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Vertical gardens and vertical farms

Date: March 8^th 2010 Author: Sabina Podjed Category: Expert commentary
Topic: New technologies , Ecology

Good land suitable for cultivation is increasingly difficult to find, while the Earth's human population is growing rapidly. Population density is especially high in cities, where one of the environmental challenges is how to deliver food from producer areas.

Patric blanc Vertical garden is an expression describing a building with plants covering a specially made construction on its outside. Chosen to grow there are low-maintenance and easy grow plants. They create sound and thermal insulation, as well as a beneficial microclimate. Patrick Blanc is the author of most of such installations.

Patric Blanc; PHOTO: members.home.nl

At the end of the last century there have been calls to design buildings that can be used to grow food. The questions is what inspired architects to create so-called vertical farms, which enable growing food. Was it food crisis of aesthetics? Another question open to dispute is also the quality of food grown in an environment with conditions like this. However, it seems that the trend of sustainable buildings which combine systems for the exploitation of wind and solar power, rainwater harvesting and recycling, green facades and roofs, and even growing food, has already become a sign of a different future of architecture.

Center za urbano kulturo Vertical farm is a term coined in 1999 by Dr. Dickinson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, and his students of medical ecology, who explored the interaction between the environment and human health. The idea grew into a project called Vertical Farming and attracted many architects around the globe. The concept was developed by the Despommier's team, followed by many applications afterwards.

Center for Urban Agriculture; PHOTO: mithun.com

The design for the Center for Urban Agriculture in Seattle, made by the design firm Mithun, won a regional green building award in 2007.

Kokkugia, an architecture studio based in New York, has developed a concept of a building while exploring the structure of fibre tissues. Shelves linking storeys with an unusual construction, which covers the building, offer enough room for vertical gardens.

Kokkugia

Kokkugia; PHOTO: www.designboom.com

An even more ambitious project was designed to be constructed in Dubai, a city famous for architectural extremes. Situated in Zabeel Park and designed by Rahul Surin, Oasis Tower would provide enough food to feed 40,000 people each year. The tower would also have wind turbines and photovoltaic panels, which would provide enough power for it to be self-sufficient.

Oasis Tover; PHOTO: verticalfarm-dubai.blogspot.com

Blake Kurasek designed a skyscraper situated on a platform above water, which offers an almost idyllic picture. It has room for growing berries, tomatoes, apples, peaches, peas, spinach, etc. An image of happy people gardening in one of the building's storeys with a view of the sea seems almost too perfect to be true.

Kurasek If concrete and asphalt are a threat to natural environment, every attempt at bringing in them a touch of nature is more than welcome. The question is, however, how the ideas described above work in real life. Hopefully they are feasible at least to some extent – if nothing else to make living surrounded by concrete and asphalt a little nicer.