How can the potential of agricultural sector revitalize the urban – rural interface in small / mid-sized cities in a socially, environmentally and economically sustainable way?

Aiming to reply to this question, this Major Research Project aligns with the research based approach to design. It provides a policy toolkit, comprising of design and planning strategies, which will serve future projects in creating a sustainable urban-rural interface for medium sized cities and their rural hinterlands.

 In light of the economic and health crises that challenge the resilience of big metropolitan areas, the goal is to unveil and exploit the potential hidden in the agricultural sector and in small cities to promote more attractive, sustainable and competitive patterns of urbanity. The polycentric network of Chalkida city, in Greece, with its rural hinterland prompted this research with a perception that the hidden opportunities and issues in its context are conditions unlikely to be uncommon in other contexts as well.

Profound research in a wide international body of literature and realized projects, as case studies, informed the design of a system of interventions, proposed for unlocking the potential of such places as Chalkida. A set of design and strategic tools are suggested for each zone of the urban-to-rural transect, forming the concept of a network of dynamic centres of urban-rural interface, interconnected via synergic flows (figure.01). A general policy framework is proposed for the effective governance, management and monitoring of the entire system.

 Chalkida city is employed as a testbed for the proposals. The aim is to investigate whether the proposed toolkit can in reality create a sustainable landscape where urban and rural qualities coexist in harmony, both in the urban and rural realm as well as in the distance in between, mutually benefitting local communities and the environment.

Consequently, the initial research question breaks down into the three following guiding objectives of the project:

OBJECTIVE 1 | Define the existing potential

Establish a “model” of spaces that are suitable for the application of the proposed vision (figure.02).

OBJECTIVE 2 | Unlock this potential

Create dynamic centres of interface, as spaces where transactions of products, knowledge, services, money and energy between urban and rural areas take place and urban - rural qualities coexist. In parallel, activating synergic flows that bind together these centres of interface as processes based on resources and interactions in both realms (figure.03).

OBJECTIVE 3 | Test the design tools through application

Test the toolkit of proposals through application on the city of Chalkida, following the spatial sequence of nine defined zones in the urban-to-rural transect (figure.04, figure.05) and critical evaluation of outcomes.

The main critical reflections deriving from the application of the system of interventions, on a selected case study area of Chalkida in more detail (figure.06) and on the scale of the municipality as a whole as strategic vision (figure.07), focus on the transferability aspect of the proposals. It is highlighted that site specific adaptations are essential in order to safeguard the authenticity of places and their sustainable revitalization.