How much do you know about your urban food-print?

Photo from BLDG Blog

The guys over at BLDGBLOG are always pushing interesting information through my Google reader, and consistently pushing themselves to help us rethink our constantly evolving urban environment. Their latest project takes a chance to look at the architecture of urban food distribution, our food behaviours in our cities, social and technological innovations which changed the culinary landscape of NYC and an open forum to discuss future directions for the edible make up of the city dubbed 'the Big Apple.'

The architecture of food has been a hot topic throughout the University of Sheffield recently, and its an ever growing trend to think about production, distribution and consumption in a world with a growing demand and shrinking product. As a student of architecture, I am constantly thinking about the ever evolving responsibility of the architect and their role in society today. If we look at creatures in the wider environment, for example ants, who grow and harvest their own food, safely handle material waste (including that of other species), create their own natural medicines and disinfectants whilst maintaining the soil and constantly renourishing the ecosystem they inhabit.

It seems that understanding the deeper nature of where food comes from and how we handle it is a really good starting point. The biggest challenge for us over the next fifty years, is for the architect to seperate himself from object driven design that satisfies our artistic ego, and begin to think about and focus closer on how we are going to globally manage and distribute constrained resources. The design debate shouldn’t be as Bruce Mau states, “the world of design”, but rather, “the design of the world”.

We're going to be thinking a lot over the next few weeks about the culinary fabric that has shaped Sheffield, and the people in this city that are taking these issues into their own hands. Architecture as iconic building is becoming less important to us and we should be thinking more about the systems, flows and networks that make our city tick.