Jonathan Naraine

Background

About Jonathan Naraine

I work as a city architect in Skara in Sweden, with everything from strategic and comprehensive planning to designing our public spaces and living environment. Currently leading Swedens first citizens council for the collaborative planning of a new neighborhood called Djurgårdshage in Skara. My area of expertise is regenerative planning strategies for resilience and local food production as a tool to reach the Agenda 2030 goals. I previously helped landowners and cities to turn unused spaces into green social meeting places through popup parks and urban farms. As an entrepreneur and architect working in the area of Gothenburg Sweden, I co-founded The Foodprint Lab Architects 2015. We have designed rooftop farms/gardens, popup parks and urban farms for both private and public property owners and also built and launched Northern Europes first land matchmaking platform for urban farming in 2016 - Grow-Here.com. Matching unused land with people who want to farm. I am also passionate about regenerative agriculture as a solution to climate change - and creating a momentum for a transition into regenerative land use that build soil while it increases ecosystem services, public health and economic resilience. I am exploring the most innovative and urgent fields in sustainable design today. Biomimicry, Permaculture, Cradle to Cradle/Circular economy and Holistic Management. They are interconnected in their core principles to something called regenerative design and I am implememting these very principles in what I like to call ”regenerative planning”. Design of self-renewing & resilient systems. This is about not just doing less bad but having a good impact on society, ecosystems etc! Einstein said:"You can't solve problems with the same thinking that created them" And with the new mindset/ paradigm of regenerative design we can go far. We can create a society that emulates nature, where there is no waste. Eliminate world hunger and reverse climate change through self-regenerating movements to change the food system. Our current system of production and consumption is falling into it's grave. As a passionate food activist I in a worldwide network of change makers - I can see that already there is a more local, good, clean and fair food system growing in the ashes of the old one. As an architect it is my duty to prepare our cities and villages for this change that is coming - while also empowering communities to become more resilient. Architecture for the rise if a new food system. Or as I call it - conscious food system design.