Greg Keeffe: My Adventures in the Nutriscape

Bio:

Greg Keeffe is the Thomas J Baird Visiting Professor 2021–22 at AAP Cornell, but his full-time job is Professor of Architecture + Urbanism at Queens University Belfast, where he has for the past five years been Head (Dean) of the School of Natural and Built Environment. Greg has over 30 years experience of working in sustainability, using his education both as an engineer and then as an architect. During that time he has won three Royal Institute of British Architects International competitions, and in 2013 was awarded the Green Genius Award by the UK Technology Strategy Board. Most of Greg's work looks at future-casting and the changes we will need to make to cities as we move to a zero-carbon society. He works in interdisciplinary teams to stretch the possibilities of cities in order to become productive, ecological, just, and life-affirming. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, an Expert Advisor on sustainability for the European Union, and a Ministerial Advisor to the Northern Ireland Government. Greg is currently working on a range of projects that investigate the Food Energy Water Nexus, including M-NEX funded by the Belmont Forum and UPSURGE funded by Horizon Europe. His innovative CityZEN Roadshow, where an interdisciplinary team of designers parachuted into cities around Europe in order to kickstart community energy futures, has now been replicated around the globe. Greg wants to change the world and thinks the best way to predict the future is to design it! 

Abstract:

Food, through its production, its consumption, and its disposal, is responsible for over 40% of the environmental impact of the city.  Once upon a time, a city fed itself from its nearby fields, now the globalized city gets asparagus from Peru all year, kiwi fruit from New Zealand, and enjoys Chinese rice and Irish beef.  This globalized system is broken: fueled by oil it has grown beyond sense and is now causing an immense climate and land-use catastrophe.  In addition, the complex networks of industrialized food systems mean we are getting further and further away from the production (and the enjoyment) of our food.  Things are becoming very precarious.

This lecture traces a twenty-year investigation of food, architecture, and the city, looking at how new systems and new technologies can bring production home again.  This future re-connects people with food reduces impacts and creates a new biospheric city where waste literally is food.   Welcome to the Nutriscape!