On this week's Earth Beat, from flexi-space in Mumbai, to underground greenhouses in Bolivia and Teacup cattle on the west coast of America, we examine how people are reinventing space to make good things happen.

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Flexi-space in Mumbai
Mumbai architect Rohan Shivkumar speaks to Marnie about how empty spaces in his city are recycled each day by the city’s inhabitants.

Temporary agricultural space
Marnie goes to Rotterdam to speak with Gerda Zijlstra from the Nu Hier initiative about how she convinced the owner of a burnt-down nightclub to let her use the space to create a mobile community garden and neighbourhood centre.

Underground greenhouses
In the Altiplano of Bolivia, underground greenhouses - known as walipinis - are being used to grow things never before possible because of the area’s extreme weather. Earth Beat correspondent Jean Friedman-Rudovsky went to investigate and joins Marnie to report back.

The chickens’ palace
In Holland, a place known for its innovative design, there’s yet another first. It’s a new place for chickens to lay eggs. It’s called a Rondeel, or a roundhouse, and it’s a poultry barn that’s good for both the birds and the farmer. Earth Beat reporter Thijs Westerbeek went there to find out more. More - watch the video report.

Teacup cattle
One major criticism of the meat industry is the amount of space it takes up – cattle need fields to roam around in and there simply isn’t enough room. The solution? Smaller cows. Professor Richard Gradwohld breeds ‘Teacup cattle’ which he claims provide more beef, for less space. Earth Beat reporter Martha Baskin went along to meet him at Happy Mountain Farm, just outside Seattle.

Envirominute
A new type of dairy farm is heading to Europe – they’re known as super dairies housing herds of over 8,000 cows, churning out a quarter of a million litres of milk a day. This week’s 60 second round-up explains the controversial plan.

Empathetic vegans
New research shows that vegans are more emphathetic than meat-eaters, and vegetarians are somewhere in between. Massimo Filippi, director of neuro-imaging research at the scientific institute of the Universita Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan joins Marnie to explain what he discovered.

Angry vegan
Lierre Keith became a vegan in her teens and kept the strict diet up for 20 years before her carnivorous instincts got the better of her. She’s now one of America’s most vocal critics of what she describes a food ‘cult’.

Low-hanging fruit
In Vancouver, a local collective picked almost 30,000 kilos of fruit and berries from people’s yards last year. Local charities - food banks, community kitchens and shelters, as well as the pickers and homeowners - got the windfall. Earth Beat correspondent Meribeth Deen got a taste of the action with the Vancouver Fruit Tree project.