1. AGRIHOOD
A New Peri-urban Agricultural System for Auckland: Towards a Sustainable
Farming-centered Residential Development
By Shoujun Chen
Department of Landscape Architecture, Unitec, New Zealand
With population growth predicted for Auckland, there will be
a rise in the food production required to feed the city (Auckland
City Council, 2015). Auckland is already the country’s largest
customer of food markets, but the fossil fuel based agricultural
system in Auckland is still vulnerable to urban growth and climate
change. Peri-urban agriculture refers to “production units close to
town, which operates intensive semi or fully commercial farms to
grow vegetable and other crops” (Komirenko, 2008, p. 1). In
Auckland, the peri-urban agriculture is present in the periphery of
current urban areas, which are located between the build-up
areas and Rural Urban Boundary such as Kumeu, Belmont and
Hingala. In order to provide sustainable future for our next
generation, the emergence of peri-urban agriculture provides
opportunities to improve the city’s food resilience and develop
local food system in Auckland.
The project will focus on creating a farming-center
community called ‘Agrihood’ on a specific site - Special Housing
Areas (SHAs) in Belmont, for the radical transformation of an
industrialized agricultural system into a locally-based, sustainable
model in peri-urban Auckland