M-NEX Tokyo Workshop:

Generalizing the M-NEX approach for Designing Adaptive Cities

Bijon K Mitra and Tomoko Takeda

The Movable Nexus (M-Nex) team met virtually in the fifth workshop in a series of workshops to be held in each partner city. Initially, it was planned to have an onsite workshop for the duration of week in Tokyo last year. However, due to an increase in COVID-19 infections in the most of the partner countries and the consequential restrictions regarding international travel, it was decided to have the postponed workshop online and shorten it with three days from 8-10 February 2021. This workshop is also intended to act as a preparation for the M-NEX final workshop, will be held in September, 2021. Building upon the themes of Technical Food Systems and the city in Belfast, Building a Food Infrastructure in Qatar, Urban Access and Food Security in Detroit, Making the Local Food Production SystemResilient in Kattenburg and the Marine Terrain, Amsterdam, the Tokyo workshop focused on Generalizing the M-NEX approach for Designing Adaptive Cities.

Image 1: Participants of the M-NEX Tokyo Virtual workshop

On 8^th March (Day-1), the workshop was began with an overview presentation of urban landscape of Tokyo, delivered by Bill Galloway. The presentation highlights some potential areas of integrating food water energy nexus in urban design that include commercial areas, residential building, convenient stores and super market towards the greater resilient Tokyo city. Then, Japan team leader, Wangling Yan in his presentation stresses on making cities smart and sustainable through adaptive design approach. For this, FEW nexus is pointed out as one of the entry points for making Tokyo’s adaptive and resilient.

Image 2: FEW Nexus in Tokyo

He introduced a proposal for generalizing the M-NEX design led method towards the FEW print smart and low carbon city region. The proposed approach will be tested in Tokyo case study first and based on the results Tokyo team will develop an urban typology template that could be used in all of the case study cities.

Image 3: Generalizing the M-NEX design led method

Following the presentation of Wanglin Yan, Japan team member Shun Nakayama showed an example of using of generalized M-NEX design lead method to calculate the FEW demand, and eventually the FEW print. He proposed to integrate geo-spatial thinking in minimizing the urban FEW print.

Image 4: Integrating geospatial thinking in FEW print smart urban planning

On 9 February (Day 2), Nick Ten Caat gave updates on the FEW print tool and clarified the relationships between FEW demand baseline and FEW print. The concept is that various parameters can be tweaked after the business as usual (BAU) scenario is established to produce other scenarios such as change in dietary habits. It was mentioned that the key performance indicator(s) (KPI) may differ between each city – carbon emissions equivalent could be a common KPI but different cities will have different priorities among water, food, and energy.

Image 5: Configuration of the FEW demand (Tokyo Scheme) and FEW print

Yan Wanglin then suggested that based on geospatial and temporal perspectives, three scenarios consisting of the BAU, incremental change and transformative change scenarios could be hypothesized. He proposed that existing or proposed policy decisions could guide inputs to the model.

Image 6: Scenarios and scaling up in spatial and temporal dimensions

Shun Nakayama proposed a food system analysis from the perspective of nexus as a transformation to a mode of circular economics among production-transportation-consumption-waste.

 

Image 7: Conceptual model of Urban FEW circulation

Applying this concept to the household level, one example of a circular house was demonstrated as an ultimate solution by utilizing fuel cell (Ene-farm), solar energy and hydrogen for heating, watering and gardening. This system is currently trialed in preparation of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games 2020.

Image 8: An ultimate circular model by renewable energies and gardening

Participants carried out a discussion on the comparability between geospatial scales of each case study. It may be context-dependent but widely applicable to suburban towns in Tokyo and the world where detached houses are prevalent.

On Day 3 (10 February 2021), each city team reported progress of the case study. The final day of the workshop was started with a Doha living lab report. Doha team piloted a self-cooling greenhouse design in the research demonstration farm in Qatar University Campus. The Detroit team shared the results of piloting the FEW print tools in Easter Market and Oakland Avenue urban farm. The Belfast team shared the approach of assessment of typology performance based on carbon foot print. The Amsterdam team shared the design alternative for Kattenburg and performance of each alternative based on FEW print. The Tokyo team showed results of diversified analysis including, application of FEW print in in the prefecture level (Tokyo, Kanagawa) and Neighborhood level (Futakotamagawa and Tamaplaza), FEW print of food production and Urban Sensing project at WISE living lab.

Learnings and findings

This M-Nex workshop in Tokyo has brought the following findings and learnings to the team:

• The team was acquainted with an approach for generalizing the M-NEX design led method. This approach consists of four steps including typologizing, baselining, designing and evaluation.
• The team elaborated a number design options for Tokyo case including home few nexus farm, integrating social FEW print and physical FEW print for optimization of FEW at house design.
• The workshop facilitate cross learning of various design options that are studying in each case study cities. It also come up with the idea of the second book of the M-NEX project, which will focus on design process
• The M-NEX team explores further strengthening of cross city collaborations for knowledge sharing and exchanging expertise to support the research work. For example, Tokyo team and Detroit team are collaborating to test Detroit research approach in Tamaplaza area of Tokyo.

 

Groningen, M-Nex workshop, 1-6 March 2020

Reported by Rob Roggema

The fifth biannual workshop of the international M-Nex team was held in Groningen, the Netherlands from 1-6 March 2020. This workshop was originally planned to be held in Tokyo, however, due to the risk of infections with the COVID-19 virus the team decided to relocate to the Netherlands. All teams could adjust their plans for travel except for the UoM Detroit local team. This meant the partners from Tokyo, Belfast, Amsterdam and Sydney gathered for a weeklong design and assess workshop in the Northern part of the Netherlands.

Advancing the methodology

The work the team started in Sydney on the design methodology was further advanced during this workshop in Groningen. Methodologically, the process appears to being developed in three phases: (1) explorations, (2) iterations, (3) communications.

Explorations. In this phase existing knowledge, expectations from different stakeholders, the formal program of demand and ambitions are formulated:

1. Explore the programmatic demands, developing preliminary design principles
2. Visit the site, being inspired by experiencing what is out there
3. Define challenging design projects on the basis of the creative box design method

Iterations. During phase two an iterative design-asses process is conducted, starting with the design of singular projects, which after being assess on their FEW-print are integrated and assessed their FEWprint in greater detail. This process can be repeated depending time allowance and satisfaction with results:

1. For every project a radical design question is defined. Each design project explores this radicality to the max in a Research by Design process.
2. Global FEW-print. Assessment of the food, energy and water impact of the proposition. This first assessment is a rule-of-thumb FEW-print, based on rough estimates and instant availability of the numbers that can feed back into the designs
3. Design integration of the radical design explorations into a coherent FEW design.
4. Detailed FEW-print of the integrated design

Communications. After the iterative phase, lasting for as many iterations as needed, the results are communicated. The first step in this is visualizing the work in a 3D-plasticine format, which is the ultimate part of the design process. After the process the report, mapping and diagrammatic will take place to make the results readable and understandable for people that were not part of the process itself:

1. Visualization in a plasticine model. This creative final step of the design process connects the different design propositions and brings together the participants.
2. Reporting the results in maps, diagrams, representations, visualisations.

FEW-designs for StadsAkker, ZernikeCampus and ReitdiepValley

The team worked on three case study areas, each at a different scale: De StadsAkker, a local plot ZernikeCampus, a precinct and ReitdiepValley, a landscape-region. At these scales, and for all case studies designs have been developed for the growth of food in a circular nature inclusive way, and according the new diet (as proposed by Willis et al., Lancet, 2019, see the diagram of Image.1), climate emergencies, such as sea level rise, carbon emissions or intense salinity, and the management of extreme surpluses and shortages of water and the generation of energy from 100% renewable sources.

Image.1  the new diet (as proposed by Willis et al., 2019, Lancet

1. De StadsAkker

This is a small-scale area where the owners grow local crops and farm in an organic, circular way. The main point of entry for this area is to design the new diet according the Lancet research and the types of food needed translated to the Dutch context. The task is to close the cycles of nutrients, water and energy, and try to capture carbon and nitrate. Further to this, the question is whether we can grow enough food for consumption during summer and, fermented, for the winter period for a family of 4.

Image.2 the organic farmland, De StadsAkker

The radical questions for StadsAkker are twofold. Firstly, the task is to design a garden without the use of any fossil resources. Besides producing food, could De StadsAkker become an energy farm as well, and if so, how? Secondly, the question is how to grow food at De StadsAkker in completely new climate conditions. Imagine a climate that has similarities with a Sahara-climate where prolonged periods of drought are intermitted by torrential rain. How and which crops can be grown?

The main results of this design exercise firstly focused on understanding the nutritional, energy and water flows in the area under the new climate circumstances (Image. 3). The team sought the benefits to make the connections and coherence between the components visible.

Image.3 understanding the nutritional, energy and water flows in the area under the new climate circumstances.

This FEW-flow diagram was then turned into a design in which the flows were made productive and could adhere to future climate. A combination of a local brewery with connection saline and fresh water in greenhouses could not only produce food, but when extended to the entire northern zone of the city of Groningen will also play a significant role in dealing with sea level rise and coastal protection (image.4).

Image.4  a design in which the nutritional flows were made productive and could adhere to future climate.

2. ZernikeCampus

The second site is the ZernikeCampus. This university precinct consists mainly of university buildings, a robust water and green system and sporting facilities. On a daily basis approximately 35,000 users spend up to eight hours on campus. Taking the new diet as the point of departure of thinking, the ambition for this precinct is to design a local food-system that could provide the food for all its users throughout the year. The radical questions for ZernikeCampus are twofold. Firstly, the design question is how to create a precinct that could use less than nothing, and become a net producer of materials, food, energy and water. This way the campus should develop in a reciprocal way and become more than circular. The second hypothetical is how a productive system on campus could maximize the value proposition, both in a monetary as well as social or environmental sense.

The design for a productive campus that maximizes the value proposed different productive sheds: a PV-area on sporting fields, freshwater aquaponics, walnut-orchards, cricket farming, vine-facades for wine production, roof-hydroponics, coffee-grind mushroom growth, tomato-greenhouses on top of the parking areas, and carrots planted in between the buildings, altogether could create a revenue of approximately 10 million euro (Image.5).

Image.5 a design for a productive campus that maximizes the value proposed different productive sheds.

Using less than nothing, e.g. delivering more than the demand, was elaborated for the paper used on campus. Every person uses 1800 sheets of paper per year and based on an estimation 2/3 of all paper can be recycled five times, each year 1/3 of fresh paper need to be brought in the system. When a natural forest is planted in a rotation cycle delivering mature trees in 10 years, the total area needed to produce the required amount of paper is 4ha. The revenue is very modest at 35.000 euros, but its carbon sequestration is significant.

Measuring the FEW-print of the ZernikeCampus design shows that, compared with an average site, it scores significantly better (Image.6). Especially the impact of energy use contributes to this outcome. The application of the FEW-print has been undertaken in a fast, accurate but simplified way to make it useful in the design process.

Image.6 A simple measurement of the FEW-print of the ZernikeCampus design

3. ReitdiepValley

The area to the north of the City of Groningen is shaped by the natural landscape of the Wadden Sea and the Reitdiep river (Image.7). It is a relatively large-scale area, ranging from the city of Groningen up to the island of Schiermonnikoog in the Wadden Sea.

Image.7 the natural landscape of the Wadden Sea

For this area the major questions discussed during the workshop are:

1. How can we design a landscape that is able to deal with three meters sea level rise?
2. How can we design a system that modifies, treats or uses the accelerating inland salinity due to the strong seepage from the Wadden Sea?
3. How can sufficient water storage capacity be designed as part of the landscape?
4. How can effluent water from urban and agricultural activities be purified?
5. How can we generate renewable energy for 100.000 people?
6. How can we design a food system producing all the food for 100.000 people (according the new diet)?
7. How can we close the cycles of water flows, energy flows, nutrient-flows, nitrate and carbon?

NewFoodNexus

The design of the NewFoodNexus starts from the point of growing the food for all inhabitants of one segment from the city to the coast, and an additional 1/5 of the Groningen city population. Calculating the required area, a regular diet would need 105sqkm, and this would not fit in the space available. However, when the new diet is taken as the input for the design only 36sqkm is sufficient. The setup of the farming system is chosen according Von Thünens model, with the most freshly produced products closest to the city. In this case mushroom production, crickets, tomatoes eggs and chicken, and fish are produced near Groningen. At a certain distance dairy and red meat are located and orchards, crops like potatoes and carrots are placed near the coast. As a whole the concept of the new diet does not need the total amount of space available, the surplus being used for recreation and nature.

Image.8 The design of the NewFoodNexus

PeatSaline

The PeatSaline proposition took an accelerated sea level rise of minimum three meters as the point of departure. The tradition in the Netherlands has long been to protect the land by raising dikes (Image.9). Up to 1,5 meters of sea level rise can be dealt with, but when sea level rises more and faster this increasingly becomes more impossible. There is a well-researched solution to this to make use of the land-forming power of the sea. It appears that the sea can cope with a rising water level in a natural way, by sedimenting clay and sand at a pace the ground level is rising with the same pace as the water rises. The key intervention to allow this process happening is to deconstruct the engineered dikes and dams that prohibit nature from building an emerging landscape. Allowing the sea to enter the landscape again will form new land in sequential stages. Simultaneously, the landforming will start building up new land in the Wadden Sea, eventually up to the Schiermonnikoog island. A ‘Land van Saeftinghe’ sort of fast growth of land will occur with new creeks determining the natural land and water boundaries. The system will form eventually new barrier islands outside the current islands.

At the same time fresh water has to be stored and slowly discharged from the inland higher grounds. In the highest parts of the landscape, where clean and fresh rainwater is stored new peat forming will take place and discharge the water in a slow pace to the north. These peat areas will continue to grow over time, until they eventually meet the salty marshes. These two systems will, over time, merge. The team foresees a staged emergence in which the first phase represents separation between land and water. In a second stage the salt marshland development joins the freshwater system, linking in so-called synapses. The ultimate phase is a deep intrusion of the saltwater landscape in the freshwater system and vice versa.

Image.9 the PeatSaline proposition.

The following principles have been used designing this sea level adaptive land: barrier islands, creek intrusion, terra forming (allowing the sea water in , but slowing it down on the wat back at ebb tide), Dutch mangrove forests alongside the creeks to slow down the water even more, ride not crash prevention of flooding houses and villages in the landscape during occasional heavy flooding, synaptic synergies where salt and fresh water meet (and could form the basis for blue energy), and finally the sponge operation of the peat landscape.

This plan proposes a transformational change to make the landscape more resilient, and at the same time becoming capable of staying and continue living in a land under threat of flooding as a result of accelerated sea level rise. It is also better capable of dealing with torrential rain as can be expected in the new climate by introducing peat areas that store the water. This transformation is foreseen in three stages (see image.10).

Image.10  three stages of landscape forming, 2030-2050-2100

Learnings and findings

This M-Nex workshop in Groningen has brought the following findings and learnings to the team:

1. The team elaborated on the design methodology, defining three phases in FEW-design and linking assessment as an integrated part to this. The three phases are exploration, iteration and communication.
2. The team has added a specific Research by Design step in the design process. These radical what-if questions lead to extreme design propositions derived through long-term singular thinking, then analyzing the impact of these design propositions.
3. As the PeatSaline illustrates dealing with rapid change, such as accelerated sea level rise is most chanceful through nature-based design.
4. The preliminary FEW-print calculations for the ZernikeCampus and NewFoodNexus plans show the new diet would have a significant lower FEW-print than a regular diet would have.
5. A design for the food-energy-water NEXUS needs an assessment tool that is able to respond instantly to questions deriving from the design team, a fast use of the FEWprint is essential. We need to realize that we never can be detailed enough, so we need to acknowledge the knows, as accurately as possible but also respecting the non-knowns when it comes to the FEWimpact of a certain design proposition. These can be further investigated, but might not be delivered instantly.

Image.11 Research by Design step in the design process

 

Image.12 The Forum for FEW Design team in Groningen

Reported by Rob Roggema

Between 3 – 8 November 2019 the M-NEX team held its bi-annual workshop in Sydney. The Sydney theme within the project is to investigate design-led solutions for the regional scale in an intensive development area constrained by multiple climate impacts of which extreme heat in the Australian summer is the most significant.

Western Sydney Parklands, case study

The M-NEX case study area in Sydney Metropolitan area is the so-called Third City of the Western Parklands. Here, a new ‘Badgerys Creek’ Airport will be constructed, and this gives reason to project a large agri-business complex, 100-thousend of jobs and new residents in the area. This all needs to happen in a landscape that is dominated by a fine system of gullies, creeks and waterways, tied together in a hilly landscape of the Cumberland plain. This gave the M-NEX team reason to start the design with the systems that formed the landscape in the first place: water, ecology, soil.

The design charrette process

The process during the workshop was led by consideration how to facilitate spatial design in the best possible way, whilst engaging local stakeholders in a creative way.

The M-NEX team therefore started with a mini design workshop in which local and regional knowledge was used to conceptualize the first spatial propositions how to create a cooling landscape for the new urban precincts. These propositions were then presented to the local stakeholder group that participated in the design charrette and functioned as inspiration for the design process that followed. In a two-day charrette the M-NEX team worked with local stakeholders in a creative and stimulating way to find spatial solutions to localize FEW-systems, and meanwhile developing a cooling strategy for the city. In four groups the participants started brainstorming possible ideas on four themes: food, energy, water and cooling. The generated ideas were then collectively rated in three categories: easy to realize (blue), challenging to realize (red) and dreams (yellow). The top-ranked red ideas were then taken back into the groups to be enriched by the best supporting ideas from the other two categories. Together these were then transformed into design projects, which were designed at regional and local scale. After the final design exercises, the groups worked on building a model of the two most relevant integral proposal at a local site, using plasticine. The design charrette ended with presenting the work in a comprehensive and concise way. The way this process was organized stimulated creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and collaboration between stakeholders and professional experts of the M-NEX team. New insights emerged in the form of concrete spatial proposals that can be applied and used in the current urban development process for the Western Sydney Parklands.

Spatial solutions for the FEW-Nexus at regional scale

As result of the design charrette several spatial strategies and solutions came to the fore.

Firstly, a food-forest strategy for supporting building of homes, increasing biodiversity and growing food was designed (figure 1). In this concept the spatial strategy consists of planting eight million trees in the Western Sydney Parklands, one for every Sydney Metro resident in 2045. By planting these trees from now onwards they can start growing already and provide a cooling canape for later urban infill. Also, using some forest areas to generate building materials for the construction of homes with the timber that grew in these areas. Trees capture carbon and nitrogen and hence can compensate for the emissions and health problems caused by regular building and infrastructure projects.

Figure 1. Step-by-step design realizing intense urban development based on food-forest strategy

The integrated spatial proposition consists of five main indigenous forest typologies, which can be realized in sequence.

1. Broadening of the creek banks. This would enhance the capacity for dealing with flooding in and around the creeks in the area, while it also increases biodiversity. At the same time the zones around the creeks provide a cooling landscape and water is able to infiltrate in the soil, which keeps the soils healthier and fertile. It finally provides the capacity to store surpluses of water for a prolonged period and purified household water can be used to keep water in the waterways in all seasons, which especially in summer contributes to cooling the city.
2. A second intervention is the introduction of a so-called ecological support frame. This grid of wood emphasizes the required connections between the creek zones and provides the gradients between the higher, nutrient poor and drier grounds and the nutrient richer soils of the lower grounds. Hence ecological exchange and capacity is supported.
3. Within this supportive ecological grid, compounds with timber suitable for construction are deployed. This timber, grown in one km² areas, provides the wood for building homes in high densities. These urban quadrants could host approximately 20,000 people. A total of 50 of these quadrants are planned on the higher elevated areas in the region and are sufficient to offer housing for an estimate of one million people.
4. The forest areas located under the flightpath of the new airport are used in similar sized compound for free-range chicken and pig farming. The animals can, within limits forage freely under and in between the trees and provide a high-quality product from local land.
5. The land that remains after these spatial interventions is redundant space, which may emerge as it comes. This way food can be grown and an ecological basis quality can develop over time.

 

Secondly, the zone under the flight path is generally a useless space in which most land-use is prohibited. The M-NEX design team proposes to think diametrically about this and turn the nuisance zone into a productive and supporting cooling and heating processing zone (figure 2).

Figure 2. Turn the nuisance zone into a resource generating landscape, meanwhile helping aircrafts take off and land

In this zone the waste that an airport undoubtedly brings forward will be processed and turned into resources. At the same time a huge heat pump could store heat in summer hence cool the environment and release it in winter. Finally, playing around with the intense heat and the absorption or reflection from roof would make it possible to take-off and land with less effort, e.g. energy usage.

 

The third spatial solution is found in division of urban landscapes in order to intensify urbanity and leave large green spaces separating the conurbation. These green fingers, similar to the Copenhagen urban region design, make it possible fresh air from the Blue Mountains in the west ventilates deeply into the urban fabric of the new Parkland City. It also provides the spaces to grow urban food in high-tech systems within the built structures in the urban precincts and create low-tech agricultural landscapes locally. This makes it possible to connect and integrate local circular flows of food, energy and water systems.

Fourth, a range of design ideas were developed for small scale build systems that integrate food energy and water at the building and street level. These solutions close loops at the lowest possible scale.

Learnings & findings

1. On the basis of maps and local experts, the M-NEX team advised to start with designing the conceptual spatial vision, then define knowledge gaps and ask for specific data and research, on the basis of which the design vision is adjusted, elaborated and detailed. This process is iterative and can be repeated several times in order to produce detailed and evidence-based design proposals for the site. Design is magical as it can create a whole new reality out of nothing.
2. This design-led process can be applied at every scale, from the regional landscape scale to the built urban form and built structures.
3. A long-term strategy should be developed for the Western Sydney Parklands in which indigenous knowledge and indigenous species are used to shape the far future now. A food-forest strategy could help to create a cooling landscape and provide local productivity and biodiversity.
4. Sydney should be extremely considerate of unconscious and ever-expanding sprawl. This is path-dependent and in the minds of the local stakeholders the ‘normal’ way of delivering new parts of the city. However, uncontrolled sprawl, and even if it is even controlled, has many negative impacts on resource depletion, the sustainability of local food, energy and water systems, as well as mobility and well-being of the residents, and only exaggerates climate to change and impact on the very same area.
5. Turn the airport into a productive and sustainable element which contributes to the resource provision and -generation in the regional landscape, provides the residents with a qualitative environment, and mitigates the waste, exhaust as well as the noise and risks of the airport. An ordinary airport which is only operating to let planes land and take-off, no matter how well-designed the terminal might be, does not contribute to the quality of the environment, does not generate the number of jobs expected, and only increases global and local problems.
6. Given the expected new residents in the Sydney region, a new city should not be designed to accommodate the desires of traditional Ozzies. Instead, new influx of, mainly, Asian people pose a new urban design question of higher densities, smaller homes, alternative cultural urban agriculture and tech-driven convenience to the area. The biggest mistake is probably to design the city for the old people not the new.
7. Work from the large, regional, scale towards the lower scale. Start with the landscape systems, such as elevation, topography, water, soil and ecology, which guide local scale designs that then need to fit within large-scale objectives and propositions. Parallel to this, work from the bottom up using local expertise and design a built form and structures that not only fit in the larger scale, but also shape and feedback into this larger scale, which the on its turn adjusts itself to the needs of the local design proposals.
8. Creativity and engagement of local stakeholders works best if the process is well-structured, tightly planned and includes short turnarounds and clear deadlines, as well as the need to present findings in a concise and clear way during the process and at the end.
9. To design the landscape first, use indigenous planting, prevent suburbian sprawl, and turn the nuisance of a flight path into a productive site and use the connected food-energy-water nexus as the local driver for increasing the resilience of a regional landscape under pressure of climatic impacts is an example the other partner cities, and other city-regions beyond these, can use and apply in their own contexts.
10. The design-oriented process using a creative step-by-step way of working towards integrated design projects at local and regional scales can also be used in the other M-NEX partner cities and other SUGI-projects.

The M-NEX workshop in Sydney was a great success, mainly because of the concrete spatial propositions the team could develop together with local participants. The next steps will be to report on the solutions and findings and present these to the Greater Sydney Commission, the Western Sydney Airport Authority, State Government, the local councils and local stakeholders alike.

Image1: M-NEX team developing urban design schemes examining linear urban intensification and implementation of food access instruments during design charrette. (Image © Shun Nakayama).

Between 30^th June and 5^th July 2019, the Movable Nexus (M-Nex) team met in Detroit and Ann Arbor for the third workshop in a series of workshops to be held in each partner city. Building upon the themes of Technical food systems and the cityin Belfast and Building a Food Infrastructure in Qatar, the Detroit workshop focused on Urban Access and Food Security in the cityas a means to unpack the centrality of this issue in considering the application of FEW Nexus strategies towards urban design across all LivingLabs.

In the case of Detroit, the team was acquainted with the existing spatial fragmentation in the city, its industrial legacies, and current development strategies through previous team presentations and pre-workshop online lectures by Dr. Robert Fishman, Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at U-M, on the topic Detroit and the Acceleration of Historyand Maurice Cox, Director of Detroit Planning and Development Department, on the question of Why Detroit Matters-presenting current efforts for development in the city. Key themes introduced during the Detroit workshop included: (i) Industrial Legacies and Urban Morphology, (ii) Infrastructural Impacts, (iii) Food Access, (iv) Actor Networks and Scales of Systemic Intervention, (v) Waste as Resource and Circular Systems, and (vi) Scales and Formats of Governance

The first day of the workshop provided an organizational overview and individual project progress, status of stakeholder engagement, and work package updates from all teams present. An initial guided tour of Detroit visiting multiple historic sites that in aggregate, assisted in illuminating core urban legacies, development models, infrastructural legacies and philanthropic capitalism. These locations included: the Cobo Center, Hart Plaza, One Woodward Ave, the Guardian Building, Campus Martius Park, Renaissance Center, Detroit Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut Greenway, Lafayette Park, Heidelberg Project, Packard Plant, Piquette Ave. Plant, Fisher Building, Cadillac Place, Detroit Institute for the Arts Campus, Wayne State University Campus and the Michigan Central Train Depot.

The next two days of the workshop were spent visiting the locations of project partners and stakeholders of the project including the Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC), Oakland Avenue Farm, Detroit Water Resource Recovery Facility, Eastern Market, and RecoveryPark Farms. Through these interactions, the team was introduced to specific environments related to urban integration of agricultural systems within the Detroit context, water, health, food access and waste-related policy issues in the city, challenges linked to large-scale infrastructural legacies, issues of vacancy and the politics of resource(s) especially with respect to land, soil water, and capital. Further, through interactions with community leaders, project partners and local team members such as Jerry Hebron, Director of the Oakland Avenue farm, Winona Bynum-RDN, PMP, Executive Director of Detroit Food Council, and Anya Serota- Associate Professor of Architecture at U-M and founder of Akoaki, the team learned firsthand how the highly distributed population continues to remain underserved by physical and systematic infrastructures that resulted from a long history of racial segregation and exacerbated by urban abandonment, foreclosure, and disinvestment, as well as efforts to transform this situation.

Image 2: Oakland Avenue Urban Farm Director, Jerry Hebron, welcomes the M-NEX team. (Image © Shun Nakayama).

Image 3: M-NEX team in discussion with Winona Bynum, RDN, PMP, CSM Executive Director at Detroit Food Policy Council during a site visit to OAUF ( Image © Shun Nakayama)

Although the two farms visited by the team are nonprofit community based agricultural practices, they have distinct approaches to the food production and distribution network. Consequently, they have different socio-economic impacts on food access in the city. While Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, an initiative by the North End Christian Community Development Corporation, identifies itself as an “Agri-Cultural” organization working towards a sustainable neighborhood-scale urban agricultural practice, RecoveryPark, is an urban agriculture enterprise working towards establishing a for-profit businesses model in Detroit with a workforce comprising of Detroit residents facing barriers to job opportunities in the city. Thus, the two organization have different priorities, where one is trying to achieve a sustainable agricultural practice that stimulates neighborhood development and community-building through traditional models of urban farming and the other is experimenting with technical food systems to establish a profitable business model.

Image 4 : Oakland Avenue Urban Farm master plan site model indicating locations of future cultural programming, agricultural production, stormwater management, and localized energy production. (Image © Akoaki).

Image 5: Green roof system prototypes from a community workshop at Oakland Avenue Urban Farm.      (Image © RVTR/ U-M)

Image 6:Experimental hydroponic prototype at RecoveryPark Farms. ( Image © Shun Nakayama).

Image 7: M-NEX team visiting hoop houses at RecoveryPark Farms.(Image © RVTR/ U-M)

On Wednesday morning, the team arrived at the U-M’s Liberty Research Annex in Ann Arbor for the second half of the workshop. The next few days went in unpacking the key themes and issues witnessed in Detroit and comparing it with other LivingLab contexts in Belfast, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Doha, and Sydney.  The presentation by the M-NEX-Detroit team on Equitable Food Access as Social Infrastructureand the demonstration of the Urban Access Mapping Tool (U-M tool), an interactive mapping tool that assembles demographic and economic data in a browser-based platform, facilitated a discussion on urban access, and the introduction to the broader theme of cartographic tools as a means to enhance approaches to stock and flow-based tools in development. The Tokyo team presented a GIS-based approach to access mapping predicated on distance analysis to food distribution sources coupled with source distances to existing agricultural sites outside the city.

Following these presentations, a design charrette was conducted utilizing the U-M tool and frameworks established by the Detroit team to develop approaches to urban interventions at three specific sites, while expanding the design approaches to FEW Nexus application. The sites were selected in different parts of the city, providing diverse urban typologies and contexts such as a vacant parking lot in New Center opposite to the Amtrak Station, a parking lot adjacent to a retail strip mall in Jefferson Chalmers and a vacant lot in Barton McFarland along Grand River Avenue.

Image 8:M-NEX_DET team introducing Urban Access Mapping Toolto workshop participants.(Image © RVTR/ U-M).

Image 9: M-NEX team developing urban design schemes examining linear urban intensification and implementation of food access instruments during design charrette.(Image © RVTR/ U-M).

Later Kathy Velikov, (U-M), gave a lecture on Actor-Network Theory discussing the role of Actors, Agents, Assemblages and Apparatuses. Through a set of theories, interpretations, and precedents, she provided the team with a wide range of possibilities and outcomes of this analysis. Following the lecture, the Detroit, Sydney, and Belfast teams presented different approaches to actor-network mapping being undertaken by each team. The Detroit team had developed an integrated actor-network mapping of the food, energy and water nexus that qualitatively defined the relationship between elements in the network­; the Sydney team had utilized an online tool to assemble relationships between specific stakeholders engaged through the Sydney LivingLab, whereas the Belfast team developed an actor-network based on quantification of stocks and flows within the system and between actors. The session resulted in identifying and sharing various approaches to mapping this relationship while developing a common representational language, agreement to test online tools, and introducing quantitative stock and flow modeling with this work moving forward.

Climate Change became a central theme in the workshop, which was not addressed in the study so far. The M-NEX-Detroit team gave an overview based on existing projections of climate change within the Great Lakes region and outlined impacts expected within the Detroit urban context. Participating teams presented brief overviews of climate change implications for their respective cities. Some of the thematics identified across each city/region included elevated annual average temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns, and fluctuating spells of flooding and drought. A discussion followed outlining multiple scales and timeframes that each city team would need to structure design strategies moving forwards.

On Thursday morning, Nick ten Caat, Researcher (TUD), presented a version of the FEWprintcalculator. This Excel-based tool is used to calculate the environmental footprint of an individual based in an urban residential context. The calculations are based on per capita daily consumption of food, energy and water resources.  The toolsets up two scenarios a Business as Usualand a Sustainable Alternativescenario, as it formulates a method to evaluate the impact on the nexus while developing urban interventions. Participants undertook an application of the tool to a case study location from their respective city contexts enabling feedback regarding ongoing FEWprint development. CO₂emissions were reconfirmed as the metric for food-energy-water evaluations across tools and analysis developed by the team. Additionally, the team agreed to develop Sankey Diagrams as a method of representing the various stocks and flows across each city FEW systems. The general consensus was to have a Quantification and Visualization of Food Impactreport for each of the six urban study sites, emulating the Belfast method of evaluation. These analyses will facilitate comparative evaluation between cities, regions, and countries.

The session ended with a brief discussion on policy requirements in each city and an overview of the design methodology to be adopted/developed by each city team to align design efforts and intervention moving forward. The team advocated modeling flows and connections at the global, regional and local scales, to ecologize urban agriculture in a context of climate change through the FWE nexus. The M-NEX team also agreed to work on preliminary drafts of chapters in the book proposal. Wanglin Yan and Rob Roggema presented the proposed contents of the book and assigned chapters to various team members. Yan and Roggema will lead this publication development and participating team members will submit draft chapters for review and comment in early Sept. 2019.

The final morning of the workshop focused reflected on the Detroit workshop content and planning for the next workshop in Sydney, to be held between 3^rdand 8^th November 2019. Later that afternoon the team visited the Cranbrook Educational Community campus in Bloomfield Michigan, to appreciate the historic center of education, science and art, featuring works by Eliel Saarinen, Albert Kahn, Steven Holl, Tod Williams, and Billie Tsien, and others.

Image 10 M-NEX team visit to the Erb Family Garden designed by Landscape Architect Peter Osler in the courtyard of Cranbrook Institute of Science (Image © Wanglin).

Image 11: M-NEX team visit to Cranbrook Educational Community. (Image © RVTR/ U-M).

M-MEX successfully organized its second design workshop in Doha, Qatar from Feb 24 to 28. Delegates from all five national teams and one collaborator joined the event and worked on ways to consider and implement the M-NEX platform in a fast-growing arid city.

The M-NEX Research Project is funded by the Belmont Forum and the national funding agencies, amongst which the Qatar National Research Fund. M-NEX – the Moveable NEXUS – looks at Design-led urban food, water and energy management innovation in new boundary conditions of climate change. It is an international research consortium, led by Professor Wanglin Yan at KEIO University Japan. The Qatar team is led by Professor Kas Oosterhuis.

One of the key purposes of M-NEX is to understand the different needs and contexts related to the challenge of bringing Food, Energy and Water production into a single place. In the case of Qatar, energy costs are considered less important because it is an energy rich nation. On the other hand, food is actively blockaded by its neighbours, and water is almost entirely produced through desalinization of ocean water. The result is a kind of natural experiment that is especially rare, and in this way an important addition to the global picture that the team is collectively building. Learning from this unique setting was a key ambition of this second gathering for the international team.

With this in mind the M-NEX group took part in a 2 day conference organized by the Qatar team, and visited two farms close to the capitol city of Doha (Torba Farms and Global Farms). The farm visits were pointedly organized in order to understand the way water and energy are being used in local food production.

In the case of Qatar, national food production is a recent priority as result of a blockade begun in 2017. Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain closed their borders with Qatar, cutting diplomatic and trade connections after accusing Qatar of supporting Iran and of funding Islamist terrorist groups. Qatar denies these accusations; however it was left isolated as a result. Transport of food and other essential goods was blocked. As an import dependant nation this change in circumstances had a large impact, forcing changes in behaviour on many fronts. Qatar has an active seaport, recently expanding its capacity to manage goods arriving by sea, however the nation has at the same time decided to become more self-sufficient, especially in food production.

The two farms visited represent two approaches to water use; one making use of a Dutch hydroponic system and the other using perma-culture techniques. Water was taken from an aquifer in the case of the perma-culture model, in which case there is a need for careful use of the water supply. In the case of the hydroponic system the water comes from de-salinized sea water, which has a significant energy cost. However, in a nation that is a global energy exporter, the energy cost related to potable water production was not seen as a large barrier, and rather the need for local food production was given much higher importance. The trigger for this desire was the blockade of Qatar, which began in 2017. Having experienced a massive impetus for change in order to cope with the blockade the local production of food took on new meaning. This is a significant point in light of the kinds of change that can be expected in other countries, many of them similarly created by outside forces. Being an energy exporter with a command economy, it is difficult to make a direct comparison of Doha with the other case study cities in the M-NEX research project. However, the fact that even a wealthy nation like Qatar can be pushed to adapt in such a massive and unexpected way highlights the shared need to be adaptable, and to include FEW calculations in urban environments across the globe. Building on this observation, in future meetings it would be useful to clearly describe the specific needs pushing change in each study area. This may help to understand better which aspects of the FEW-Nexus could be gainfully applied, and how responses could be tailored to different situations.

The public conference held on the 25th February 2019 at Qatar University Administration Building included the international researchers, local speakers and stakeholders from Ministries, Academia, NGOs and industry. The conference was aptly named “Qatar and The Moveable Nexus: Design-led urban food, water and energy management innovation in new boundary conditions of change”.

As part of the conference M-NEX research teams presented the progress of the project in each host city and University. In the process of presenting recent work on the Living Labs in each area it became clear that the ways in which Living Labs can or will be used is not only unique in each instance, but that the mix of top-down and bottom-up participants is important to compare across nations. If we affirm that implementation of FEW-Nexus concepts depends on a combination of both governmental and community-based initiatives, then it is essential to understand which groups are present and involved, and which groups are most effective in each case study area. In order to develop reasonable generalization at the international scale this is an important step.

Presenters showcased work in progress, covering a very broad range of topics, from food production to tree planting, super-foods to the social aspects of food and heritage. Taken as a whole, the presentations described the ways that Qatar is already carrying out an ambitious approach to food production, as well as the degree to which various groups are supported with both traditional end experimental projects in the country.

The conference highlighted the importance of engaging with stakeholders, and the differing positions that each hold in the FEW-equation. More interesting, the shifting position in society and the economy of each group was also clear. Participants had diverse backgrounds but shared an understanding that the context with regards to food, energy and water is currently malleable, and thus there is an opportunity to effect significant positive change for the country.

A Design Charrette Workshop for the Qatar University Living Lab was held the day following the conference on 26th February 2019 with the international researchers, local partners including AEB Arab Engineering Bureau and Turba Farms, Qatar University Capital projects and campus facilities, as well as Qatar University researchers and students in Architecture and Urban Planning. The charrette was designed to make use of the expertise of the visiting planners and architects who make up the international team, and to give them the opportunity to understand the issues directly as they worked with local stakeholders. The topic of the charrette was how to integrate food production on the campus and more specifically to consider the themes of the Qatar Living lab which are the Urban Water Matching and stakeholder engagement, as well as the importance of improving Soil and Biodiversity for more resilient FEW systems. Technically speaking the campus already has a large irrigation system in place that could be expanded and re-tooled for food production. The Qatar Living Lab is proposing to additionally look at alternative water sources such as treated sewage effluent, water produced from air conditioning units, grey water, as well as saline water for use with halophyte plants. Developing efficient closed loop systems while increasing the cultivation of productive crops and plants in the landscape is an overarching ambition.

Speaking with the students from the campus it was clear the university was organized around cars, much like the larger city of Doha. In a landscape defined by extreme summer heat it is difficult to retro-actively create a pedestrian environment to go hand in hand with food production, though students indicated they would appreciate such a change in their environment. Making use of the 7 months when temperatures are not too extreme for a positive outdoor life is a reasonable first step to transforming the campus.

Future research in Doha will clarify the role of the various stakeholders, and the Living Lab in Qatar is aimed at including all of the relevant communities, including students, staff, migrant workers, and others. At the same time, the tours and conference indicate food production in Qatar is likely to be treated by the government as a technical rather than a social activity. In that case a top-down system, with fewer stake-holders may be inevitable. Future research carried out by the international team could usefully examine the role of stakeholders, and the relative positions of power they hold in each of the study cities, and consider how they impact the shape of the FEW Nexus in each instance.

A final meeting was held at the Qatar Foundation to plan and discuss lessons learned for the next meeting in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States. A key point that was re-affirmed during the meeting was the need to use comparable methods and terms in each case study area. The purpose of this goal is twofold; to maintain a framework for the global project that will allow each case study to be meaningfully compared with the others; and to create a way to share information better across the study areas.

At the final meeting the team also met with Dr. Abdulkarem Amhamed, Researcher at Qatar Environment & Energy Research Institute (QEERI) and Lead Principal Investigator of the Qatar Belmont project entitled SUNEX. The group discussed the possibility of taking advantage of shared goals and the differing methods used in each research team.

(reported by Wanglin Yan and Bill Galloway)

 8-12 October 2018

Report by:Sean Cullen

Between 8-12 October 2018, the partners of the Movable Nexus (M-NEX) met in Belfast for the first of a series of workshops to be held in each partner city. Over the next three years, similar workshops will be held in Tokyo, Doha, Sydney, Amsterdam and Detroit focusing on a number of themes concerned with the food, water and energy (FEW) nexus. This first workshop dealt with the theme, ‘Technical food systems and the city’.

The first day was spent gaining a better understanding of the socio-political background of the city and viewing the unique urbanism as a result of Belfast’s industrial and troubled history. The team visited east Belfast, an area of the city experiencing rapid change through new urban projects, like the Connswater Community Greenway. However, it is also a deeply divided and deprived part of the city. Much of the inner east is made up of low density housing and high vancancy rates in commercial properties. Similarly, it is a major interface between Catholic and Protestant communities evidenced by the Short Strand ‘peace wall’ on Bryson Street – one of 109 in the city.

The second day of the workshop focused on urban food production. Andy Jenkins, Queen’s University Belfast, presented to the team possible strategies and associated technologies for urban agriculture – ranging from water-based systems, like aquaponics and hydroponics, to soil-based systems. The afternoon, along with a group of architecture students from the master’s course at Queen’s University Belfast, the team developed four different urban proposals for the production of food in East Belfast. This process highlighted the variety of techniques and the scales of intervention possible for the site.

  

Following another site visit, this time to west Belfast, Kevin Logan presented some of his work on urban design undertaken by Maccreanor Lavington. This highlighted the challenges and joys of integrating productive food systems in urban environments with clients and stakeholders. Presentations from each partner city about their progress was one of the highlights of the week. Each team explained their proposals for the living lab in the individual cities. Evident was the differing scale of projects and the type of stakeholders involved. Following this, each of the work package teams met to discuss how the ‘wikis’ and work packages will be further developed. These meeting fleshed out the ambitions for each work package, specifically: who the stakeholders are and how they are engaged with; the design platform for quantifying urban moves and strategies; and, how a quantification of inputs and outputs of food, water and energy can be visualised and translated back to the design interventions. The purpose and aims of each workshop was discussed extensively. Agreed upon were broad themes that each workshop must deal with. These were: engagement with place; information and data with site; design charrettes; a focus on climate change considerations specific for each location; and, a forum for project planning with partners only.

On Thursday morning – following a less than successful quiz the night before (but beautifully sculpted Rotterdam Cube House) – Andy van den Dobbelsteen, TU Delft, explained how his research has quantified the flows of energy in and out of neighbourhoods. Specifically, it demonstrated the tangible requirements for reaching a carbon neutral future through quantifiable metrics and urban design intervention. This led to a wide ranging discussion amongst the team about the scale of quantifying food, water and energy and how a common currency could be utilised for measuring inputs and outputs in neighbourhoods. Carbon sequestration by area of forest was deemed as a suitable means for visualisation of these flows across the FWE nexus. Enabling stakeholder engagement through this tangible visualisation was noted as the core outcome and the next step for each partner. Similarly, it identified the need to establish a baseline study about household consumption patterns in each city. This allows for partners to engage with local stakeholders about their current position and to propose urban design or policy interventions as ways to reduce carbon sequestration areas.

The final morning of the week focused on the next workshop in Qatar which deals with community stakeholder engagement. This workshop is to be held in Doha in February 2019.

Over the coming months, the partners will: visualise the inputs and outputs of food, water and energy for their chosen Living Lab; identify key urban moves to reduce the forest area for carbon sequestration; and, visualise the future of the typical house for each site. These will feed into the baseline analysis which can be used to demonstrate – visually – the current habits of consumption and production potentials of an area to local stakeholders.

 

Wanglin, Rob and Greg, as representatives of M-NEX, participated in the Kick-off meeting of SUGI-Nexus (Sustainable Urban Global Initiative: Food-Water-Energy Nexus) at the Belmont Forum/JPI-Urban Europe at Clerkenwell Green, London, June 11-12, 2018. The kick-off meeting brought together more than 45 delegates (15 proects were approved and granted, out of 88 full proposals). This was the first time the Belmont Forum has hosted a kick-off event for a new research program.

The two day meeting was interactive and insightful. A cavalcade session was organized following the opening and the introduction of SUGI-Nexus. Each group delivered a 2 minute pitch with two slides summarizing the essential ideas oof their project. Delegates were then separated into 9 groups and the Internet tool, mentimeter, was used to distribute questions and collect answers for a panel discussion in real-time.

Through broad discussions the delegates and staff shared the scope and mission of the SUGI-Nexus program, exchanged ideas, discussed key elements needed for successful management of the project (leadership, collaboration and stakeholders), and explored possible opportunities that might be used to bridge across the typical silos of FEW management.

M-Nex delegates, coming from 6 countries and representing seven partners and one collaborator, gathered in Sydney from May 16 to 18 for the kick-off meeting of the M-Nex Project. We visited Architectural design offices , and  exchanged information on latest design projects in Australia and Asian-Pacific countries. Project members shared their early work starting up M-Nex in each country and discussed the overall working plan going forward. On the final day, participants visited the water treatment in Sydney Central Park, and examined one of the most advanced projects in the world focused on the nexus of water, energy and landscape.

Participants:

Keio University, Japan

• Professor Wanglin Yan
• Professor Rajib Shaw

Qartar University, Qatar

• Dr, Anna Grichting, Assistant Professor, Qatar University
• Ms. Maryam, Master’s student

University of Michigan, USA

• Dr. Geoffrey Thün, Associate Professor

Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

• Professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen
• Mr. Nickten Caat, PhD student

Queens University Belfast

• Professor Greg Keeffe

Institute for Global Environmental Strategies,

• Dr. Bijon Kumer Mitra, Senior Policy Researcher

Maccreanor Lavington, UK

• Mr. Kevin Logan, Associate Director

University of Technology Sydney, Australia

•  Professor Rob Roggema