Utilitarian Dreams was a multidisciplinary project examining past, present and future cityscapes discussing them in relation to open space use. As a central theme, Bohn's CPUL (Continuous Productive Urban Landscape) concept triggered speculation on the possible future growth of major cities focusing mainly on Havana and Brighton.
In 2005, Bohn (as part of a group of 4 Cuban and 4 British architects and artists) was commissioned by Lighthouse (UK Arts Council) to curate and produce the project's first exhibition for Cinecity: The Brighton Film Festival within their Ditigal and Moving Image Program. The 2006 exhibition in Havana, Cuba, followed a month-long collaboration/workshop between the same architects, artists, art critics, and students from the University of Brighton and CUJAE Havana. It was made possible through a Batiscafo Residency funded by Gasworks (Triangle Arts Trust), HIVOS and the British Embassy in Cuba.
The collaboration provided a platform to formulate a number of questions: How does the landscape and the city update in response to new realities and necessities of society? How are the private and public landscapes of the city shaped by historical, economic, social, and political circumstances? How and to what extent do citizens affect and become affected by their surroundings from psychological, aesthetic, and spatial points of view? How do individual and social projects converge, and which are the visions, memories and desires people project into the future?
Bohn's contribution to Utilitarian Dreams consisted in works about the perception of open urban space especially where this concerns such space as connected landscape and location for food production.
Work from the two exhibitions was later reviewed and included in the international exhibition Insiders at Arc-en-Rêve Centre d'Architecture in Bordeaux, France. For this exhibition, Bohn collaborated with Viljoen, Cuban art critic Villalonga (group member from the start) and Cuban urban agriculture expert Prof. Jorge Pena Diaz. The project concluded in 2009 with an open dialogue that brought the group together once more. Utilitarian Dreams: the Brighton Dialogue was held at the University of Brighton and included film screenings, large-scale projections and a public dialogue with Jenny White, Director of the British Council Havana, and Catalina Lozano, Residencies Coordinator for the Triangle Arts Trust. Peter Murray, Founder and Director of the London Festival of Architecture, chaired the discussion.