18 November 2019, Soho House, London
Urban agriculture and farming is a multifaceted growing trend, which provides a new, environmentally conscious solution to the production and distribution of food. Through using new processes that can eradicate waste as well as significantly reduce the distance between food growers and consumers, it enables the rising urban populations across the world to reconnect with food. As with many radical trends that involve systemic change, in its origin, it was an idea explored by visionary artists and scientists, who came together to create experimental urban environments, based on closed system cultivation, where vegetables grow in disused urban spaces, using un-natural light, where fish in tanks enrich the water that feeds plants, where water gets naturally filtered to be pumped back into the fish tank. Join our resident cool innovation expert, Lida Hujić, to learn about things such as aquaponics, vertical farming, pollytunnels and chicken coops in cities in a conversation with artist-cum-architect-cum-activist, Paul Smyth, co-founder of Something & Son, creators of the pioneering FARM:London and Hugo Horlick of Rootlabs, a design and horticultural consultancy that creates temporary and permanent growing installations to transform spaces into socially and environmentally productive places. Maker Mondays series brings to life Lida Hujić's new book The 2.5%: small group, big influence, which was presented to and approved by a jam-packed room of Soho House members before its publication.