Abstract:
The physical and psychological rift between food production and consumption that is present within our food system is problematic in the light of the ongoing transition towards a more sustainable and resilient food systems and therefore needs to be reduced. This thesis explores how relevant and useful the existing eco-revelatory design principles are for designing productive peri-urban food landscapes that, besides the production of food, also facilitate more direct physical and psychological connections between food production and consumption. The eco-revelatory design approach acknowledges humans as integral components of ecosystems and is concerned with how people experience and understand landscapes and connect with them. The Amstelscheg area, a typical productive peat meadow landscape located within the metropolitan region of Amsterdam, served as test case for the development of a set of design principles. Thirtheen food-revelatory design principles have been developed and form an answer to the main question ‘What food revelatory design principles can be developed for designing an Amstelscheg dairy landscape that facilitates the reduction of the rift between food production and consumption?’ The principles have been formulated based on revelatory themes such as human scale, sensor perceptibility, proximity and attention. Six of the thirtheen food-revelatory design principles provided input for a master plan for the Amstelscheg region. The plan includes a shorter and more complete dairy food chain, a more extensive recreation network and a multifunctional city edge zone. All principles provided input for several designs on a smaller scale level within the Amstelscheg region, among which a design for a bicycle bridge in the shape of a ‘sunken cow’. Besides the physical connection that is created with this bridge, the design of the bridge also aims to create attention and awareness for the ongoing process of peat soil subsidence that is hidden behind the production of dairy products.
