Urban agriculture as a green infrastructure system to catalyze post-war recovery in the city of Homs, Syria.

Abstract

This thesis addresses the question of how urban agriculture can be a catalyst for post-war reconstruction in Syria. It is inspired by the important role that agriculture plays in Syrian society and economy. This role has been deteriorating over the past few decades due to urban development, and most recently due a raging conflict throughout Syria. The conflict in Syria, which started in 2011 and still going, has left the city of Homs in destruction and severely damaged the agricultural system around the city that once was a major contributor to the social fabric and economic activity. This thesis proposes an intervention focused on the Baba Amr neighborhood since it was severely damaged and its location adjoining the agricultural fields in Homs. The intervention investigates the potential of urban agriculture in reviving the economic and social fabric in the western peripheries of Baba Amr. I argue that urban agriculture can break the separation between the urban and rural fabric in the western part of the city through green wedges approach, and act as a catalyst for kickstarting the post-war reconstruction effort starting in the peripheries and late spreading throughout the city. More importantly, it proposes a newly constructed housing units where agriculture can play a supportive role for house hold finance. This integration between the agricultural experience and the built-up area will suggest that an urban agriculture green infrastructural network can be the basis for an alternative approach to reconstruction. It provides a low-cost approach, congruent with the social-economic states of residents and as a social gathering space to revive pre-existing social relation in the neighborhood.