Strovolos Living Lab

Urban Cultivation and Learning Space

Urban Agriculture in the Heart of Nicosia’s Suburbs

The Strovolos Living Lab is an urban cultivation and learning space developed through the FEED4FOOD project in Strovolos, Cyprus. Located within Acropolis Park, it brings together regenerative cultivation, environmental learning, urban transformation research and community participation in a living environment that changes through the seasons.

Developed in collaboration with the Municipality of Strovolos and a growing network of local partners including KES College Research, VL Sustainability Metrics, and Apostolos Varnavas Primary School, the Living Lab explores how urban agriculture can become part of the everyday life of the city: as a place to grow food, learn together, meet others, observe ecological processes and explore how public spaces may become sites of social and environmental regeneration.

The Living Lab approach means that the garden is also a place of experimentation. Cultivation, composting, water management, biodiversity and low-input and regenerative growing practices are explored alongside questions about community participation, education, access to land and the longer-term viability of urban agriculture in Cyprus.

Throughout FEED4FOOD, the Strovolos Living Lab has developed into a meeting point between food cultivation, education and community life. Regular Open Days invite




people into the space to care for the land, exchange knowledge, work alongside one another and share food.


Workshops in regenerative cultivation, permaculture, composting and water management have brought together professionals, practitioners and people interested in learning, while visits and collaborations have connected the Living Lab with children, parents, schools, educators, students, community groups and environmental organisations.

Learning through a living environment

Education has become an important strand of the Strovolos Living Lab. Activities have ranged from informal learning with children and families to school visits, college-level activities and collaborations with educators and researchers in higher education.

A sustained educational pilot with the neighbouring Apostolos Varnavas Primary School explored what becomes possible when children return repeatedly to the same living environment over the course of the school year. Children prepared beds, planted and cared for plants, observed insects and soil, measured environmental conditions and engaged in composting, water management and regenerative approaches to food production. Agronomy, biology, art and outdoor education came together through direct engagement with a shared place, allowing children to observe its changes through the seasons and gradually participate in its care.

The Living Lab grows through participation

It brings together different forms of knowledge and experience: growers, agronomists, educators, researchers, artists, children, parents, neighbours, students, volunteers and community organisations. People with considerable experience work alongside people who simply want to learn.

There are many ways to become involved: join an Open Day, participate in cultivation, become a member, bring a school or community group, contribute knowledge or skills, or collaborate on educational and research activities.

The Strovolos Living Lab continues to explore what an urban garden can make possible when it is understood as a productive space, and at the same time, as shared civic and ecological infrastructure: a place where food, knowledge, relationships and practical capacities can grow together.

Contact

Interested in visiting or joining the Living Lab, participating in an Open Day, bringing a school or community group, or exploring a collaboration?

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The project EP/DUT/0922/0001 is implemented under the programme of social cohesion “THALIA 2021-2027” co-funded by the European Union, through Research and Innovation Foundation.