Urban Agriculture in Public Space Planning and Designing for Human Flourishing in Northern European Cities and Beyond

Beata Sirowy (Ph.D,, 2010) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and was the leader of the research project Cultivating Public Space whose findings are presented in this book. Her educational background consists of philosophy (MA) combined with architecture and urban planning (MSc), and her research interests lie at the intersection of these domains. Her PhD thesis addresses the theme of user oriented architectural practice from a phenomenological perspective. She has published on the hermeneutics of art and the built environment; ethical aspects of architecture and planning; and the role of public space in sustaining human well-being and resilience in cities. Most recently she has been exploring the opportunities for a dialogue between Western and non-Western perspectives within urban research and is currently completing a book on the relevance of Confucian concepts for contemporary urban development.

Deni Ruggeri (Ph.D., 2009) is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. His research focuses on social and psychological dimensions of landscape architecture livability in urban design, participatory design and co-creation, and green infrastructure. Prof. Ruggeri is the author of 25 journal articles and book chapters, and co-edited the book "Defining Landscape Democracy. A Path to Spatial Justice" (2019).  He serves as the Executive Director of the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), for which he has been Chair of the Board of Director. From 2015 to 2018, Dr. Ruggeri has coordinated the Landscape Education for Democracy (LED) Erasmus Plus project, an educational program on the ethics, theories and practices of democratic design and planning funded by the European Union. Prof. Ruggeri has held associate professorships at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and the University of Oregon,and has been an assistant professor at Cornell University, and has lectured at the University of California, Davis and University of California, Berkeley.