Urban Agroecology in the City of Zürich

Focus Uetliberg

The Hanging Farms of Uetliberg–An Agroecological Vision for Zürich City and country formed a unitary concept in the high Mesopotamian civilisations. This included elaborate irrigation systems as well as palaces, vegetable gardens, vineyards, orchards and fields. Gardens are reported to have never been ornamental, rather all plants had a specific productive use, including medicinal applications. The most famous example is the elusive hanging gardens of Babylon, never fully located, but perhaps existing at around 600 BC.

Our project calls for a paradigm shift in how we perceive, experience and wish to transform urban environments through agriculture. Instead of promoting the fragmented and partially privately-owned gardens characteristic of urban agriculture, our vision foresees agriculture in large, interconnected areas of the city. These areas forge links between housing and protected natural zones such as the forest, and apply the principles of agroecology to ensure not only ecological considerations such as soil restoration and promoting biodiversity, but also social equity and participative governance. Rather than peripheral, these agricultural areas become central to an integrated concept of Zürich’s ecology. Zürich aims to be carbon free by 2040, yet is expecting a 25% population growth over the same period. This places additional pressure on the city’s existing open spaces, as the growing citizen body also requires quality places for recreation and relaxation.

Part of the vision comes from Grün Stadt Zürich (GSZ), the municipal department that manages the public open spaces. These open spaces also include around 500 ha of agricultural land, which they lease to farmers with the aim to produce food through ecological farming practices, to increase biodiversity and to strengthen the accessibility of these diverse spaces for the urban population. In addition to agriculture, the spaces managed by GSZ include sports facilities, cemeteries, parks, forests and community gardens. The municipality owns around 95% of Zürich’s agricultural land and has followed a policy of actively acquiring city farms to ensure food production can continue within the city. Grün Stadt Zürich manages its 14 farms in accordance with the standards of the Bio Suisse label, which certifies organic farming and gardening practices.

Both these visionary policies, plus the increasing pressure on green spatial resources to fulfil additional functions such as climate mitigation and to offer a wider range of spaces for citizens to actively engage in agricultural landscapes, have motivated the “Study of Potentials: Urban Agroecology in the City of Zürich–Focus Uetliberg”, carried out by the Architecture of Territory Chair and accompanying this syllabus. Grün Stadt Zürich recognise that singular functions for discreet green spaces are a thing of the past, and that an enormous potential lies in reconsidering the role of their leasehold farms within the larger context of the eastern Uetliberg flank and the urban landscapes beyond.

Using the combined open spaces, mainly in the Freihaltezone and Erholungszone, along the eastern slopes of Uetliberg, we will explore the potentials, trace the outlines, imagine modes of public engagement through participative processes, and test the viability of a hypothetical Agroecological Zone in Zürich–to achieve a spatial, social and ecological transformation.