“Meat Change”
proKlima special thesis award for Julia Theis
For her thesis in the MSc Architecture and Urbanism, Julia Theis has been awarded with the proKlima special prize by the architecture association BDA and the proKlima fonds of the energy company Enercity. The proKlima special prize highlights the specific consideration of climate protection aspects. The aim of this special prize is to bring the topics of climate protection and decarbonisation more into the focus of practising and future generations of architects and urban planners.
Based on an impressive analysis, mapping, and graphics, Julia Theis shows in her thesis shows the spatial impact of the current industrial meat economy in harbour cities, farming regions, and production plants, highlighting the deep logics and linkages of a sort of complex and capillar “meat layer” covering all our living spaces and actitivies—including places of production, distribution, and consumption in cities. In a design exploration, the thesis draws scenarios how a radical change towards a sustainable and resilient food culture can be supported and implemented through urban and architectural inventions, elements, and systems. 100% bio-production and animal-friendly agriculture is balanced with more plant-based proteins, insects, and an overall more healthy and sustainable food culture. The particular quality of the thesis is to show that urban design and architectural innovation will be not only necessary to achieve the eager targets of the European Green Deal in the "Farm to Fork" strategy, but can open up new qualities of living spaces, cultural vibrancy, inclusion, affordability, and competitive economic innovation. The scenario of cooperation between metropolis and rural regions drawn in the thesis offers multiple feedback effects beyond food economy, also in a global scale, and can contribute to a cultural change from consumers to “pro-sumers”.
