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Present and Future Perspectives of Landscape and Urban Horticulture as Urban Regeneration Practices

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 December 2024) | Viewed by 3252

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, 40100 Bologna, Italy
Interests: urban agriculture; building-integrated agriculture; green buildings

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Guest Editor
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Bologna, 40100 Bologna, Italy
Interests: vertical farming; artificial lightning; vegetable crops
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Department of Architecture, DIDA, University of Florence, 50100 Florence, Italy
Interests: building-integrated agriculture; urban regeneration; residual spaces

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The concept of urban food systems has been seeing increasing interest in the past decade, with multiple initiatives developed by researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. The rapid growth of urban food systems can be partially explained as local countermovements in response to decades of national and supranational food policies that tended to homogenize rather than recognize the diversity of local food systems, with high investments provided mostly to large companies, leaving little space for smaller companies to compete. Additionally, fostering urban food systems has been proven to provide important ecosystem services, implement urban green infrastructures, and foster sustainable and circular processes in urban areas. Accordingly, landscape and urban horticulture practices have rapidly grown and taken many forms, promoted by different actors and stakeholders, with different scales and purposes. Having initially emerged as possible solutions to increase regional, urban, and peri-urban food resiliency, taking advantage of the infrastructural gaps in modern cities, today, urban farming practices can also be seen as a new method of urban planning able to regenerate lost or vacant spaces and fostering new integrated green buildings solutions.

On this trail, for this Special Issue, we welcome conceptual and empirical studies, as well as theoretical or realized projects, that propose concrete actions to promote landscape and urban horticulture in modern cities, highlighting scopes and benefits that they could provide both to the urban food system and urban regeneration.

Papers can be submitted in the broader research area of landscape and urban horticulture. However, articles that focus on the below topics are encouraged:

  • Ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture practices;
  • Urban horticulture as new green infrastructure;
  • Climate change mitigation and adaptation through landscape and urban horticulture practices;
  • Water and waste management;
  • Circular design processes;
  • Integration of agricultural practices in and on buildings;
  • Social, environmental, and economic innovations achieved through urban farming initiatives.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Michele D’Ostuni
Dr. Giuseppina Pennisi
Dr. Leonardo Zaffi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban farming
  • building-integrated agriculture
  • smart horticulture
  • hydroponics
  • vertical farming
  • green infrastructure
  • food-productive cities

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

26 pages, 4931 KiB  
Article
Geothermal Water Component of Land-Based Fish Farm—A Case Study of the Sustainable Blue Economy Architecture
by Leszek Świątek
Sustainability 2025, 17(6), 2693; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17062693 - 18 Mar 2025
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Abstract
Geothermal water, as a by-product of renewable energy generation, can be appreciated as part of a sustainable Blue Economy in terms of resource effectiveness. This could be part of urban geothermal resource parks in the near future. City aquaculture integrated with urban farms [...] Read more.
Geothermal water, as a by-product of renewable energy generation, can be appreciated as part of a sustainable Blue Economy in terms of resource effectiveness. This could be part of urban geothermal resource parks in the near future. City aquaculture integrated with urban farms running in a cascading model of energy and material consumption can provide an advanced energy-water-food nexus in densely populated areas, evolving into a refined Nature 4.0 habitat. This case study of the world’s first climate-controlled, closed salmon farm based on geothermal resources presents inclusive, water-sensitive design principles and resilient urban planning, where architecture brings aquatic ecosystems indoors. This is also an example of how to reduce investment risk and integrate geothermal development with sustainable, innovative fish farming based on water circulation systems (RAS) and digital technologies to sustain life-support systems. This greenfield project on Poland’s Baltic coast highlights the potential for geothermal investments, demonstrating that even low-temperature extracted water can serve as both a renewable energy source and a valuable resource. Having operated successfully for over a decade with positive certification, this model of efficient geothermal resource utilization appears to be well-suited for replication and broader implementation. Full article
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21 pages, 9197 KiB  
Article
Integrating Greenhouses into Buildings: A Renewed Paradigm for Circular Architecture and Urban Regeneration
by Michele D’Ostuni, Tong Zou, Allison Sermarini and Leonardo Zaffi
Sustainability 2024, 16(23), 10685; https://doi.org/10.3390/su162310685 - 5 Dec 2024
Viewed by 2041
Abstract
In the post-COVID-19 era, there has been an increasing interest in re-evaluating citizens’ living conditions within dense and grey urban areas. The provision of green spaces has always been identified as an important aspect of alleviating contemporary everyday life stress and preventing or [...] Read more.
In the post-COVID-19 era, there has been an increasing interest in re-evaluating citizens’ living conditions within dense and grey urban areas. The provision of green spaces has always been identified as an important aspect of alleviating contemporary everyday life stress and preventing or limiting mental health-related issues. It is also an important strategy to mitigate urban heat islands and foster adaptation strategies to climate change. Among the numerous experiments of ‘green action’ available to urban planners, urban farming strategies have been widely used in Europe to provide green spaces and ecosystem services, exploring the topics related to self-production of food, biodiversity, and zero-km cultivation. Therefore, finding new spaces for agriculture in urban environments has driven scientists, researchers, and entrepreneurs to develop new soilless technologies (such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics) to maximize yields in urban areas, creating new agricultural and architectural models such as the vertical farms (VF) and the building-integrated greenhouses (BIGH). In this regard, the objective of this paper is to recontextualize the integrated greenhouse element for high-tech food production as new iconic architectural models derived from the experience of the Victorian Winter Gardens and the first tropical greenhouses. Revisiting these perspectives, this paper offers opportunities to redefine the greenhouse as a multifunctional asset that aligns with both environmental goals and architectural standards. Full article
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