A joint research workshop of

Cairo University Faculty of Engineering – Urban Form Lab

and

B-tu Cottbus Senftenberg Faculty for Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning Institute for Urban Planning Chair Planning in Post-Industrial Landscapes

funded by DAAD

Abundant public and private green open spaces are a central element of the urban morphology of New urban Communities (NUC) around Cairo. This spatial porosity is a condition allowing a variety of productive uses to establish in green public open spaces. Various actors appropriate these spaces for individual plantings, garden partitions, flower beds, fields of crops, plant nurseries or animal husbandry – thus for urban gardening and urban Agriculture.

The workshop explored these processes in open space, aiming to understand the motivations, connections to the living and supply situation of the residents. Beyond that the research unravels in which ways the surveyed productive uses provide economic values, a livelihood or contribute to the quality of life, well-being and health. Thus, the dimensions of social, economic and ecologic sustainability of the found practices were analyzed.

Conception Workshop: Monique Jüttner