harvest project sounds great – hopefully it will live on in the Olympic legacy! I will certainly pass on your message to David too.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:08 am
Thankyou for your excellent lecture yesterday (Jan 19th) in Stockholm (Arkitekturmuseet).
We are a group of pensioneers who will go to Liverpool in May.
Do you happen to know a person knowing about economic history and urban development in Manchester and Liverpool.
Or can you recommend a book about the subject. I have made som inquiries here in Sweden but
still without success. I have got the name W.R.Lee and a book about architecture in Liverpool with the name Liverpool One, Remaking a city center.
February 10th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Dear Björn,
Glad you enjoyed the lecture! I don’t know any books that deal with the urban development of Manchester and Liverpool specifically, but you might be interested to read Ground Control, by Anna Minton, which gives a powerful critique of 20th century development policy in Britain.
February 20th, 2010 at 4:17 am
Thank you for your fantastic work. Will you be stateside in the near term? . For the huge interest in the intersection of urbanism and food, real critical thought on this theme gives way to soft idealism and experts to guru types. I am a student at Georgetown in Washington D.C., and I am sure that universities throughout the country would love to host you as a speaker. Will you be in the states in the near term?
best,
Ben Sacher
February 23rd, 2010 at 11:31 am
Dear Ben,
Many thanks for your message. I have no immediate plans to come to the States, although I will be speaking in New York in September, when the Toronto Carrot City exhibition is on there. I will post details on my website when I know the details. Perhaps we could meet there?
March 10th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Hello Carolyn,
I am writing an article about ethics and sustainability for my school’s paper, and came across your book Hungry City. would it be possible by any chance to have a short online interview?
thank you!
March 14th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Hello Carolyn, I throughly enjoyed the video “hungry cities” and would like to thankyou. I thought it might be of interest for you to know of a phenomenom that use to take place until recent in Madrid and other spanish cities the “lecheria” milk shop,people use to buy their mik here in the suburbs and the cows use to live on the ground floor of the shop and the people on the upper floors. The front of the shops had beautiful hand painted tiles. These have been refurbrished but the tiles remain.
March 15th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Hi Carolyn,
I chatted to you briefly at the Climate Change Roadshow at London South Bank (12th). Once again, I’d like to tell you how inspiring your lecture was. As a student who is very much interested in the same issues, I look forward to reading your book and following your work!
Thank you 🙂
April 8th, 2010 at 12:44 am
Dear Carolyn,
A professor of mine at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville introduced me to Hungry Cities and encouraged me to get in touch with you. Your work has been a great resource for my Master of Architecture thesis entitled Wild Food,Water Wells, and Location Markers. I will graduate this spring and go on to study Roman architecture and native wild food at the American Academy in Rome next year. I was hoping to have a chance to ask you some questions about the time you spent in Rome. I also wonder if you might be able to point me in some interesting directions for my study. Are you available for an email exchange?
April 29th, 2010 at 1:06 am
Dear Carolyn:
I found your site and TED video really inspiring. I’m also a London architect (kingston) but living and working in the San Francisco area of California. There are lots of Californian urban/food synergies well known here- fighting for finite water resources to nurture suburban lawns or giant strawberry crops, or restructuring the ‘local’ farm lands near the population to sustain a huge farmer’s market network. But you don’t appreciate how wonderfully seasonal England still is as America still seems to be dominated by an anachronistic view of agri-business.
I will pick up a copy of your book but I’m keen to know what vision you have for architects in this conversation? Where can we start in engendering an urbanism that you look towards?
Many Thanks
May 5th, 2010 at 4:43 am
I am an Ecological Agriculture & development worker in South West China. I felt we have to create such a holistic vision to tackle agriculture crisis in relation to life & culture in China. Wonder if you any plan to publish the book in Chinese? Any plan come over to China to share your perspective?
June 8th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I’m helping organise the London Permaculture Festival on Sunday 22nd Aug 2010 and wondered whether you would be interested in speaking there. The topic of Hungry City is exactly what we are working with. Would be good to have you on board. Let me know what you think. stef
June 10th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Dear Carolyn,
Your presentation today for the city of Amsterdam was impressive. Me and my colleagues (if i can speak for them) are very ethousiastic about your ideas. Hopefully we see each other back in Amsterdam (in september) to talk further about how to bring some of your ideas in practice.
Greetings
Carla
July 5th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Dear Ms. Steele:
Thank you for your contributions. We utilized a re-broadcast of the TED-Tv talk for our World History course as an addendum insight into Unit 16 @ http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/unit_main_16.html (In case you wanted to explore how multi-purposeful your work is.)
Would like to know if your current lectures will be available for podcast as you are not currently scheduled in US?
(Have ordered the book. Looking forward to it.)
Thank you for your work, dedication, and contributions.
Respectfully,
Molly Mague
July 5th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
I apologize, I neglected to link the TED-Tv spot also: http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/unit_main_16.html
Wonderful lecture.
July 5th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
lol shoot! http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/carolyn_steel_how_food_shapes_our_cities.html
there we are! THIS is the ‘wonderful lecture.’
Pardon my sticky copy/paste 🙂
July 19th, 2010 at 2:45 am
Dear Carolyn,
As a Swiss-American sustainability designer who has lived in Britain for 15 years, you are absolutely correct to identify food as the foundation for urban design! My concern is that the basis of food production today, petroleum which supplies 95% of the inputs that go into food, may disappear rapidly, forever!
Can we redesign cities to be free of their dependence on petroleum for both its energy supply and capacity to provide massive amounts of food to distant populations? Please see the cause of my worries at: http://www.peakoil.net/headline-news/lloyds-adds-its-voice-to-dire-peak-oil-warnings
More importantly, please view the suggestions that I expect will spur even more projects to rapidly build the 100% sustainable infrastructure for the children of tomorrow!
My projects grow out of the unusual experience of having my heart stop for 10 minutes (!) following a car accident in Nairobi on the eve of my move to Britain in 1980, erasing all that I had learned as an infant: how to walk, speak and remember etc.
By staggering, walking and jogging more than 330 miles in the 15 months that followed, I regained those abilities, and jotted down the ideas that appeared as I jogged in a diary that I kept to improve my memory, that now form the foundation for the food without oil designs that populate my website.
We’ve all got to work very quickly on this if we are to hope that children in the next 100/10,000 years are to live as we have!!! I want to work with people around the world in the creation of its first 100% sustainable infrastructure! Can you help?
PS. I recovered sufficiently well to become a professor at one of the world’s premier university-level schools for training car designers, I now no longer own a car, and I’m back here in the States to attack the problem of food production without petroleum at its source!
Best wishes in all that you do!!!
July 19th, 2010 at 2:47 am
Dear Carolyn,
As a Swiss-American sustainability designer who has lived in Britain for 15 years, you are absolutely correct to identify food as the foundation for urban design! My concern is that the basis of food production today, petroleum which supplies 95% of the inputs that go into food, may disappear rapidly, forever!
Can we redesign cities to be free of their dependence on petroleum for both its energy supply and capacity to provide massive amounts of food to distant populations? Please see the cause of my worries at: http://www.peakoil.net/headline-news/lloyds-adds-its-voice-to-dire-peak-oil-warnings
More importantly, please view the suggestions on my website at http://www.greenmillennium.eu that I expect will spur even more projects to rapidly build the 100% sustainable infrastructure for the children of tomorrow!
My projects grow out of the unusual experience of having my heart stop for 10 minutes (!) following a car accident in Nairobi on the eve of my move to Britain in 1980, erasing all that I had learned as an infant: how to walk, speak and remember etc.
By staggering, walking and jogging more than 330 miles in the 15 months that followed, I regained those abilities, and jotted down the ideas that appeared as I jogged in a diary that I kept to improve my memory, that now form the foundation for the food without oil designs that populate my website.
We’ve all got to work very quickly on this if we are to hope that children in the next 100/10,000 years are to live as we have!!! I want to work with people around the world in the creation of its first 100% sustainable infrastructure! Can you help?
PS. I recovered sufficiently well to become a professor at one of the world’s premier university-level schools for training car designers, I now no longer own a car, and I’m back here in the States to attack the problem of food production without petroleum at its source!
Best wishes in all that you do!!!
August 2nd, 2010 at 9:16 am
I came across a mention of Sitopia in the Observer. I am an agricultural technologist. I started off wanting to be self sufficient smallholder/ permaculturist back in the 70s and 80s. But the reality of the world and raising a family plus the sheer boredom of peasant farming led me into engineering and designing robot milking and some of the sensing technologies that you can see on the website. I think that some fundamental rethinking is needed in how people live now we have solved the supply of food problem. I like the idea of Sitopia and I think subtle social and technical innovation could cause it to happen but alas very slowly. please contact me if you want to know about the technical options to improve animal health.
August 28th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Dear Carolyn
I am an architect and researcher based in Edinburgh, and am carrying out research into the evolving state of the Urban Agriculture movement in the developed world. I have been following the Why Factory and Foodprint Sitopia website, and and would be keen to get involved (as you indicated on one of your earlier blogs) – how can I do this?
I would also be very interested to hear how your own research is progressing there.
Thanks
September 3rd, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Many thanks to everyone for these recent messages – they are much appreciated, and I’m sorry not to have replied to them all individually. I am currently developing a sitopian Food and Cities course for the Wageningen Business School, and a sitopian Food Vision for the Groningen-Assen Region in the Netherlands. I will be posting more about these projects in the coming weeks.
All best,
Carolyn
September 3rd, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Oh, and Angus – Hungry City is indeed now available in Chinese! It is published by Cheers Publishing and the China Renmin University Press.
All best,
Carolyn
September 18th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Hi Carolyn,
My name is Jared Heming; I am one of the trio of architects that spoke to you after your lecture to Transition Town Totnes. I just wanted to say I thought your comments about Frank Lloyd Wright as a utopian and that American suburbia is quite agrarian were very interesting. I am assuming the background to that was Wright’s Broadacre City project and it clicked in my mind that a lot of the underlying philosophy of Wright’s project and of the American suburb in general traces back to Thomas Jefferson’s idea that America should be a nation of small farmers. That homesteads of 40 -100 acres were the foundation of his ideal democracy. That ideal provides part of the foundations for a culture of land and home ownership that morphs into the physical manifestation of the American suburb. Funnily enough, since we Americans love tying anything we do to the founding fathers – Jefferson’s ideal could be appropriated to generate a cultural shift towards a uniquely American sitopia.
I also found it interesting how you framed most of the talk in terms of ‘the West’. Yet the emerging economies seem to be taking on the western model of development and moving it to a whole other level. What does it mean when not just cities but whole nation-states begin securing food supplies half a world away through direct purchase of land and farming? For instance China’s land interests in the soy growing regions of Brazil. What do you think about the contradictions of a nation where its rapid growth is largely based on the migration of cheap labour from the countryside to the city – yet those same rural migrants are legally bound to their village and their farm.
I am also curious about what your thoughts might be on ‘demand-induced innovations’ versus ‘supply side innovation’ as a way of analyzing the relationship between city and food supply. For instance, you spoke about the major changes to agricultural practice in Britain that allowed for greater growth of London in the 18th century. Would this be a supply induced change, something that happened because farmers wanted to be more efficient or something demand-induced, i.e. a growing market without supply spurring changing? Would this framework apply to the railroads in the 1840’s? Or even GM today? In other words, do you think it’s possible that the city (demand) doesn’t just effect change in the rural places (supply), but that rural places change the city?
Wow, I just posed a lot of questions for a comment post! Apologies, hope to hear from you when you have the time.
Cheers,
Jared
September 28th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Hi Carolyn,
apologies for writing this message here. We are a small Italian publisher and we’d like to translate your book in Italy. But Random House is quite a nightmare to deal with. Could you help sending me the email of the person in charge?
thank you! enrica
October 15th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Hi Carolyn,
I’m trying desperately to find an email for you regarding a new cultural insight newspaper that we’re working on… as I’d love to feature something on your sitopia.
If you could please pop me an email (or pass on a contact for your good self) as soon as you have a sec, I’d be enormously grateful.
Many thanks and keep up the great work,
Addie
December 1st, 2010 at 11:21 am
Just watched your presentation on Ted and was so glad to see these links being expressed so clearly.
It is truly a fascinating subject. I’ve passed your link on to the head of city markets here in Glasgow Graham Wallace and to Maria Weir who is a chief officer of the Intellectual assets centre http://www.ia-centre.org.uk/.
It is a subject which needs to become part of the thought process of national and local government, schools and the family.
I am an architect and restauranteur who has been experimenting with a community based restaurant concept.It is called Cookie. We run a successful barter system for veg, and a cooking competition called Chef wars to get people cooking and talking about food, educational courses for kids and more. We are talking with IA about creating a platform through Cookie to host discussion about provenance,distribution and disseminate knowledge around this subject. It would be great to see you here in Glasgow sometime.
January 13th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Carolyn,
I heard you speak in May of 2009 for the Green Urban Council at an event called Hungry New York. Since then I have read your book and referenced it extensively in my research and teaching at the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Davis. The department is uniquely positioned within the the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and shares your interests in recognizing the relationship of what we eat, how we produce it, and the results upon our built environment. I hope we might be able to discuss bringing you to our campus to expose students and faculty alike to your compelling work. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
January 30th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Hi Carolyn,
I have only just heard of your book and so not yet read it. But I wondered if you have seen a a film called Dirt, by Bill Benenson, an American producer I have recently got to know. If not I think you will find it interesting. You may also be interested in a documentary I am making myself. It touches on similar problems relating to energy. Maybe we could link up. Please google me if you wish and let me know
February 11th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Hello, Carolyn:
Thank you for your tremendous book with its comprehensive, insightful look at the intersection between food (ie. our dependence and impact on nature) and our life in cities. I’ve recommended it to several people already. We will us it in an upcoming course at Vancouver’s Regent College (“Gardening the City of God”)
Rudiger (urban farmer in Vancouver, Canada)
April 17th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Hi Carolyn,
Just saw you on TED. Great stuff. Do you have a twitter account? I’d love to keep up to date that way.
September 11th, 2016 at 6:41 am
congratulations on the french translation ! you mightn’t remember me but we were on Dalibor’s 1989 munich trip which turned out to be both a hungry and a very thirsty city – 16 oz dumplings washed down with a hogshead of weiss beer !
this is just to say how much I appreciated your session at the memorial conference last april, which i recently watched on youtube. I couldn’t attend as I am now semi-retired in rural kenya where by the way, the food chain is rather different from the urban experiences of so much of our ‘urban’ life, being a Londoner like yourself: milk comes out of a cow, avocados like rugby balls drop from the trees, and lunch today for example is baaaaing at me as i write, soon to be roasted over a hot jico, balls ’n all ! i recently came across a new cookstove product being marketed in poor rural areas of africa and india which it claims has all kinds of environmental benefits, not least smoke inhalation. Being an avid smoker myself that isn’t such a nuisance personally, but since the children on the farm do much of the daily cooking, it certainly is a health benefit for them: http://www.envirofit.org/products/cookstoves/.
But I meant to say how much I admired the lionhearted emotion of your conference session,that brought tears to the eyes. Thank you for that. Almost as moving was nephew martin whom I enjoyed tremendously.
It is true that architecture in the ‘real’ world is very different from the scholarly context we were privileged to benefit from (for free it must be underlined) in the eighties. I have slogged my butt off in and out of various practices on low salary for twenty five years and remain totally broke and frequently homeless. the struggle to survive took me to france, abu dhabi, riyadh, and finally kenya where i worked with amayas conell’s practice, sadly not as progressive now as in his day.
But just to appreciate peter and dalibor’s pedagogy – is it a mark of their dedication that i still had unfinished reading up until last year, determined as i was to get through the few remaining books i had carried in my suitcase for the last twenty five years to find the time and peace at last, to read them. I expect you have done Thorkild Jacobsen, one of Peter’s recommendations in fact, but if not, I must commend The Treasures of Darkness highly to you for the themes around Innana and the granary in the mesopotamian city – absolutely fabulous fun !
all the best
dom
coxfolio.wordpress.com
September 17th, 2016 at 2:41 pm
Dear Dom,
Many thanks for your kind comments – and yes, of course I remember you! That Dalibor conference was a hugely emotional day for all of us, I think – I am just less good than others at keeping my emotions in check! Dalibor was an amazing man, wasn’t he? He changed so many lives – he certainly changed mine, as I said in my blub-fest speech! I have not come across The Treasuers of Darkness, many thanks, I shall check it out! And very best of luck to you with whatever plans and projects life sends your way! Very best wishes, Carolyn