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HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid launches Mall of the
World, a temperature-controlled pedestrian city in Dubai
Dr. Anna Grichting
Architect-Urbanist,
Professor, Department
of Architecture and
Urban Planning, Qatar
University
courses and research in Sustainable Urban
and Landscape Design are studying the
potential of new design strategies and
typologies that include the integration of
food production within the citiy. This can
contribute to the promotion of healthy
living through the consumption of organic
foods, herbs and natural medecines and
more active lifestyles through gardening.
By using permaculture approaches to
planting , these productive landscapes
can also benefit biodiversity and foster
cultural integration through gardening
communities. Permaculture is a branch of
ecological design, ecological engineering,
environmental design, construction and
integrated water resources management
that develops sustainable architecture,
regenerative and self-maintained habitat
and agricultural systems modeled from
natural ecosystems.
One approach is to consider landscape
systems and their symbiosis with
architecture, to create beneficial
relationshipsthatminimise the use of scarce
resources. The concept of the “regenerative
city” as proposed by Herbert Girardet is one
that has circular metabolism – as opposed
to the traditional linear one - which
imitates nature’s circular metabolism,
where the waste generated by one organism
serves as a useful resource for others. In
a predominantly urban world, cities will
need to adopt circular metabolic systems to
assure their own viability as well as that of
the rural environments and ecosystems on
whose viability they ultimately depend.
Hanging Gardens of Doha. Integrating
Green Infrastructures for increased
Food Security, Human Health and
Urban Biodiversity.
Towards Regenerative Cities in the Gulf
Qatar and the rapidly expanding and
urbanising countries of the Gulf face many
challenges, which include Food Security,
Loss of Biodiversity and Increasing Health
issues. How can landscape help to create
moreliveableandsustainableenvironments
in arid countries? Tackling these challenges
requires new approaches to design which
include developing a deeper understanding
of ecological and physical systems in
relation to human activity and improving
landscape-urban designs for increased
resource efficiency. At Qatar University,
Dr. Anna Grichting with students Reem and
Nussyba and permaculture experts Paige
Tantillo in the Edible Hanging Garden at the
College of Engineering, Qatar University.
Paige Tantillo, Certified Permaculturalist on her roof top Edible Garden in Doha.
urbanism
A
nna Grichting is an architect,
urbanist and musician from
Switzerland and graduated
with a Doctor of Design in
Urbanism from Harvard
University. She is interested in holistic
and systems approaches to Design
and to emerging ecological trends in
Landscape and Urbanism, Smart Cities,
Food Urbanism, Urban Biodiveristy,
Border Ecologies and Public Art. Her
academic experience includes teaching at
the Universities of Geneva and Harvard,
developing an Education Initiative for
the Aga Khan Award for Architecture
and teaching the Balkans Peace Parks
Academic Expedition Summer Course.
She is currently teaching Architecture
and Urbanism at Qatar University. As a
musician, she has just released a CD with
Desert Bridges in Qatar.
FutureLandscapes
for Food Security
and Biodiversity.

2. 14 I www.landscape-me.com I February 2015 15I www.landscape-me.com I February 2015
urbanism
Cities are not made from individual
buildings, they are also constructed from
the infrastructure and organization of place
as well as the communities that inhabit
them. The sustainable city calls on us to
understand how these city systems work in
relationship to the natural environment and
relationships to the anticipated community.
The emerging field of Landscape Urbanism
looks at this new symbiosis and merging of
fields to design more integrated ecological
systems. As Charles Waldheim suggests,
Landscape urbanism begins with the
environment, looking to work with the
ecological systems of a particular site.
Designing Productive Landscapes at
Qatar University
It is necessary to find new approaches
to urban planning and architectural and
landscape design in Qatar which integrate
food systems and spaces, increasing food
security, minimizing resource consumption
while maximizing resource efficiency.
Qatar University’s Master’s Program in
Urban Planning and Design has been
looking at the concept of Food Urbanism as
an example of Sustainable Systems Design
for cities. There are many different project
scenarios at very different scales where we
can start to bring food production into the
city. Compounds can be retrofitted to allow
the inhabitants to compost their organic
waste, recycle water and grow seasonal
vegetables and plant fruit trees. Educational
Institutions can build greenhouses to
produce food for their canteens and to
involve the students in the production.
Vertical farming is one way of growing
food without soil, using aquaponics, which
utilizes very little water and recycles
the water. Towers and rooftops can be
transformed with productive facades
and terraces. The Master’s students at
Qatar University elaborated scenarios
for different scales and typologies for
Productive Landscapes in Qatar, including:
Qatar University Edible Campus; Green
Retrofitting of West Bay High Rise
District; Vertical Farming Towers in Lusail;
Al Zuhoor Compound Edible Gardens;
The Pearl Community Gardens and
Edible Boulevards; Abu Nahkla Reservoir
Wildlife, Biodiversity and Organic Food
Production; and Offshore Reefs Food
Production for a Post Carbon Society.
Vertical Greening
Integrating Plants into Architecture and
Urbanism is not new, but it is gaining
a new lease of life as a contribution to
urban ecology and liveability as well as
improving a buildings resource efficiency.
Buildings and Urban Designs that integrate
good and efficient green infrastructures
can contribute to Carbon Capture and to
reducing the Urban Heat Island effect.
Other challenges facing Gulf countries,
such as Food Insecurity and loss of
Biodiversity can be mitigated by new forms
of plantings that align with the principles of
Permaculture.
VerticalorSkyriseFarmingaswellasGreen
facades and Hanging Rooftop gardens are
ways to integrate vegetation into buildings
and to maximise efficient use of resources
and recycling of waste. The idea of vertical
farm has existed since the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon and comprises cultivating plant
life within skyscrapers or on vertically
inclined surfaces or rooftops. In addition
to skyrise farming, green walls and green
roofs are used as ways to control climate
within buildings and capture carbon as well
as to mitigate heat island effect.
Theverticalgardeningconceptwasappliedby
students to retrofitWest Bay high rise districts
and commercial zones, including shopping
malls, with green facades and rooftop
farming, and edible boulevards and public
spaces. The proposed solutions included
greening the towers façade, regeneration of
unused/low occupancy towers, and creating
more integrated and sustainable public realm
landscape.
An Edible Campus and Hanging
Gardens at Qatar University
One example of a project that is being
envisioned by students, researchers and
faculty at Qatar University is to design
an Edible Campus. The objective of this
project is to maximize resource efficiency
and to improve the ecosystem and
environment. By providing an
important source of fresh food for the
campus, which includes residential
areas as well as educational and
research facilities, it is also possible to
considerably reduce the Foodprint of
the University, that is, the amount of
energy that is used to bring the food to
the plate on the campus.
This project includes both retrofitting and
guidelines for new buildings. Students
began to identify all the accessible and
flat roofs on which Food Producing
structures could be implemented. They
also outlined the reserves of land that can
be used for farming for the years that they
are not needed for building. Vegetables,
Fruits and Medicinal plants are proposed
and these also contribute to designing a
Figure 6: Scenarios for
Productive Landscapes at City
Center Mall and New Doha
Convention Center: Green
Roofs for Urban Agriculture.
Arch. Ahood Al-Maimani.
Diagram showing
the planting seasons
in Qatar by students
Reem Awwad,
Nussyba Abdelgader
and Assma Al
Mohannadi
Dr. Anna Grichting
and students Reem
Awaad and Shorook
Bassam planning
the Juicing Event in
the Edible Garden
Design by students
Reem Awwad,
Nussyba Abdelgader
and Assma Al
Mohannadi for
the Hanging
Edible Garden at
Qatar University
Female College of
Engineering
Phd Student Luzita Ball
discussing the species for
the rooftop permaculture
landscape at the Qatar
University Female College
of Engineering Hanging
Gardens.

3. 16 I www.landscape-me.com I February 2015 17I www.landscape-me.com I February 2015
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new landsape plan for the campus. The
long view is to be able to reuse the grey
water from the buildings to recycle the
organice waste from the canteens and the
landscape gardening.
Apilotprojectiscurrentlybeingimplemented
in an edible boulevard and a rooftop garden
at the College of Engineering at Qatar
University as part of an undergraduate
student grant and a PhD research on
permaculture. Working with the local
gardeners, many of them Nepali and
coming from farming communities, the
aim is to grow food for the workers, and
also to create a landscape that will foster
biodiversity by attracting many species of
birds, butterflies, insects etc.The plans for
the Edible Boulevard were designed by
undergraduate students as part of a grant
funded by the Qatar National Research
Fund. Their work included case studies
of food growing in residential buildings –
including a permaculture garden - as well
as a diagram showing the edible plants
and their growing seasons in Qatar. Part
of the challenge is not only designing new
spaces and structures to accommodate
food, but also to communicate to the
public that growing food is possible in
desert climates.
Research being undertaken in
collaboration with a doctoral researcher,
Luzita Ball, will aim to gather empirical
and scientific data about what grows
well in Qatar and demonstrate the wide
variety of food that can be grown, even
with the harsh growing conditions. It will
also provide a tangible demonstration
of how implementation of Permaculture
practices helps to increase and benefit
soil structure by use of compost, manure,
straw, diversity of plants. and to increase
biodiversity by natural pest management
practices through beneficial insects. and
a mix of vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, that
create a symbiotic ecosystem, using the
waste water from the residential building,
recycling organic waste, as well as raising
chickens.
This multi-pronged approach, at
multiples scales of design and typologies,
is necessary to implement effective,
lasting and meaningful systems and
infrastructures that are integrated and in
line with the country’s vision
In Qatar - which to date imports 90 percent
of the food stuff consumed in the country
and has around 1,200 farms of which only
300 are productive - Vertical Farming,
Food Urbanism and Permaculture are still
emerging concepts. But as designers and
planners, we have to look to the future and
plan for 10 to 30 years ahead, if not more.
The problem of food security, the shortage
of water and the loss of biodiversity will
certainly shift our ways of designing cities
and producing food, and will drive the need
for more collaboration between engineers,
architects, urbanists, biologists, and many
disciplines to work together to this end.
Participative and collaborative planning
are also necessary to achieve social,
ecological and economic sustainability that
is meaningful for all society.
Figure 1: Diagram of
the Concept of City as
Circular Metabolism.
(Girardet, 2012)
Planting the Edible Hanging Gardens at
the Qatar University Female College of
Engineering.
urbanism