Winner of the C40 Women4Climate award for her commitment to nature in the city, Paola Mugnier participates in the ecological and climatic transition of cities and regions. She is also sensitive to social and societal issues. She currently supports city stakeholders, from developers to local authorities, in order to foster biodiversity and urban agriculture.

Agricultural engineer specialising in urban agriculture, Fanny Provent is now coordinator of the Urban Agriculture, Ecosystem Services and Food for Cities Chair of AgroParisTech. Agile and active in this field, she promotes and facilitates the return of nature to the city, in all its forms. She’s convinced of the importance of the environmental challenges now facing us.

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The PhD thesis also aimed to assess the ecosystem services provided by a productive rooftop of this type. The goal was to provide the tools and knowledge necessary for their implementation as part of the sustainable development of buildings in an urban environment.

Thomas Haden, Research Engineer, was recruited in 2018 at AgroParisTech for a one-year fixed-term contract during which a new phase of experiments was launched with new urban organic waste products. 15 tonnes of old substrates had to be evacuated while around ten tonnes of new substrates and material were delivered. In total, about fifty boxes were reconditioned in order to conduct various experiments until 2021.

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Sand is the third most exploited resource in the world after air and water. The construction sector is therefore responsible for half of the extractions of raw materials and energy consumption at European level, but also for the production of 46 million tonnes of waste in 2014 in France, including 23 tonnes from demolition.

These figures show the alarming impact of this sector on the environment. It is therefore our duty to work to make it more sustainable.

Objectives

In this context, this thesis project focuses on the environmental modelling of conventional reuse and recycling solutions for building and public works materials and structures. It is based on the physical characterisation of existing structural features in order to consider their conventional reuse and on the environmental assessment of conventional reuse via the life-cycle assessment method.

It is all the more opportune to take an interest in the existing building as it represents a large pool of material. The thesis aims to show that we can make the fruit of a linear economy circular.

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Let the urban and the rural, the mineral and the vegetal, interact

Our wish is that the making of the city in the city makes it possible to preserve the existing agricultural and natural areas, that nature flourishes in the city, on the ground as on buildings, and that roofs become reservoirs of biodiversity, rainwater storages, urban heat island mitigation zones, social link catalysts, fruit and vegetable production areas.

Roof terraces are an under-exploited area in the city and yet of key importance: they can represent up to 32% of the horizontal surface of a city. Urban agriculture on rooftops is therefore an opportunity for local authorities to optimise built-up areas to integrate nature in the city, to participate in the climate resilience of cities, to recreate places where residents can meet and share while creating local jobs by offering functional and easily usable sites. Planners, developers and builders will see it as an asset for urban developments with high environmental and social added value, in line with the growing need of city dwellers to reconnect with nature.

Why a practical guide for those involved in the making of the city?

Developing urban agriculture on rooftops is not just greening the building, it is integrating a project, led by specific stakeholders, with its own operating model, its flows to manage, its needs to be anticipated. It is about understanding the challenges and diversity of urban agriculture, consolidating various skills to carry out the project, mastering different regulations, forging partnerships.

It is therefore to bring these different elements together within a single operational tool that we have written this guide, in the framework of the lab recherche environnement programme.We hope that our book will help local authorities, planners, developers, landlords, builders and managers of property assets to further develop urban agriculture on rooftops, in all its diversity, whether in the form of a shared garden, urban micro-farm, restaurant’s vegetable garden or productive urban farm.

 Order the book in paper or digital format

Structure of the practical guide

To this end, the book provides a review of current knowledge and practices, as well as a forward-looking vision of the building of tomorrow.

Then, all the criteria related to the layout of the rooftop for urban agriculture, whether technical, regulatory, related to flow management, project management, etc. are presented in a precise manner and accompanied by practical tips.

Finally, we offer methodological support to deploy these projects as well as summary sheets for each form of urban agriculture projects and for each production system. Twelve fact sheets presenting practices and feedbacks from rooftops in Paris, Lyon, Brussels and Besançon make it possible to adopt best practices.

Methodology – A guide designed with the players in the making of the city

To create this guide, we have:

• Analysed regulatory documents specific to rooftops or urban agriculture;
• Listed 170 agricultural rooftop projects around the world and analysed 70 French projects;
• Audited twelve sites in Paris, Lyon, Brussels and Besançon to better understand the constraints and present the details that make the difference in a project;
• Met many experts such as personnel from the technical departments of local authorities, construction and development stakeholders, project leaders and researchers;
• Led collaborative workshops on technical subjects;
• Benefited from the feedback of many contributors;
• Monitored urban agriculture projects during the construction phase.

Table of contents

Urban agriculture settles on the rooftops

1. Urban forms of agriculture
2. The advantages of making rooftops fertile
3. The peculiar ecosystem of the fifth facade
4. A shift towards “circular buildings”

Implementation guidelines

1. Getting to know the project area and defining it
2. Identifying the main elements of the roof structure
3. Identifying the necessary flows for a rooftop farm
4. What equipment for more functionality?
5. Anticipating the project management

Project methodology and fact sheets

1. The main project stages for a new or an existing building
2. Regulation and reference documents
3. Fact sheets presenting different forms of urban agriculture
4. Fact sheets presenting practices and feedbacks from rooftop agriculture projects
5. Bibliography

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Rainfall water retention, preservation of biodiversity, waste recovery, thermal insulation… Rooftop vegetable gardens contribute to the urban revegetation trend at the building scale. These food production areas contribute to short food supply chains and are a vector of social linkage and pedagogy, such as in the case of shared gardens.

This book is the work of two young engineers graduated from AgroParisTech (Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Sciences). It is an operational and technical guide written in French that reflects the mindset of those who advocate for a sustainable way of life. Enriched with photos, illustrations and graphics, the book includes examples of projects implemented in several French cities.

“Agriculture urbaine : comment aménager une toiture-terrasse” is the first of guide from the lab recherche environnement VINCI ParisTech, the research program based on the partnership between VINCI and three ParisTech schools (MINES ParisTech, AgroParisTech, École des Ponts ParisTech). This scientific patronage aims at supporting research on the environmental performance of buildings and infrastructure

The book is available in French in bookstores and in ebook format

Event

Presentation of “Agriculture urbaine : comment aménager une toiture-terrasse” by the coauthors

On September 21 at 5h30 pm

Online and at Leonard:Paris – 6 place du Colonel Bourgoin 75012 Paris

During the conference « Urban and vertical farmers »,
organised by the lab recherche environnement in the framework of the Building Beyond festival
by Leonard, the foresight and innovation platform by VINCI.

Please, register to the event by the 7th of September

The opportunities and technical challenges of urban agriculture
will be discussed with practitioners and scientists:
Léon Garaix (City of Paris, Parisculteurs programme), Pascal Hardy (Agripolis),
Pascal Michaud (VINCI Construction France), Christine Aubry and Erica Dorr (AgroParisTech).

The authors 

Paola MUGNIER is a mentee of the Women4Climate programme by the C40 for her commitment to bringing nature to cities. She contributes to the ecological transition of cities and territories and she’s particularly sensitive to the social and societal issues. She supports city stakeholders – such as property developers and local authorities – in the development of biodiversity and urban agriculture.

Fanny PROVENT is an agronomist specialised in urban agriculture and she coordinates the « Urban agriculture, ecosystem services and urban food supply » chair at AgroParisTech. She’s strongly committed to these topics and advocates for greener cities, nature-based solutions and green urban infrastructures, in response to urgent environmental issues.

Table of contents 

Urban agriculture settles on the rooftops

1. Urban forms of agriculture
2. The advantages of making rooftops fertile
3. The peculiar ecosystem of the fifth facade
4. A shift towards “circular buildings”

Implementation guidelines

1. Getting to know the project area and defining it
2. Identifying the main elements of the roof structure
3. Identifying the necessary flows for a rooftop farm
4. What equipment for more functionality?
5. Anticipating the project management

Project methodology and fact sheets

1. The main project stages for a new or an existing building
2. Regulation and reference documents
3. Fact sheets presenting different forms of urban agriculture
4. Fact sheets presenting practices and feedbacks from rooftop agriculture projects
5. Bibliography

The post Urban agriculture: how to implement it on rooftops and terraces? A practical guide. appeared first on lab recherche environnement.

Published by Editions Eyrolles, the book will be available in ebook format and in bookstores from July 2. The authors will present the work on 21 September during the conference « Urban and vertical farmers » organised by the lab recherche environnement as part of Leonard’s Building Beyond festival. New opportunities and technical issues related to urban agriculture will be discussed through the contributions of practitioners and scientists: Leon Garaix (Paris municipality, Parisculteurs programme), Pascal Hardy (AgriPolis start-up), Pascal Michaud (VINCI Construction France), Christine Aubry and Erica Dorr (AgroParisTech).

 Order the book in paper or digital format

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Consideration of the city-nature link concerns many levers of action: the greening of neighbourhoods and buildings (on the façade or on the roof); the permeabilisation of soils, the configuration of buildings and the properties of plant cover, which play an essential role in controlling urban heat island phenomena. These analyses must also factor in the relationship that city users enjoy with nature, whether in the context of setting up shared gardens or green and blue belts or concerning perception of biodiversity.

AgroParisTech takes a general interest in living things in urban, suburban and rural spaces. The work carried out by its teams within the framework of the lab recherche environnement has focused on controlling the ecological impacts of transport infrastructures and the implementation and monitoring of compensation measures. Projects have also concerned the implementation of indicators of the state of biodiversity in a neighbourhood and have resulted in a tool that is accessible to practitioners, dubbed Biodi(V)strict®.

Ecosystem services provided by nature in cities are another topic of research, which concerns the effects of the greening of neighbourhoods and buildings on the regulation of the internal temperature of buildings and the reduction of the urban heat island phenomenon.

Finally, another line of work concerns the development of technical systems for urban agriculture and has led to the publication of a guide for the development of vegetable gardens on roofs. A particularly interesting study concerns a technique for recovering urban waste for the manufacture of growth substrates that are suitable for rooftops.

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