Propose design pathways to sustainable settlements in rapidly urbanising food regions
Urbanisation with an agropolitan outlook, foregrounding the inter-dependence of future cities and future agriculture
The Agropolitan Territories of Monsoon Asia module addresses the unsustainable relationship between urbanisation and food production in monsoon Asia. Globally, urban land expansion is consuming fertile agricultural land at unprecedented rates. Simultaneously, the industrialised agricultural practices developed to meet the food needs of urbanised populations are placing pressure on a range of ecological systems. A future based on this pattern would be disastrous, not only for already vulnerable regions, but also for the planet.
This research seeks to develop an 'agropolitan' outlook to urbanisation, which foregrounds the inter-dependence of future cities and future agriculture. It is doing so by developing transdisciplinary and multi-scaled approaches to data collection and analysis, dynamic planning support tools (combining artificial intelligence and participatory planning), and designs and prototypes for sustainable agropolitan territories.
The focus of the study is Monsoon Asia, where urbanisation is rapid and intense, and where most of the world's staple cereals are grown (90% of the world's rice, 45% wheat, and 25% maize). Within this region, we are focusing on a selection of complex, polycentric settlement networks in China, India and Indonesia, considering the knowledge exchange possibilities between these regions and Singapore's emerging expertise in food-secure urban planning.
