UBC Graduate Research

Everyone is a foodie : Reconnecting with food in the city Chau, Selina

Abstract

Urban living has distanced our relationship with food. Food consumption behaviours have become a major contributor to climate change and increasing health risks. It is believed that local changes have global impact. Eaters are agents of selection; every eater slowly reformulates the planet as they consume it. This thesis project intends to address the unhealthy and unsustainable relationship between people and food in the city through the redesign of public spaces in the urban landscape. Everyone is a foodie envisions an urban landscape that reconnects people to their environment, community, and self through food. It imagines a cultural space that invites people to reflect on their everyday relationship with food, and consider themselves as actors as opposed to merely consumers within the greater food system. The proposal is located in Vancouver, between Granville Island and the Arbutus Greenway. This site provides opportunity beneath the bridge to reconnect people to existing foodscapes that are culturally embedded in the city. It transforms underutilized spaces beneath the Fir Street Ramp into a unique public space integrated with diverse sustainable food practices and creates a new landscape for discussion and activity on the future of food.

Item Citations and Data

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International