*Experimental Living and Housing Forms: Cities of the Future as Sustainable and Integrated… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113213*

zero-mile products and a variety of social functions, but it also has the potential to mitigate many of the polluting phenomena that affect highly urbanized territories. Food-producing cities are livable cities: they create new connections on a social, ecological, and economic level.

Against this backdrop, cities must seize the opportunity to renew themselves through the adoption of a new business model that places the production once again at the center of housing design. Not just production of fresh food, materials, and energy, but a production of intangible value in the transition to a more sustainable future. As a result, cities and the way they work must be reimagined with a view to making them locally productive and globally connected.

In recent decades, the use of the term agritecture has grown in popularity as a means of transforming and reinventing the food supply of future cities. In the productive city concept, places of agriculture or food production can shape new periurban contexts or find space along the edges of sub-urbanization or within established urban fabrics, in existing buildings, in public spaces, in residual spaces, even on terraces and courtyards, in a comprehensive redesign of the metropolitan landscape. Several experts highlight how awareness on the interaction between urban agriculture and contemporary urban space has increased in recent years [28, 29]. Areas intended for farming are being reclaimed and regenerated in abandoned or in-transition urban and peri-urban contexts. Agritecture takes several forms, especially as innovative agricultural models, integrated into buildings. Applications are mainly classified as follows: hanging gardens and/or intensive green roof systems designed to grow fruits and vegetables using soil-based production methods; rooftop greenhouses, "vertical farms," "plant factories," or "indoor farms" that use multistory vertical systems for food production that rely on controlled environment agriculture (CEA) methods that aim to optimize crop growth and space occupied through above-ground growing techniques such as hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics.

Thus, food production takes place in close proximity to consumers, with the possibility of using urban waste as an input for food production in a circular system. The recovery of rainwater, wastewater, waste heat, and organic waste, for example, provides a valuable opportunity to supply water, energy, and nutrients to food production systems while reducing the load on the respective urban drainage and treatment systems.

On the other hand, the progressive recognition of the importance of food in urban development patterns, as well as increased awareness of the impact and externalities of the agri-food system, particularly at the socioeconomic level, have led local governments in recent years to regain responsibility for food and actively engage in the development of urban food policies. Food policies, in fact, place (or relocate) food at the center of urban policy agendas, capitalizing on existing experiences and initiatives and fostering relationships and synergies between various groups of stakeholders (public, private, third sector and associations, citizens) and the different policy domains that food intersects (environment, production activities, logistics and transportation, education and training, economic development and employment, culture and tourism, health and social welfare) in a holistic and integrated vision [24].

Within this perspective, the citizen is assigned an active role, becoming a prosumer (from the crasis of producer and consumer) rather than a passive. By producing food, prosumers attempt to bridge the gap between production and consumption in cities as well as in rural communities.

Bringing agri-food production into housing (or vice versa) can thus include designing and implementing new suburban or peri-urban districts conceived of as laboratories for sustainable agricultural production, housing and social interaction, innovation, education, employment, among other things.

"ReGen Villages," a Stanford University spin-off firm envisioning the future of living in regenerative and resilient communities, has developed an innovative programplanning technique. This is a new visionary model for the establishment of integrated and resilient off-grid ecovillages that blend technology, innovation, circular economy, and self-sufficiency, including especially food. Positive energy housing, renewable energy production and storage, high-yield organic food production, aquaponic/ aeroponic farming systems for vertical agriculture, water management, and wasteto-resource systems are among the innovative concepts embraced by the concept. In the new village concept, from the standpoint of a circular economy, the outputs of one system are actually the inputs of another. It also integrates artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to identify, create, and manage regenerative neighborhoods that promote long-term health outcomes for residents and communities. Moreover, these villages are planned for global replication and scale in collaboration with established industrial partners, universities, governments, and sovereign wealth and pension funds, enabling an optimistic green transition. Several architecture/ engineering firms and companies in Europe have embraced this philosophy and collaborated with the US-based start-up to develop, propose, and experiment with new city and living models. According to White Arkitekter, Sweden could become the first country with circular and self-sufficient communities. Over the past few years, ReGen villages has met with several Swedish municipality administrations, landowners, real estate developers, and stakeholders with the aim of initiating, with the support of the Swedish architectural team, a pilot project in the country.

Naturbyen (Nature Village) is a similar experimentation (**Figure 1**) that was launched in Denmark in 2020 because of a shared desire among the municipality of Middelfart and a number of local communities to design an alternative future through a participatory process coordinated by the Danish design firm EFFEKT.

This collaboration led to the design of a housing area, conceived of as an international demonstration archetypal project of how sustainable housing development may be integrated with ambitious reforestation, improved biodiversity, and a circular approach to resources in suburban and peri-urban regions. Furthermore, housing contributes to agricultural output by creating healthy, socially integrated areas.

A total of 220 new residences located inside a newly planted forest outside big cities represent an alternative to the traditional terraced and parceled housing options that are still the most common housing typology in Denmark. The new municipalityled residential expansion project aims to become a laboratory for residential and agricultural development in suburban and peri-urban areas, with the goal of becoming an iterable intervention in similar realities and assisting Denmark in meeting its ambitious goal of covering 20% of its land area with forests by 2100.

A different approach is being pursued by the city of Shanghai. With a population of about 24 million people and a severe lack of agricultural land for food production, the Chinese megacity has envisioned a unique urban agricultural zone of roughly 100 ha.

The Sunqiao Urban Agricultural District, designed by Sasaki in collaboration with various stakeholders from both the public and private sectors, aims to meet the region's growing agricultural demand while also serving as a living, dynamic urban laboratory for research and innovation, social interaction, and education. In the new district, agriculture is introduced on a large scale through diffuse and punctual vertical farming interventions that take advantage of hydroponic and aquaponic cropping systems that have higher spatial-productive efficiency and a significant reduction in

*Experimental Living and Housing Forms: Cities of the Future as Sustainable and Integrated… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113213*

### **Figure 1.**

*Layout of an agri-city on the model of Naturbyen by Studio EFFEKT.*

water and soil consumption. However, Sunqiao is more than just a food-production district. In fact, the intervention has a high social value and prioritizes agriculture as a key driver for urban growth. An interactive greenhouse, a science museum, and a market represent an attempt to educate future generations about conscious food consumption. Public spaces and facilities, offices, and houses represent the desire to create a mixed-use, dynamic, and active environment, far from the traditional concept of an agricultural district.
