Inter-Farm-Market

"There was a disconnect in that vertical farming had tremendous benefits for so many of the challenges traditional agriculture was facing, but no one really knew about it. I wanted to show people this technology was available and profitable today,” says Max Loessl about his passion for vertical farming. In 2013, Max Loessl and Henry Gordon-Smith co-founded the Association for Vertical Farming. Today, AVF is an international nonprofit organization comprised of individuals, companies, research institutions, and universities focusing on advancing vertical farming technologies, designs, and businesses.

READ HERE

Farm Pod

“This is how you’re going to get people fed when we have no water,” said Mike Straight, chief executive officer of FarmPod LLC, who dreamed up the idea of putting a fully automated aquaponics system inside a shipping container. “This is how you get fed when you have no land.”

Straight and his fiancée, Siria Bonilla, see the pod, the Santa Fe startup’s first prototype, as a common-sense solution to food deserts. New Mexico, where many people live in remote communities far from grocery stores or farmers markets, has some of the nation’s most expansive food deserts. About 300,000 people in the state, or about 15 percent of the population, lack access to healthy foods, according to recent studies.

Inside the shipping container that makes up the FarmPod’s bottom level, fish grow in three large tanks. One tank holds koi and two hold barramundi, a mild-flavored fish, also known as Asian sea bass, that’s popular in Thai cuisine. Water containing the fish’s waste is pumped up to the greenhouse on the second floor, where it trickles down through the vertical towers, feeding the roots of young plants. The clean water circulates back to the fish.

Read more here

ReGen Village

It's no secret that today's aggressive agricultural techniques can take a heavy toll on the environment, both on the land used for crops and livestock, and in the surrounding atmosphere.

But a new vision of a more sustainable 'integrated neighbourhood' community is being implemented in the Netherlands, with the first of a series of high-tech farm villages set to be completed next year. The project, being built just outside of Amsterdam, is the brainchild of California-based developer ReGen Villages, and after its pilot community is finished in 2017, the company plans to bring the concept to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany.

READ MORE

greenhouse/community farming in Halifax

The greenhouse, designed by Fowler Bauld & Mitchell along with Dalhousie professor Brian Lilley, CBCL Limited engineers and the youth at Hope Blooms, was a massive community undertaking.

“It’s just something great. We’re all jumping for joy over here,” said Jessie Jollymore, Hope Blooms founder.

“To me, it really sheds a light on the youth, community and the innovation here. It shows that believing in young minds can shape a beautiful environment.”

The greenhouse opened last May at Brunswick Street and Divas Lane, and served to help the grassroots, youth-driven initiative that allows members of the community grow their own food.

The Hope Blooms message is that the youth can make a difference in their lives and community, and they help at the garden in Halifax.
READ MORE

plant tower

D+DS Architecture developed an apartment building that allows tenants to grow nutritious food year-round using hydroponic methods.

read more

indoor farming

INDOOR HARVEST IS A FULL SERVICE, STATE-OF-THE-ART DESIGN - BUILD ENGINEERING FIRM FOR THE INDOOR FARMING INDUSTRY. WE PROVIDE PRODUCTION PLATFORMS AND COMPLETE CUSTOM-DESIGNED BUILD-OUTS FOR BOTH GREENHOUSE AND BUILDING INTEGRATED AGRICULTURE (BIA) GROWS, TAILORED TO THE SPECIFIC NEEDS OF VIRTUALLY ANY PLANT CROP.

With extensive R&D and production collaborations with some of the world’s most reputable names in research, pharmaceuticals and food production, Indoor Harvest maintains a growing design portfolio of Intellectual Property based on our Modular Racking and High Pressure Aeroponics platforms.

WEBSITE

another tower

London firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners has revealed details of a concept for a bamboo-framed vertical farm that could provide an alternative to traditional land-intensive farming.

Named Skyfarm, the design is for a multi-storey hyperboloid structure that integrates different types of farming – ranging from traditional planting to aquaponics – and also produces its own energy.

READ MORE

growing the desert

With 75 percent of its country comprised of desert, it’s not easy for Tunisia to grow food. But the Sahara Forest Project aims to change that with a $30 million facility funded by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Building on their first projects in Qatar and Jordan, the group will use solar energy and desalination technology to sprout food in the Sahara Desert.

READ MORE

IKEA garden

If you’ve always wanted to grow your own veggies and herbs, but don’t have a yard where you can set up a garden, IKEA has the perfect product for you. The furniture retailer just unveiled its new KRYDDA/VÄXER hydroponic garden, which allows anyone to easily grow fresh produce at home.

LINK

fantasy projects

reeHugger has had some trouble digesting vertical farms for a decade, as has Stan Cox of Alternet, who wrote in 2010 that “Although the concept has provided opportunities for architecture students and others to create innovative, sometimes beautiful building designs, it holds little practical potential for providing food.” Now he is at it again, refining his points in a new article in Alternet that was picked up and retitled in Salon as Enough with the vertical farming fantasies: There are still too many unanswered questions about the trendy practice.

READ MORE

agro-ecosystems

‘hyperions’ is a sustainable agro-ecosystem project that is capable of resisting climate change due to healthy economic and environmental systems. developed under vincent callebaut architectures, the study aims to combine archaeology and sustainable food systems, that grow up around wooden and timber towers in new delhi, india. ‘hyperions’ is made of six garden towers, each 36-story high containing residential and office spaces. the name comes from the tallest tree in the world ‘the hyperion’ – a sequoia semperviren found in northern california – whose size can reach 115.55 metres (close to 380 feet). the aim behind the project was to create a cultural hub that combines urban renaturation, small scale farming, environmental protection and biodiversity.

LINK

Food Tower

ABF-lab is a paris-based design collective founded in 2011 that specialize in creating projects that mix architecture, energy, climate, and engineering. for a building in romainville, france called ‘food-farm tower’, they aimed to optimize the volume to follow the sun’s path, making it as productive as possible and liberating it from the use of artificial light to supply power to the gardens. the project proposes both housing and gardening at the same time.

Read more

Farm Containers

On a vacant lot near Boston's Logan Airport, Cooney is using four former freight containers -- plus one at another location -- to grow some 30,000 heads of lettuce, herbs and other leafy greens.

"I'm not really a farmer," said the 61-year-old Cooney, who ran software companies before starting Corner Stalk farms in 2013. "But it's more interesting than a desk job."
If 30,000 heads of lettuce sounds like a lot, it is -- and it's the reason why he's able to run a successful farm in one of the country's most expensive cities.
The containers come from Freight Farms, a Boston-based startup that outfits the boxes with lights, growing racks and irrigation systems -- creating what are essentially super efficient growing machines.

Read more here

OAXIS

Most Gulf countries import up to 90 percent of their food, which neither bodes well for food security no climate change – since the food that is brought in from Europe and elsewhere has a lot of what are called “food miles.” True to their name, Forward Thinking Architecture proposes a solar-powered hydroponic food belt as a solution.

Acknowledging that they are not designing anything new – because there are already several projects throughout the Arabian peninsula that utilize the sun and hydroponics to deliver food in the desert. One project that comes to mind is the Sahara Forest Project which has received a great deal of international press.

The OAXIS system aims to fuse existing technology in a modular, linear arrangement. The growing medium will consist of prefabricated and recycled steel structures equipped with super efficient irrigation technology that uses roughly 80 percent less water than most farms require. Rooftop solar panels provide energy not only for the architecture itself, but also to power artificial LED lighting that will help promote greater crop growth.

READ MORE

Jellyfish Barge

Composed of a wood and plastic dome and a base of recycled plastic drums, the Jellyfish Barge is a floating greenhouse that desalinates seawater to irrigate and grow plants. Mimicking the natural phenomenon of the water cycle, one solar panel located by the base of the barge heats up the salted or polluted water and makes it evaporate, turning it into 150 liters per day of clean, fresh water. This water gets recycled over and over into a hydroponic system, which allows crops to grow in an inert bed of clay enriched by mineral nutrients.

READ MORE

Architecture and Food

Specialist Design Consultancy dedicated to developing the architecture of Building Integrated Agriculture.

We work with building owners and developers to unlock value in their sunlit roofscapes and concept designs for new-builds by developing a model of horticultural production infrastructure supplying local markets and consumers with fresh produce.

Once roofscapes are activated and relationships with their hosts are negotiated and agreed, A&f will form branches of sister company * Hyperlocal to take on the horticultural operation. We hope to eventually develop London's own indigenous, high-volume, resilient food production capacity supplying fresh produce at stable prices, free from supply-side volatility, over the long term.

Urban Agriculture is a field steadily gaining attention for its commercial and social opportunities. We believe it will be a major influence on the development of architecture and a powerful tool in urban food security, community development and climate change adaptation.

READ MORE

Vertical Farming update

"If you follow architecture or design at all, you may have come across aggressively futuristic renderings of skyscrapers topped with rice paddies, or tree-shaped buildings, sprouting plant life from every orifice."

Check out the updates on what's happening with Vertical Farming here:

Vincent Callebaut Masterplan

The extensive use of trees throughout the rooftops and balconies not only beautifies the district, but aids in its self-sufficiency. These communal gardens provide residents with self-renewing sources of food, helping to locally produce the city’s necessities. Additionally, these orchards provide extraordinary environmental benefits, including CO2 filtration and harmful particulate removal, for a healthier atmosphere.

READ MORE

farm-x modular vertical farm

food production has historically occurred in areas of low real-estate interest, far from densely populated settlements or cities. ‘farm-x’, by zurich’s conceptual devices, is a modular vertical farm concept that shifts the historical dichotomy between food production and consumption. the facility is able to grow up to five tons of fresh food per day in its 1000m2 area using specific hydroponic farming techniques and full climate control.

ReAD MORE

urban architecture in the UAE

“Food is a very good barometer of how successful we are at managing our relationships with the climate, temperatures, sun, water, everything.”

Mr Rodriguez said although the use of rooftops for farming was an attractive idea, “there are fundamentals that have to be guided by a submission to the conditions”. Farming indoors could be an option to avoid the intensive heat, given the existing technology for viable production, he said.

LINK