Mixed-use vertical farm designed by Brandon Martella for the city of San Diego. The project is located next to the waterfront and the historical Gaslamp district.

Food as a resource is limited. Supply will soon not meet demand. With population growth, food production in the United States is reaching maximum capacity. Current trends in development create a struggle between farming and living. These two practices are modeled for their own benefit and are soon to clash in a disastrous agglomeration. According to the FDA, the average American alone consumes 707.7lbs of fruits and vegetables each year. With the majority of produce coming from the Imperial Valley, Central California Valley, neighboring states and other countries the 30,000 plus residents of San Diego’s central urban context consume 21,231,000 pounds of produce each year. Where will we get our food? Transparency in the food industry needs to occur and enlighten blinded consumers. Our city needs to handle this critical issue with an architecture that responds. Read the rest of this entry »

The population of the world is expected to double by 2050. This fact does not only raise interrogations for the future of food production and the increasing necessity of land cultivation, it also creates concerns towards endangering the future of natural resources and biodiversity.

Today, food is longer being produced where it is being consumed. Vegetables sometimes travel to other continents to be processed or even simply packed before returning for consumption. The transport infrastructure for refrigerated food products, besides being costly, is strongly energy un-efficient and is an important contribution to global warming.

Can agriculture make its way into the city? Can it integrate our urban fabric despite its apparent necessity to occupy large horizontal surfaces little available in the economically-driven metropolitan densities? Read the rest of this entry »

Food as a resource is depleting. Supply is soon to not meet demand. With population growth, food production in the United States is reaching maximum capacity. Our cities need to address this critical issue with an architecture that responds. A new type of residential tower needs to come forth. Utilizing vertical farming, a new model of living can be tested and resolved in a dense vertical community. From farm to market from community to education lets live, leran, and grow within our city. Farm tower is located in a vertical community of tourist resources and developer condos divided by a public promenade. The new tower aims at activating a dead corridor that is underutilized and keying in to an international audience with a daily influx of travelers utilizing the strand of tourist attractions located along the waterfront.  The adjacent Children Museum and its motto of Think, Play, Create will be embraced with a second motto of Live, Grow, Share to foster a new level of social interface. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the implementation of year round programming strategies, including hop plant farming, beer making and providing flexible vending market spaces, this 3^rd Prize Winner proposal for the Farmer’s Market Competition aims to strengthen West Highland’s local identity. The project combines agricultural spaces with venues for art and music performances, acting as an entrance to the Denver cultural scene. Designed by Lorene Faure and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui, the Brewerymarket design is based on the natural properties of the hop plant.

“Hop plant (Humulus Lupulus) is vigorous climbing vegetation and hops are used primarily as an important flavoring and stability agent in the beer making process. The proposal creates the sensual experience of a vibrant ‘garden’ where the hops are farmed on hop poles to create the building’s main green facade. The adjustable assembly systems of the modular vending bins are inspired from the natural material properties of hop pods. Read the rest of this entry »

London farm tower designed by Brandon Martella rests on the south bank of the Thames River overlooking Potter’s Field. Like a tree the tower collects rainwater and solar energy to maintain survival. Wind is harvested through vertical axis turbines that align the perimeter structure. The residential programmed floors take advantage of cross ventilation through the use of operable windows and louvers while the hydroponic floors are a continual hydronic system recycling the humid green house air content by collecting condensated water on the inside of the ETFE pillows and letting gravity bring the water down through the hydroponic racks. Read the rest of this entry »

Urban food production is not a new concept. We’ve seen countless designs here on eVolo for vertical farms, urban ecosystems, and arcologies, but French firm Zundel and Cristea has taken the urban farm concept in an entirely different direction. Instead of proposing a monumental project like a vertical farm, they put together a design for smaller urban farm centers planted throughout a city.

The centers are designed to grow food, process it, and some to even serve it in on site restaurants. On the inside bowls of the spiraling structures is the green space where various types of food and greenery is grown. Visitors and urban farmers would go out to the spirals to harvest and enjoy the green space. Food would then be taken into the superstructure and processed where it could be served or packaged and brought to market.

The small scale of each of the double spiral structures allow for Zundel and Cristea’s urban farms to be regional centers for the districts they individually serve, a sort of park and bazaar in one. Placing them in urban landscapes also reduces the green house emissions that would normally be needed to transport produce from rural farms to city centers. Centers would be topped with wind turbines as well, to create an energy sustainable landmark that is economically, socially, and agriculturally productive. Read the rest of this entry »

In an increasingly dense urban fabric, residents become further disconnected from the origin of food they consume. Urban vertical farms challenge this disconnect, often through challenging design. Emerging architect Scott Johnson has hyperlocalized the vertical farm into a program that supports the tower’s residences with a tiered farm in the core of the building.

The Chicago based concept tower is based on the structure of a sea cucumber. The animal is a part of the Echinoderms family with a spiny exterior skin protecting soft tissues dedicated for digestion and reproduction. The provocatively named project Aberrant Architecture is conceived similarly as a ridged exterior frame supporting the floor plates. An outer section is for a hotel and residential units, making up the bulk of the program of the outer ring. The southern face is reserved to food production and dips to provide exposure for an inner tower which is dedicated for growing crops. Each level is reserved for one of twelve foods, depending on solar exposure and humidity. Read the rest of this entry »

Eco-city 2020 is a proposal for the rehabilitation of the Mirniy industrial zone in Eastern Siberia, Russia designed by the innovative architectural studio AB Elis Ltd.

The project would be located inside a giant man-made crater of more than one kilometer in diameter and 550 meters deep that used to be one of the world’s largest quarries. The idea is to create a new garden city that will be shielded from the harsh Siberian environmental conditions characterized by long and severe winters and short hot summers. The new city would attract tourists and residents to Eastern Siberia and would be able to accommodate more than 100,000 people. The new city is planned to be divided in 3 main levels with a vertical farm, forests, residences, and recreational areas. On of the most interesting aspects of the proposal is the glass dome that will protect the city and would be covered by photovoltaic cells that will harvest enough solar energy for the new development. A central core houses the majority of the vertical circulations and infrastructure along with a multi-level research center. The housing area is located in the first level with outdoor terraces overlooking a forest in the center of the city. The idea is to create a new type of highly dense urbanism in harmony with nature. Read the rest of this entry »

Czech architect Jiri Richter recently unveiled his proposal for a self-sufficient vertical city to be located in pristine landscapes. Richter’s project investigates the possibility of creating a building that will support an entire community without a nation’s help. The structure is designed as two 150-meter tall arches with hanging floors. The central core is an open space aligned to wind currents where two wind turbines, along with photovoltaic cells will generate the required energy for the community.

The program is distributed throughout the building with crops fields in the higher levels in direct contact with sunlight while residences, educational, cultural, and recreational areas will occupy the lower floors. An interesting aspect of the proposal is the retractable canopy between the two arches that will allow airflow during hot summer days and be closed in winter. Read the rest of this entry »

Vertical Landscape is an urban intervention proposed by Pratt Institute graduate student Sejal Bhimjiani where architecture and landscape appear as a continuous element. The project creates an exchange between rigid urban grids of metropolises such as Shanghai or New York City and “soft” landscape through a series of vertical experiences. The topological and continuous areas in a multipurpose plaza at ground level transforms into a serene vertical sculptural park, jogging trails, and camping grounds. Sejal describes the project as a new typology that activates and transforms the cityscape at different scales. The structure also defines public and private spaces through an innovative structural ribbon that expands at lower levels. Read the rest of this entry »