Dr Silvio Caputo

Silvio Caputo has long-standing experience as a practitioner and researcher. His research area is highly interdisciplinary and multi-scalar (from buildings to cities), focusing on nature-based solutions for cities, especially in the areas of urban farming, building-integrated urban farming, care farming and sustainable food planning. His projects investigate the environmental, social and political implications of nature-based solutions for the built-environment, hence covering issues related also to environmental justice, access to land and food vulnerability. Public engagement and co-creation are at the core of such projects, in the recognition that stakeholder’s participation is a fundamental component of academic research.

He has worked in several high-profile, inter-disciplinary and international projects, including the EPSRC funded ‘Sustainable regeneration: from evidence-based urban futures to implementation’; the COST Action TU 1201 ‘Urban Allotment Gardens in Europe’, in which he was chairing the Urban Design Work Group; and the ‘FEW-meter’ international project funded under the initiative JPI Urban Europe, investigating the Food – Energy – Water Nexus in cities. He is currently leading the UK team in the Horizon Europe funded project ‘GreenME: advancing Greencare in Europe: an integrated multi-scalar approach for the expansion of nature-based therapies to improve Mental health Equity. The project investigates the potential of the green care approach to improve mental health and wellbeing and access to green and blue infrastructure from an environmental and health justice perspective.

He has published in high impact journals and authored / co-authored several books. His latest book, Small Scale Soil-Less Urban Agriculture in Europe, documents the latest trend of urban farming, in which innovative food technologies such as hydroponics and aquaponics are adopted in community projects because of their potential for resource-efficiency and educational power.  

• Nature-based solutions for cities
• Urban farming
• Sustainable food planning
• Environmental justice
• Co-design and participatory methods of design and planning
• Self-build urbanism

Dr Caputo in supervising PhD students working in any subject broadly related to his research expertise. Nature-based solutions cover multiple aspects of urban sustainability. Likewise, his interest in participatory processes is wide ranging. He is currently supervising students developing studies on urban farming in the Global South (Latin America) and the impact of gentrification on local communities.