R-Urban English

RECYCLAB will be having an open door event on Friday and Saturday the 4-5 July at Colombes, boulevard d’Achères.
This Eco- Solidarity Platform introduces new strategies for the revitalisation of urban waste through ecological and socially responsible production. It is a space of co-production and work sharing between ‘makers’ of any kind (designers, architects, tinkerers, students, technologists) and a network of local actors. The space is equipped with power tools, a fablab, kitchen, offices and a large terrace under the canopy of a row of trees.

AGROCITE  will also host open door events on the 5-6 July, 4-12 Rue Jules Michelet.
Come to see the garden, participate in guided walks, ateliers, discussions and score yourself a bargain in the grand trash and treasure market where nothing is lost, all is transformed! In this marketplace the currency is ‘trash’ and one person’s trash is another’s treasure! Bring along an object, whether it be a special recipe, crafts, clothes, furniture or something you’ve baked, and exchange it for another.

Agrocité has started a café associative with coffee available every Monday to Saturday, and meals available every thursday!

COFFEE

Fairtrade coffee is available from 12h – 18h Monday-Saturday at 80 cents a cup. We are currently using Feral Trade Coffee, sourced from Mexico and  brought to Agrocité through social networks, outside of commercial systems by Kate Rich, an artist and ethical trader aiming to make transparent the transactions and costs involved in the trade process. Check out the label on the back of the packet to learn about the different hands your coffee has gone through!

(http://www.feraltrade.org/cgi-bin/courier/courier.pl)

Other beverages are also on offer for 80 cents, such as our refreshing Agrocité-made elderflower syrup which perfect to relax in the garden with on a hot summer day! Locally made cakes and treats depend on availability.

MEALS

Each Thursday from 12h-14.30h, a unique, healthy meal will be made using vegetables of the garden. One plate costs 5 euros and numbers are limited so it is important to get there early. While you eat you can read about how the meal is benefitting your body and learn some helpful food facts to improve your health and nutrition, or if reading is not what your after at a lunchtime, you can sit under the pagola in the garden and embrace the serenity of nature. We also have an option of take away for those with limited time, especially if you bring your own tupperware!

The premier lunch was a hit with great reviews from customers. We made Chard and Chickpea curry, served with rice, a cucumber, mint and yoghurt raita and the option of a fresh and flavourful salad. In the images below you can see diners enjoying their meal, the nutritional information tablet provided, and two lunches packaged to go.

From June 4 to 7, the beekeeping season officially began at Agrocité, with initiation workshops into the arts and lives of bees!  Workshops were run by Alain, a local beekeeper who has developed a small apiary, allowing interested inhabitants to learn and practice with him.

Workers, the queen, drone, swarming, queen cells, nectar, pollen, honey, propolis are all a part of what keeps bees busy and what nourishes our planet… It is in a spirit of respect for the bee and their needs that is crucial to beekeeping, as Alain has instilled in us. We thank him and invite interested parties to make themselves known because the magic of beekeeping has only just begun!

On the 4-5^th of April, R-Urban was host to the Life + Platform meeting on Urban Resilience. This meeting brought together practitioners from around Europe working to address urban environmental challenges within their local cities. As recipients of the European Union’s Life + funding, the organisation’s share a common stake in the innovation of resilient approaches to sustainable cities, particuarly their adaptability to climate change and socio-political change. The meeting was divided into themeatic workshops around infrastructure and planning, waste management and resource management, with presentations from each project representative on their specific areas. In the field of infrastructure and planning, we heard from Caroline Bragg from GroundWork on climate proofing social housing landscapes in the UK; Florencio Conde on sustainable environmental balances in the recovery of the natural peri-urban area of ‘Las Arcillas’ in Tereul, Spain; Isabelle Chatoux from Yvelines on green planning for the SeineCityPark, Chanteloup Loop, Paris; and Outi Salminen on creating an urban oases in Finland: Shaping a sustainable future through environmentally functional landscape features.

The second workshop focused on addressing waste management and recycling at different scales and how this contributes to an increased territorial resistance. Presentations were given by Clare Standish and Sarah Melor from UP and Forward, an initiative based in the Greater Manchester focused urban participation in the reuse and recycling of household waste and development of communications; Philippe Naudet from the European Week for Waste Reduction, based in Brussels and operating on a European scale in the promotion of waste prevention.

The last workshop focused on natural resource management and renewable energy production in the urban frame. This theme was explored with presentations by Nathalie Briche from MAC EAU, a localised initiative working to reduce the household consumption of drinking water through the implementation and evaluation of integrated measures in Geronde, France; Beatrix Dold from EKO LIFE discussing their approach to promoting sustainable lifestyles to encourage energy autonomy in Vorarlberg, Austria; and Laurence Caille from CLIMATE (Changing Living Modes: Acting in our Territory for the Environment) presenting their work on fostering behavioural change around energy and waste awareness in Essonne, France.

The two day seminar provided a much needed platform to share the successes and challenges facing each project, as well as providing the space to talk and learn about different practices and operational tools surrounding participatory approaches and local governance in the creation of resilient projects. On the second day, visitors were invited to learn about R-Urban through short presentations by local and institutional stakeholders and gain a perspective into the life around R-Urban.

For this Eco-Commun # 04, we received Katrin Bohn . She is a researcher and architect working particularly on the notion of urban agriculture, and also head of the Department of City and Energy of the Urban Institute in Berlin (ILAUP ). She came to the garden Michelet explain the concept of CPULs, (Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes), she has developed with Andre Viljoen. The open spaces are CPULs throughout cities, through the built environment seamlessly, thereby connecting all forms of existing green spaces in city centers, and making the link with the surrounding rural areas. The CPULs can be open green spaces and can possess an economical, social and environmental productivity.
The CPULs do not exist yet. However, many forms of urban agriculture already exist, just like what we have developed together in the Michelet garden: urban farms, market gardens, vegetable gardens, shared gardens etc..Such structures are, so far, isolated components of future CPULs that could be connected to a regional network of green spaces more widely available, giving them more urban coherence.
Thank you Katrin and thank you to everyone who came to listen!

This heating system recovers and reuses the heat energy produced by the compost during the biological process.At the heart of the volume of 1 m3 of compost, the temperature can reach 60 °. It therefore seemed worthwhile to try to recover the heat produced. The heat transfer system is based on a simple principle: that of the hot water heating. In the draft of the Agrocité , the system will serve to partially heat all the buildings during the cold period of the year.
The system comprises two parts: on the one hand the system loading, storage and movement of the compost and on the other hand the mobile system of transfer of thermal energy, which allows to recover the heat produced by compost. On the site of the Agrocité , compost can be recovered at different points of the site: at the Agrolab, shared garden, composting toilets. A compost storage vessel will be installed at each location. When these boxes are full, they can be moved and returned to the mezzanine of the building to be connected to the heating system. As the field presents difficulties in terms of transport, we chose two mechanisms: the conventional pallet transporter for flat areas and a platform with 4 wheels for more bumpy areas.

This prototype represents a first step in a long road that passes from the technical design to the implementation phase. With this experiment we can define some parameters of the system, which remains widely understudied in the world. The specifications of the prototype is in the Local Products section from our site: Compost heating .

design team: aaa and Yvon Nature Ecology
collaborated in the production of the prototype: Yassine, Michael and Basil