Tag - venue
Drivers of change: Food — Arup’s PEEST analysis
As part of the New Optimists Forum preparation, I recently went to see Des Correia, Director of the Arup Campus in Solihull.
As you might well be aware, Arup is an unusual company; they rate thinking highly, not only doing. And it’s owned by its employees — designers, planners, engineers and others.
You’d expect the Arup Campus to be an interesting building, and it is. It’s designed for serendipity to happen, for people to meet by accident. As you might expect, too, the 10 year old building is eco-friendly. For its time, Des told me. Most of the design elements have been very successful, but some now they realise could be better, he says.
Des sent me Arup’s impressive ‘drivers for change: food‘, the hardcopy pack. It’s all grist to the mill of the Forum deliberations.
I thought I’d share with you highlights
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Hydroponics: an experimental urban farm at Aston Cross
Hydroponics, the growing of terrestrial plants without soil, is a centuries-old idea.
According to the wikipedia entry on the subject, Frances Bacon’s book about it, Sylva Sylvarum was published in 1627, a year after his death — and amazingly still in print.
The notion has been resurrected in this century as a means of feeding city populations. Dickson Despommier was perhaps the first to put forward the notion of of vertical farms as a viable idea. His book, The Vertical Farm: The World Grows Up was published last year.
Here in Birmingham, Tony Deep is building something tangible with these ideas. Yup, I mean building as in construction.
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Professorial muddy boots, vegans in the West Midlands & food security
Can you be a vegan and eat enough protein for a healthy life, living off food grown only in the West Midlands? With all the angst about food miles, Rosemary Collier, entomologist and Director of the Warwick Crop Centre at Wellesbourne, has pondered this question. She told me during our thought-provoking conversation that she doubted it could ever be possible, but didn’t actually know.
I’d arrived at the Warwick Crop Centre bearing gifts for her — a papaya, a mango, a very large purple plum, a pear and, yes, one of those 2.5M avocados, part of a large box of fruits given to me by Parveen Mehta, the generous soul who’s Ops Director at Minor Weir and Willis and who I’d met earlier in the day.
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2.5M avocados and food security
I’d never stood in a room containing 2.5M avocados before. On the practical, prosaic level, I can tell you it comprises an awful lot of boxes stacked one upon the other. And it’s bloody cold. Five degrees Celsius to be precise.
This avocado experience brought home to me the sheer scale of the logistics in getting tasty and healthy foodstuffs to a population. And that it ain’t going to get easier over the coming years.
Hence my visit to the avocado room at Minor Weir and Willis. I was seeking their take on the New Optimists Forum. This family firm based at Perry Barr sources a vast array of fruit and veg, exactly timed so that we, the customer,
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Logistics, spud plots, a research centre & hydroponics
Over the summer I’ve been talking to interesting people in interesting places, all to do with food and food supplies.
In short, I’ve been sourcing venues for the New Optimists Forum. Rather than being in hotels and plush offices in the city centre — and I’ve been offered plenty of those — the scenario planning events will happen in very different environments. Context matters!
And in my next few blogposts, I’ll be writing about the people I’ve met, and why it is we think their places would be great for the New Optimists Forum – including Perry Barr-based Minor Weir and Willis whose operation reminds us of the sheer scale of activities needed to feed a population, the lively sociability of Walsall Road Allotments, the muddy boots of professorial research
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