In 2007 the town of Middlesbrough in the Tees Valley, North East England went crazy for fruit and vegetables! Over a thousand people from all walks of life grew produce across town, harvested and shared it in an epic town meal, attended by 8000 people. They were pioneering a new, more sustainable and healthy local food system. And they’re going to re-run the project in 2008.

The project was part of a larger programme of activity in the region known as Dott 07. Dott 07 – or Designs of the time 2007 – is a year of community projects, events and exhibitions in North East England that explore what life in a sustainable region could be like – and how design can help us to get there. It’s a national initiative of the Design Council with the regional development agency, One NorthEast.

Like so many towns and cities, Middlesbrough has poor levels of health, surplus urban land and a supply chain that sources food from long distances away, rather than fertile farms on its edge.

The aim of the project was to find a new way in which the town could sow the seeds of a more sustainable economy, source food from places closer to home and link more effectively the many social and environmental regeneration projects that do not connect soil to plate and everyday, consumer experience.

In April, over 60 community groups elected to grow fruit and produce in over 250 different sized containers across the town: in school yards, the windowsills of hospitals, the foyers of offices and open plains of the town’s university campus. Middlesbrough Council grew food in public parks.

Across the growing season, the town’s new urban farmers harvested their crops and brought them to ‘kitchen playgrounds’: chef-led classes in neighbourhood centres across town in which people learned, cooked and ate recipes using butternut squash, tomatoes and other produce that they had grown.

Finally, in September, in the town’s main square, the growers came together in an epic ‘town meal’. It was part of a larger ‘country fair’ event – The Really Super Market – organised by Middlesbrough Council and Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and curated by artist Bob and Roberta Smith. The day challenged people to answer the question: ‘What’s the more important organ, the brain or the stomach?’

The final ‘harvest’ was brought in from containers across town. School cooks and youth groups prepared soup and salad from the produce. The town’s new urban farmers sampled the fruits of their labour and beat the artists in a closing game of ‘tug of war’.

People have learned a lot from participating in the urban farming initiative. Farmers working outside of the town are starting to understand that there is a market for fresh produce in the town. And residents of the town have tasted a new, more self-sufficient route to sustainability.

But perhaps more importantly, the town has set down a marker for others to follow in reducing the carbon footprint of food production, consumption and supply in our towns and cities.

For alongside the initiative, designers Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen have created an ‘edible map’ of Middlesbrough. They’ve drawn together where people grew produce as part of the initiative and existing allotment sites and farms on the edge of the town. Their map looks towards a new design for our towns and cities based upon the local production of food.