In Food City, a companion piece to Smartcities and Eco-Warriors, innovative architect and urban designer CJ Lim explores the issue of urban transformation and how the creation, storage and distribution of food has been and can again become a construct for the practice of everyday life. Food City investigates the reinstatement of food at the core of national and local governance -- how it can be a driver to restructure employment, education, transport, tax, health, culture, communities, and the justice system, re-evaluating how the city functions as a spatial and political entity. Global in scope, Food City first addresses the frameworks of over 25 international cities through the medium of food and how the city is governed. It then provides a case study through drawings, models, and text, exploring how a secondary infrastructure could function as a living environmental and food system operating as a sustainable stratum over the city of London. This case study raises serious questions about the priorities of our governing bodies, using architectural relationships to reframe the spaces of food consumption and production, analyzed through historical precedent, function and form. This study of the integration of food, architecture, and the development of future cities will both inspire and stimulate professionals and students in the fields of urban design and architecture.

The science fiction series that will make you scratch your head, then say “this is awesome!” The year 2067: Obesity becomes the #1 killer of humanity. People are dying younger than ever, and doctors are powerless to stop the pandemic. The only salvation is an experimental treatment—a virtual RPG called Moderation Online, where patients live in a fantasy kingdom with vegetable NPCs that subconsciously teach humans how to make better choices in life. Kendall Barnes is the newest entrant in this idyllic world. African-American, obese, diabetic, and a survivor of a heart attack, the game is his last chance at a normal life. But as doctors download him into the game, hackers inject a virus into the world—an evil civilization of processed foods whose sole goal is to destroy everything in the game by brainwashing humans and slaughtering vegetables. Kendall falls under their spell. When game developers introduce a patch to challenge the virus—a group of terrorist vegetables who fight back against the processed foods—Kendall finds himself in the middle of an epic food fight when the vegetables take him hostage. But he questions everything when he discovers that maybe the vegetables aren’t the bad guys after all. Food City is the first book in Michael La Ronn’s Moderation Online series, inspired by Final Fantasy and JRPGs. With a fast-paced story, fun characters, and lots of action, Moderation Online is mouthwateringly cool. Click now to buy your copy today! V1.0

Around the world, a new architectural form is emerging. In public places a progressive architecture is being commissioned to promote open-ended, undetermined, lightly programmed or un-programmed interactions between people. This new phenomenon of architectural form – Pavilions, Pop-Ups and Parasols – is presaged by rapidly changing social relationships flowing from social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The nexus between real and virtual meeting is effectively being reinvented by innovative and creative architectural practices. People meet in new and responsive ways, architects meet their clients in new forums, knowledge is ‘met’ and achieved in new and interactive frameworks. It contrasts bluntly with the commercially structured interactions of shopping malls and the increasingly deliberate interactions available in cultural institutions. These experiences imbue a new type of client; casually engaged, flocking, hacking, crowd funding and self-helping. Contributors include: Rob Bevan, Pia Ednie-Brown, Roan Ching-Yueh, Dan Hill, Martyn Hook, Minsuk Cho, Andrea Kahn, Felicity Scott, Akira Suzuki Contributing architects include: Alisa Andrasek/Biothing, Peter Cook/CRAB studio, CJ Lim/Studio 8, Tom Holbrook/5th Studio, Matthias Hollwich/HWKN, Mamou-Mani Architects, Benedetta Tagliabue/EMBT

A 2017 James Beard Award Nominee: From the breweries of New Amsterdam to Brooklyn’s Sweet’n Low, a vibrant account of four centuries of food production in New York City. New York is hailed as one of the world’s “food capitals,” but the history of food-making in the city has been mostly lost. Since the establishment of the first Dutch brewery, the commerce and culture of food enriched New York and promoted its influence on America and the world by driving innovations in machinery and transportation, shaping international trade, and feeding sailors and soldiers at war. Immigrant ingenuity re-created Old World flavors and spawned such familiar brands as Thomas’ English Muffins, Hebrew National, Twizzlers, and Ronzoni macaroni. Food historian Joy Santlofer re-creates the texture of everyday life in a growing metropolis—the sound of stampeding cattle, the smell of burning bone for char, and the taste of novelties such as chocolate-covered matzoh and Chiclets. With an eye-opening focus on bread, sugar, drink, and meat, Food City recovers the fruitful tradition behind today’s local brewers and confectioners, recounting how food shaped a city and a nation.