What are the spatial implications of sustainable food systems? What are the necessary urban preconditions for facilitating sustainable diets?
I explore these questions in the context of affluent western cities. With regards to demographic changes, technological developments and environmental challenges, my work considers how our latest food-systems-knowledge can be embedded into spatial design, as a research-based and multidisciplinary form of creative practice.
The spatial design fields - concerned with accommodating our rapidly urbanising world - have yet to sufficiently address how any desirable shifts in urban food practices can be spatially facilitated. Beyond visions of urban farming, the spatial implications of sustainable urban food logistics, retail, food preparation and waste management are far from well understood. Yet, given how significantly spatial logics - on all scales - dictate people’s behaviours and implicitly define what is convenient to do on a societal level, these questions are all the more urgent to explore.
KATA FODOR, Architect MAA & PhD Candidate
I work at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, food policy and sustainability transitions, advancing this field through research, design, advocacy and education. I co-founded the multidisciplinary design studio Atelier Kite in London in 2016, and am currently completing a PhD on urban food systems at Aalto University in Helsinki. This doctorate is titled Kitchen Think-Over: Framing Food System Challenges through Design in Affluent Western Cities (more on that here). My research complements my design practice for developing collaborative urban food spaces. I've worked on projects in Denmark, Ireland, Austria and the UK, and my work has been exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, as well as Helsinki Design Week. I strive to bring meaningful real-life initiatives to academic settings too, not just as case studies or guests (as in the Systems Thinking course I taught between 2020-24 at Aalto), but by directly integrating students' work into such projects (e.g., EASA, Fredericia Food Lab).