When a campus turned into a living ecosystem: Permaculture, an urban agriculture practice in Lisbon
by reframe.food
Urban agriculture (UA) is not only growing produce on rooftops or herbs on a windowsill; it is about rethinking how we, as a society, engage with urban spaces.
What if a university campus, in the heart of a city, could function as a living ecosystem?
What if this ecosystem could capture rainwater, cycle nutrients, grow food, support biodiversity, and generate research along the way; all while just a few meters away, a metro station, a highway, and large buildings rise beside it? Would you believe it?
At CIÊNCIAS ULisboa, that idea has already taken root.
PermaLab (the Permaculture Living Laboratory) is a hands-on space where students, researchers, and the wider community test nature-based solutions inspired by permaculture- right on campus (Figure 1).
In practice, PermaLab operates as a living laboratory:
- open to collaboration across public, private, academic, and community actors,
- transdisciplinary, bridging research, education, and civic engagement,
- focused on regeneration, aiming not only to grow food but to restore and enhance the campus environment.
This approach closely mirrors the ambitions of FOODCITYBOOST, an initiative dedicated to unlocking urban agriculture’s full potential through real-life experimentation, scientific assessment, and multi-actor collaboration across European cities.
Zoned approach and the living lab approach
PermaLab is not a “traditional garden”, it is set out in ecological “zones,” which is in line with permaculture planning concepts. From social and nursery areas to experimental plots, water-based landscapes, and edible forestry regions rich in biodiversity, each zone serves a distinct purpose.
This zoning turns the campus into a living map of sustainable system design. It demonstrates how food production, biodiversity, water management, and community interaction can co-exist within the same space, even in an urban context.
While PermaLab operates at campus scale, FOODCITYBOOST expands this living lab philosophy across six diverse European contexts (Figure 2).
In each Living Lab, urban agriculture is studied not just as food production, but as part of a broader urban system. The project conducts soil assessments, Life Cycle Analyses (LCA), water and nutrient evaluations, and governance workshops. It also examines inclusion and economic viability, ensuring that innovation is both environmentally sound and socially grounded.
By comparing insights across cities, FOODCITYBOOST identifies transferable lessons and develops tools to help integrate urban agriculture into long-term policy and planning.
The research behind good intentions
PermaLab goes beyond demonstration. Research at CIÊNCIAS ULisboa has evaluated maize cultivation using compost from municipal and green waste, measuring yield and mineral nutrition, providing evidence on how urban waste streams can support sustainable food production [1].
Similarly, FOODCITYBOOST grounds experimentation in measurable data and collaborative design. Living Labs become spaces where practice and research reinforce each other, turning promising ideas into scalable solutions.
If a campus can function as an ecosystem, so can a city.
And when research, collaboration and good intentions come together, urban agriculture becomes more than a garden, it becomes infrastructure for the future.
Learn more about the PermaLab: https://ciencias.ulisboa.pt/en/society/sustainability/ciencias-projects/permalab
References
[1] Florian Ulm, David Avelar, Peter Hobson, Gil Penha-Lopes, Teresa Dias, Cristina Máguas & Cristina Cruz. Sustainable urban agriculture using compost and an open-pollinated maize variety. Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 212, March 1 2019. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.12.069
