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Abstract :
[en] This PhD thesis deals with the interrelation of the disconnected fields of urbanism, agriculture, ecology and planning. Such an attempt was inspired by a renewed relationship between the urban and agriculture, built from the perspective of agroecology and its manifestation in urban design and planning. Despite the growing interest in agricultural production in and around cities, urban planning processes are still ignoring its integration. In most instances when undeveloped land is available, neither food production nor the quality of soil have a high priority for planners and are mostly considered at the end of a planning process. While food entered the planning agenda more than a decade ago through the emergence of urban food planning, a perspective of food planning as a discipline towards an ‘urbanism’, i.e. agroecological urbanism, is still missing. Therefore, this PhD thesis is based on the conviction that urban planning should be reassessed from an agricultural perspective. In doing so, it introduces the notion of an agri-urban design, which aims to develop land with instead of against the agricultural landscape. The context of Luxembourg has been used to remedy such a missing link and propose a highly constructive and integrative planning approach that considers agriculture and its soil quality, within the planning process. The research is structured in five different methodological approaches ranging from a historical, comparative, multi-scalar case study, land-suitability towards a prospective approach. Each approach thereby builds on the findings of each other. Such a mixed-methods approach underlines the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of the different strands of urban and agricultural development. The results are subject to different validation methods, culminating in the formulation of a prospective vision of land use planning and design for the case of Luxembourg by combining agroecological principles.
