McGill University Visiting Professor Vikram Bhatt teaches Graduate Agricultural Urbanism Seminar

Visiting Professor Vikram Bhatt, Professor and Director of McGill University, Montreal’s Minimum Cost Housing Group, taught a graduate seminar this summer on Edible Landscapes/Agricultural Urbanism. Students explored principles of introducing productive agricultural space in and around urban areas, building on Bhatt and McGill’s multi-year efforts in China, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Brazil and Canada exploring productive capabilities of edible landscapes. The work proceeds from a premise that an interest in sustainable living and local growing, coupled with an evolution of aesthetic values beyond traditional ornamental landscape sensibilities, can lead to transformed landscape, economy and ecological balance.

Students worked with several groups in Rhode Island including the Southside Community Land Trust, Providence and Mount Hope Farm, Bristol, and ultimately developed a productive plan for the latter group which is under consideration.