Crisis of the city as an idea on the example of structural transformation of housing development. Urban agriculture as an antidote for suburbanization

Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Environmental Engineering, University of Zielona Góra, ul. Szafrana 1, 65-516 Zielona Góra, Poland

^* Corresponding author: j.kleszcz@aiu.uz.zgora.pl

Abstract

The paper aims to present the phenomenon of transgression of contemporary urban living space as the main manifestation of the crisis of urbanity idea through forming new spatial units defining the city in relation to extra-urban functions. Due to the rapidly progressing process of urbanization, cities are beginning to occupy every available space in large parts of the world. That is why the idea of a closed city is becoming rapidly outdated, and open forms adopted by them and connected with the rural landscape have caused the problem of defining a new concept of contemporary urban-rural space. Although often reasons for this phenomenon are seen only in the progressing suburbanization interrupting the continuity of urban structures, this problem is much more complex and related to the search for an alternative to the outdated form of the city. The paper includes an analysis of the phenomenon, one of the manifestations of which is the emergence of downtown and suburban housing estates that combine urban features with food production. Examples of implementation illustrate the analysis of transformations, which gave rise to the new idea of urban living. The designed estates are both an element disrupting the city's dense tissue, but also becoming a determinant of the next level of self-sufficiency of urban inhabitants - both structural, functional, energetic and also nutritional from potentially adverse external conditions.