1. Text: Amadis Lacheta
Visions of
Urban Agriculture
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As conventional farming faces increasing
challenges, visionary companies from
around the world have come up with new
ways to harness the built environment for
food production. Amadis Lacheta reports.
Worldwide, we are losing our agricultural landscapes to
alternative development: urban sprawl, industry and, most
recently, the production of bio-fuels conjunct with the reality
that more than half the world’s population now lives in cities. The
future of our current agribusiness food system is unsustainable,
with conventional large scale farming facing serious challenges
from an increasingly unpredictable climate, depleted soils, over-
use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, loss of biodiversity
within species and diminishing water resources. The cost to grow,
transport, process, package and store food increases with the price
of oil, as do our greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil
fuels. And to top it off, our aging farmer population is not being
reinvested with the energy of youth as few people dare to make
a livelihood from the land. What is the future of food in these
extremely challenging circumstances?
A couple of years ago, I came across a book called From Eco-
Cities to Living Machines, principles of ecological design by Nancy
Jack Todd and John Todd. I was completely fascinated. Imagine
a bus stop that incorporates shelter and aquaculture, processing
biological waste and producing food? The Todds, alongside aquatic
biologist and writer William McLarney, founded the New Alchemy
Institute in 1969 and over the ensuing years have pioneered >
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2. “The Significance of Ecological Design.
From where I stand, ecological design and
ecological engineering are about as radical
a discipline as you can get, because what
they say at the very outset is that human
beings are going to be partners with other
life forms. Now your average designer in
a studio, or your average architect, or your
average engineer isn’t going to think much
of that. But what I am proposing is that
ecological engineering has the potential
to transform how we run our society.”
John Todd
small-scale intensive food production systems or “living machines” both heartening and highly imaginative, from supermarket rooftop
such as aquaculture systems, vertical farms and bio shelters. As John greenhouses producing vegetables and herbs, to entire buildings
Todd explains: dedicated to urban farming.
“We asked ourselves the question: is it possible to grow the food A new business, Sky Vegetables, recently won the top prize of
needs of a small group of people in a small space without harming $10,000 in the 2008 G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition for
the environment and without enormous recourse to external sources students of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Sky Vegetables
of energy and materials on a continuing basis? One of the beautiful plan to build and operate commercial greenhouses on supermarket
things about using ecology as a model is this concept of balance, this rooftops in the United States, with the impressive goal of breaking
concept of all kinds of strange things that technologists don’t think even in 20 months. Using hydroponic cultivation the greenhouse will
about, pulses... day and night, seasons, cold, warmth... how to design provide the supermarket with vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers for
all these things so that they dance with each other to create a whole retail sale. Imagine having produce picked as it ripens and taken to
system that self-designs, that becomes intelligent. All of a sudden you the sales shelf in less than half an hour! Naturally this also eliminates
are talking about a technology that is alive, a living machine.” transportation and packaging costs, which can account for up to 80%
It’s taken 30 years for these ideas to start influencing mainstream of the cost involved in fresh produce. With the impact of increasing
design; however, the proliferation and application of these ideas is cost of fuel on agricultural production, rooftop urban agriculture >
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3. is becoming rapidly more viable. committed relationship with 10 gorgeous varieties of lettuce, all of “Two Problems, One Solution.
Australian company, New World Concepts, has developed the whom like to wear the rouge”, mache, endive, tomatoes, eggplants,
Skyfarms Natraponics Module, designed over a three-year period peppers, summer squash, cucumbers, fennel and golden-podded Modern farming feeds billions
by Founder and Managing Director Anthony Foo to address the peas plus a constant supply of chives, parsley and thyme. A long- every day, but is the world’s
impacts of industrial food production and make use of under-utilised time market gardener, Marc ran the city-based CSA (Community largest consumer of both
roof space in our cities. Skyfarms employs a closed cycle system Supported Agriculture) Urban Bounty Farm for many years. He
that is modular, almost instant to erect and capable of standing was inspired by the Austrian artist and ecologist Hundertwasser, land and water, the primary
alone with the structural integrity to withstand winds at building whose imaginative revisioning of buildings and cities integrates source of water pollution, and
heights. The system operates without the need for mains electricity colour and nature in quirky, organic and bold ways. In developer accounts for 15% of global
or water, as moisture is harvested overnight from condensation Kevin Cavenaugh and chef Leather Storrs he found sympathetic
panels. The modules produce vegetables such as broccoli, tomatoes collaborators in the creation of the restaurant’s rooftop agriculture.
greenhouse gas emissions.
and capsicums, spinach, greens, herbs and strawberries grown in “Just like an individual building, the city as a whole embeds itself Increasing urbanisation
a lightweight but highly biological planting medium that includes upon the land with a crushing asphalt and concrete print. If we worldwide has underscored
recycled organic compost, soft rock phosphate, azomite, scoria are to restore some sense of community with nature to our urban the importance of efficiency
and oyster shell grit. Biological nitrogen is dosed into the reservoir living (and to survive it seems we must), we have to take on rooftop
with an amount of organic humates and inoculated with beneficial greening with Hundertwasser’s sense of moral imperative. We in the built environment. In
microbes eliminating any possible rot or disease problems. The need the birds to fly over our cities and look down on green roofs the United States, buildings
modules are designed to be robust in the harshest of environments, and think in sustainable design guru William McDonough’s words, account for 39% of total
and are sought after not only for city farming but also remote island ‘We’re home’. I look out over the industrial east side of Portland
communities, environmental disaster areas, war zones and also from Rocket’s rooftop and see multitudes of flat roofs – exact energy use, 12% of water
refugee facilities. outlines of their buildings’ footprints. Each roof is an opportunity consumption, and 38% of
The link between food gardening, chefs and restaurants is on the to simultaneously beautify the city, produce food for its inhabitants, carbon dioxide emissions,
increase, and Rocket, a restaurant in Portland, Oregon, is making reduce building energy costs, cool the urban island, create habitat for
the best use of its roof space to grow food year-round. According living creatures and filter and sequester storm water. Hundertwasser and figures for Europe are
to rooftop vegetable gardener, Marc Boucher-Colbert, “rooftop might agree with a new architectural maxim: a good head can make similar. Agriculture has an
gardening presents fundamental challenges to the terrestrially- up for the errors of a bad foot!” equally significant impact.
minded gardener”: wind, storms, excessive hot and cold weather. New York Sun Works, in conjunction with Kiss + Cathcart
In particular, finding the right balance of weight and biological architects and international engineering firm Arup, have come up
Fresh produce typically travels
nutrition in the soil is essential. The Rocket garden comprises raised with the concept of a Vertically Integrated Greenhouse (VIG), growing several thousand kilometres
beds (50 cm (18”) deep) that were created as part of the building’s food hydroponically in the space between two sheets of glass on a to reach urban consumers,
original “green” design and 39 shallow “kiddie” pools. Apart from conventional double-skin façade. Plants are rotated and harvested adding to traffic congestion,
the restaurant’s signature hot green, Marc explains they “have a from the ground floor. The airspace and plants help >
air pollution, and carbon
emissions. Moving the farm
not just into but onto the
city addresses both of these
challenges. Cultivation of
food crops within the built
environment can reduce our
environmental footprint, cut
transportation costs, enhance
food security, save energy
and enrich the physical
surroundings of the building
occupants.”
New York Sun Works
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4. insulate the building, reducing operational costs and the harvest on the building’s 0.72-acre site. It is designed to be completely
generates significant income for the building owner. According to independent of city water, providing its own potable water, capturing
research conducted on existing European buildings, a double-skin
façade adds only roughly 5% to the cost of a new high rise. The
rainwater and recycling greywater. The facility’s 45 extra storage
tanks allow it to handle neighbouring stormwater for filtration and
“Imagine a building like
additional components to create a VIG increase this cost slightly, redistribution, providing a source of potential revenue. The building a tree, a city like a forest.”
William McDonough
which would, however, be quickly off-set by the financial return of the is off the grid, producing nearly 100% of its energy requirements
greenhouse crops. Imagine eating fresh greens for lunch, harvested with building integrated photovoltaics and storing excess energy in
from your office building! the form of hydrogen gas in underground tanks. Sustainability is not
Finally we visit the virtual urban farm of sustainable architects, just about the building and infrastructure, taking into consideration
designers and planners Mithun. The Centre for Urban Agriculture social and economic needs; the CUA would also provide apartments
(CUA) planned for downtown Seattle won the Best of Show prize and a café and supply local residents and grocers with seasonal, fresh
in the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s Living Building produce which would also be distributed to low-income groups.
Challenge, with a focus on food, water and energy. The Living With bold and necessary targets for “zero-emissions” communities
Building Challenge encourages architects, engineers and other in the near future, we need radical and imaginative ways to address
design professionals to create designs that advance the knowledge our fundamental human needs, both physical and emotional: a
and practice of sustainability by rewarding work that approaches the kinder, gentler, more intelligent way of inhabiting the earth. The
built environment as a “living” responsive entity that can subsist and ever-present potential of the human spirit to create and re-invent
function using only the natural environment. elegant, life nourishing and inspiring ways of living provides ample
The 23-storey CUA includes fields for growing vegetables and opportunity for us to re-design cities and towns that can feed us in
grains, greenhouses, rooftop gardens and even a chicken farm. > more ways then one.
The vertical nature of the building reduces its footprint and allows the
CUA to incorporate more than an acre of native habitat and farmland Amadis Lacheta, Urban Permaculture
Further Resources:
Green Roofs Australia: www.greenroofs.wordpress.com
Skyfarms: www.nwcpl.com.au
City Farmer News: www.cityfarmer.info/category/roof-garden/
New York Sun Works: www.nysunworks.org
Mithun | Architects + Designers + Planners: www.mithun.com
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