Vertical Agriculture + Solar Access

It's been a bit since I've posted on Vertical Agriculture - but an architecture studio I'm helping with at Portland State has a number of students pursuing food production as part of their buildings relating to urban ecology - and has me again thinking of the practicality of these building-based growth modules. While intrigued by the concept, I want to see a more holistic concept of food production through cities - and also better information on these concepts and how they work.


:: Design by Greg Chung Whan Park - image via Yanko Design

It is no surprise have been somewhat critical of the implementation of these solutions - as they tend to be more style over substance - and many are not thinking about the practicalities of growing food in buildings. Mostly, they are impractical because we still have a lot of vacant and underused land, rooftops, and walls that make more sense to grow food before investing in these expensive installations. Case in point is this Fortune rendering from Detroit of a virtual amusement park of agriculture... in a city that has literally square miles of contiguous terrestrial land ready for cultivation.


:: Detroit Visions - image via Treehugger

All the practicality aside - as a thought exercise the implementation of vertical farming is a fascinating architectural problem - as just the ability to maximize solar access is key to providing the most growing surface area with access to quality light. This is typically accomplished with a series of terraced landings stepped back as the height grows, often augmented by glass enclosure to create a greenhouse like interior rooms on multiple levels.


:: Growing Power, Milwaukee - image via City Farmer

A lot of the solutions lack a simple understanding of solar access - something that at least should have been drummed into architects related to daylighting practices for passive solar design. While allowing access and bouncing diffuse light within building for people is one thing - the integration of quality solar access. How does the following building work in terms of maximizing productivity? As mentioned about 30% of the building space is taken with productivity through a combination of thin terraces and living walls - enough to feed 200 people for a year. Is it worth the investment?


:: Urban Farmway - image via City Farmer

Again back to solar access - it is a fundamental tenet of vertical farming to do extensive solar access studies - starting with the. Back to the proposal by Greg Chung Whan Park , a couple of simple diagrams show seasonal and daily movement of sun.



:: images via Yanko Design

One idea is the spiral, which takes advantage of the circular nature of solar access through a spherical form with spiraling layers of greenery. Overall An image here of the installation, along with a video showing off some of the key elements inside - which gives it a feeling of more machine than garden.



:: Plantagon Greenhouse - image via City Farmer



A more sectional view gives an indication of the amount of solar gain. Again, I think weighted towards the visual and less about the overall efficiency - as the single-purpose building is a lot of expense for what amounts to very little productive space.


:: image via Plantagon Blog

The machinic aspect of many of these proposals is evident in the design - sort of a form follows form approach that makes for striking (if somewhat ridiculous) architectural solutions, and names to boot. For a full survey of many of these check out the Vertical Farm Project website. Most notable in the wild solutions is Dragonfly by Vincent Callebaut is one of those examples, for instance derived from a thin form to maximize surface area - but somewhat dubious thinking as to the viability of the project. In this case, I'd say that the fact that the land area is spread thinly over a surface would mean that it would be difficult from a 'farming' standpoint to maintain this on a daily basis. Is it done by robots, as some concepts look at? Does it work? Can you build it? More important, what's the cost of produce grown in these, and does the energy required to build and maintain these structures outweigh the cost of more traditional agriculture?


:: image via Spiegel Online

All of these questions permeate my thinking as I see proposal after proposal. Even some of the proposals with diagrammatic study leave questions, like the Eco-Laboratory sections by Weber Thompson. The ability of orientation - in this case the entire facade for production, gives maximum potential solar gain. The shading mechanism seem to reduce the effectiveness, by limiting solar access at steep sun angles during summer, when the production potential is greatest. Perhaps a way to limit the amount of solar gain, it seems as if this would reduce overall productivity - or at least shift the building to more winter based, season extending work. While laudable to extend the season, shouldn't the configuration work on a 365 day basis?


:: image via Vertical Farm Project

The other variety is those cylindrical towers that give the idea of maximum access. In the case of the Living Skycraper by Blake Kuresek - the tower is wrapped in spiraling layers (similar to the Plantagon greenhouse). On one facade - let's say 1/2 of the cylinder, the solar gain will be great - it's unclear what's happening on the sides and back that is getting north light and less intense east and west light (I'm assuming Northern Hemisphere). The other aspect not mentioned specifically is what is grown in these various spaces - as the levels of light and amount of exposure - along with intensity and heat - will determine a continuum of what is more appropriate in different parts of the building.


:: image via Vertical Farm Project

This is but a cursory view of some ideas, but a good chance to take stock of the myriad solutions and evaluate them on their building-specific merits. Often information isn't available to have a true discussion, but when looking at these ideas (or designing them) a few trends emerge:

1. How does the building configuration work with maximizing solar access, and how is this explained?
2. Are there beneficial synergies utilized with growing food in building such as capture of waste heat, rainwater collection and storage, or tapping into waste water sources for irrigation?
3. Is there specificity in form tied to the types of vegetables grown, and how does this fit the overall food needs of the location the project is planned? Is it generic or specific based on high-value foods or ones that benefit from the added cost of production?
4. Is the building agricultural only or woven into another use?
5. What is percentage of renderings to diagrams in the solution? (An informal indication of rigor)
6. How is maintenance addressed in location, access, and size of growing plots?
   

Look forward to some additional posts on this, as I've got a lot of source material I'm sifting through, and will be able to tease out many more ideas based on the explosion of solutions in the past couple of years.

Sukkah City

An interesting competition and potential for installation is Sukkah City. A recent email from one of the co-organizers Joshua Foer explains the concept: "...it aims to radically reinvent the original green building: the sukkah. The sukkah is an ephemeral, elemental structure traditionally erected by Jews for one week each fall. Its ancient design constraints require that it have a roof made of shade-providing plants or trees, through which one can see the stars. Sukkah City will be a visionary village of 12 radically experimental sukkahs put up for three days this fall in Union Square Park, NYC."


:: A typical modern Sukkah - image via Beliefnet

Adding to the complexity of these interventions are a series of 'rules' that guide development, based on what amounts of ancient building codes such as "A sukkah may be built on top of a camel." or the more distinct: "A whale may be used to make a sukkah's walls. Also a living elephant." More pragmatics revolve around structural components like: "The sukkah must have at least 3 walls, but the third doesn't need to be complete. The walls must remain unshaken by a steady wind."


:: image via Sukkah City

The most intriguing element with the blending of architecture and landscape is the idea of the vegitectural roof made "...shade-providing plants or trees, through which one can see the stars." This can be interpreted in simple ways, with a covering of materials called s'chach using woven bamboo or palm leaves - keeping remaining openings for starlight viewing.


:: image via Wikipedia

The variations of course encompass the fully vegetated, such as these partially and fully vegetated varieties.


:: image via Israeli Museum Jerusalem


:: image via St. Marks Oakland

With a broadly interpreted rulebook and innate program of ephemerality, the entries should be an interesting mix - all juried by a pretty esteemed cast for determining winners. Entries are due on August 1, with installation of a dozen winning entries in in Union Square Park on September 19-21.

Planter Pocket Facade

An interesting project from Osaka, Japan featuring a variation on vertical green with a Hundertwasserian flair. There is a certain transparency in the system, and I was amazed that the project has been in place since the early 1990s. (via Inhabitat)


:: image via Inhabitat

From Inhabitat: "Italian-born architect and artist, Gaetano Pesce designed and built the plant-clad Organic Building in Japan. The exterior of the building is an eye-catching vertical garden that takes its conceptual cues from bamboo. ... Completed in 1993, the Organic Building has since been named a civic landmark by the City of Osaka, which has undertaken its maintenance in perpetuity. The exterior is covered with steel-encased concrete panels glazed with a red finish that feature rather cute extruding pockets. Inside these containers are fiberglass planters that contain more than 80 types of indigenous plants and trees selected in collaboration with Osaka horticulturists, and they are all irrigated via a computer-controlled hydrating system of mechanical pipes."

:: image via Inhabitat

The Park: Dallas

Following up on the post about freeway capping, a reader alerted me to The Park, a Dallas, Texas based project aimed at reclaiming spaces atop the existing freeway corridor: "Five acres of shared, public green space will deck over the existing Woodall Rodgers Freeway, bringing new traditions, shared experiences and FUN to the center of Dallas."

:: image via The Park

The project was designed by the Office of James Burnett, and a number of pastoral images reinforce the idea of a central gathering space for the City of Dallas: "The Park will serve as a central gathering space for Dallas and its visitors to enjoy in the heart of the city. The 5.2-acre deck park will create an urban green space over the existing Woodall Rodgers Freeway between Pearl and St. Paul streets in downtown Dallas. Plans include a performance pavilion, restaurant, walking trails, a dog park, a children’s discovery garden and playground, water features, an area for games and much more."




:: image via The Park

The sketch imagery is somewhat abstract, not necessarily giving specifics of the design but a more generic version of active spaces (see kites!)


:: image via The Park

While the plans show off some of the descriptive plans and contexts, one of the most odd images, which to me seems straight out of a scene from 1986 version of of Burden's 'Entourage' series is the cafe seating, which is just kind of strange. One wonders what story this is telling?


:: image via The Park

There's also a virtual fly-through of the space, which shows a bit more the experience of the place... while more graphically more sterile, are actually a much better description of the spatial design qualities of the space. Either way you parse the graphics, another viable example of freeway capping to discuss. Check it out.

Garden to Go

An interesting proposal from Marie Hermansson entitled Garden to Go takes the concept of small-scale vertical farming and vending as a method of providing fresh food in cities: "G.T.G. is a self-contained mini hydroponic greenhouse the size of a vending machine; in fact that’s exactly what G.T.G. is—a very green vending machine. The purpose behind the project is partly to provide fresh produce on-site as well as provide education about a healthy diet. G.T.G. would showcase how to grow and provide great food in places where there is poor soil or no soil. On the accompanying web site community members would have an active role in deciding what their G.T.G. system would grow.

:: image via Marie Hermansson

More: "There would be various vegetable and fruit varieties available depending on the needs of that particular community. Due to problems with obesity and limited access to local produce G.T.G. could be a vital tool for non-profit organizations and government organizations in promoting and enabling a healthier society."


:: image via Marie Hermansson

PICA Coop Design Competition

Based on the work from last year to create the Chicken Cube - I was recently asked to serve on a design competition jury put on by SERA Architects to design the perfect chicken coop. The competition was aimed at benefitting the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) for their upcoming TADA 2010 Annual Gala by creating an auction item. SERA donated the design time and $500 for materials and Bremik Construction agreed to donate the construction of the coop at the home of the winner of the auction.

The brief was relatively simple - consisting of either a fixed coop or a tractor (movable coop) that had the capacity to house 3 hens. The remainder of the competition was open-ended, with obviously a subtext of a marketable coop design that offered architectural aesthetics and fit within the construction budget ($500 for materials). The winning coop design 'Hen Hedge' by Gary Gola and Jeanie Lai is shown here in a refined format after being chosen as the preferred concept.

Winning Design: Hen Hedge (by Gary Gola + Jeanie Lai)

The modern box offers elegant housing for the chickens, along with a style that blends into the discerning homeowner's exterior decor. The green roof and green wall provide shading along with blending into the landscape, and the design featured the option of either tractor or fixed coop, depending on the needs of the owners. As a blend of inventive and stylistic design, this concept was the best encapsulation of concept that would meet the needs of the auction - to generate interest, and bids, for the item. In short, it was the one people would want to take home.

The coop design went through a bit of refinement after being chosen as the winner, to allow for easier constructability... seen in the images below - which will be the auction item, along with a kit of feeders, watering trough, and yes, even three little pullets to move in immediately.

The full roster of entrants ran the gamut of design concepts from the practical to the architectural - giving a range of options and ideas for housing urban flocks. A short description of the three additional entries is found below:

The Chicken Tractor (Ray Chirgwin)

An elegantly simple tractor using reclaimed materials, this small scale coop design allows for easy movement around the yard. My favorite detail was the use of small galvanized trash receptacles for nest boxes.

Lil' Deuce (Nathan Burton)

The most fully architectural of all the entries, this concept bordered more on folly than coop functionality, making for a beautiful object in the landscape. While beautiful, we felt this would have a specific stylistic appeal but require some work for functionality as a coop.

Chicken Coop de PICA Auction (Andrew Stohner)
A very real coop design, this is something you that many folks would die for in their backyards - fit, functional, and complete, with attention to many of the details of construction and function.

Thanks to Eric Phillips from SERA for the invite to the coop preliminary meetings and jury - as well as my fellow jurors Logan Cravens and Audrey Craig from SERA. For those dying for any of these designs, definitely attend TADA 2010 Annual Gala and bid high and bid often - for the design and support the regional arts community in the process.

Transparent Cells

Arch Daily offers some great imagery from a project by Aristide Antonas, along with collaborators Katerina Koutsogianni & Yannikos Vassiloulis called 'Transparent Cells' which shows a proposal for proposal for a the Architecture School at Delft featuring pixelated spatial arrangements that can be reconfigured as necessary to accomodate new programs. The Hundertwasser-esque vegetal compartments are an interesting addition to a project that seems quite technology driven.

:: image via Arch Daily

A bit of explanation via Arch Daily: "The “buildings” that are supporting the computer cells are formed with the use of new glass technology and they include parts planted with specific light trees sometimes hanging in suspended pots. These living towers offer an immediate populated view, an emblematic image and in the same time an elevation for an architecture school of today....The new common space of such an institution for architecture is configured as a necessarily fragmented school, as a space where everybody uses his small personal “computer cell” in order to contribute in a community."

:: image via Arch Daily

Packaged Vertical Garden

The 'Garden for a not too distant future' is an installation that is part vertical garden, part statement about the lack of green space in cities and the preponderance of overpriced, difficult to maintain vertical walls.


:: image via luzininterruptus

Via luzininterruptus: " With the installation Packaged vertical garden, we wanted to promote the preservation of urban greenery, because if we continue to eradicate it from public spaces or reducing it to inaccessible vertical faces, the only form of contact with nature will be in supermarket refrigerators, packaged with expiry dates. This is our last intervention “Packaged vertical garden”.




:: images via luzininterruptus

Check out additional photos and text at luzininterruptus.

From Mowing to Growing

Via BLDGBLOG, a competition announcement about one of the most intriguing competitions recently. This one investigates the ideas related to food and urban agriculture, the hot topic of the last year. One Prize is Organized by Terreform 1 with a subtheme: "From Mowing to Growing is not meant to transform each lawn into a garden, but to open us up to the possibilities of self-sustenance, organic growth, and perpetual change. In particular, we seek specific technical, urbanistic, and architectural strategies not simply for the food production required to feed the cities and suburbs, but the possibilities of diet, agriculture, and retrofitted facilities that could achieve that level within the constraints of the local climate."


:: image via BLDGBLOG

Perusing the One Prize website, it looks like another open-form (i.e. siteless) competition, which seems all the rage nowadays - allowing folks to envision a range of ideas around many themes... some listed in question format on the site include:

• How can we break the American love affair with the suburban lawn?
• Can green houses be incorporated in skyscrapers?
• What are the urban design strategies for food production in cities?
• Can food grow on rooftops, parking lots, building facades?
• What is required to remove foreclosure signs on lawns and convert them to gardens?

The jury is quite a collection, and should yield some interesting visions of answers for these questions. The real wonder for me is what the relevance of these visions will be in exploring new ways of thinking about food, agriculture, lawns, urban patterns, and economics in today's society. Many of these ideas have been tossed out in the past 12-18 months - so none of these are earth-shattering questions, and most (edible estates, vertical farming, urban agriculture, building-integrated agriculture, and vacant/ephemeral gardens) are based on older or simple ideas which have emerged and re-emerged and have become part of the overall dialogue.

I hope the competition entries will look beyond what we're already talking about in recent references and think, explore, expand, with the innate lack of competitional constraints, on the true nature and essence of these questions - not just with eye-popping visuals or new terms applied to the old... should be fun.

Elements of Urban Agriculture

I had the opportunity today to see a presentation by local urban agriculture guru Marc Boucher-Colbert (the man behind the Rocket Restaurant rooftop garden here in Portland). Instead of focusing directly on rooftops, he outlined a broad version of urban agriculture through an investigation of a range of possible strategies for our cities. This is all information investigated at length at times here on L+U and Veg.itecture, but I thought it apt to summarize the ideas from the lecture, as they provide a great overview and were a really inspiring collection of ideas woven together into a strategy.

1. Guerilla Gardening
The starting point of the discussion took a look at the thriving guerrilla gardening movement worldwide as a quick response to the bland and life-less environment we exist within in our urban areas. Both safe anarchy and also, via Wikipedia... "political gardening, a form of direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists. It is related to land rights, land reform, and permaculture. Activists take over ("squat") an abandoned piece of land which they do not own to grow crops or plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it."


:: image via Wikipedia


:: seed bombs - image via itwasme

A side-note of the discussion dealt with the production of seed bombs (or the less provocative 'seed balls') as a way of simply and efficiently distributing plant life to our streets, vacant lots, and other left-over spaces. Again via Wikipedia: "A seed bomb is a compressed clod of soil containing live vegetation that may be thrown or dropped onto a terrain to be modified. The term "seed grenade" was first used by Liz Christy in 1973 when she started the "Green Guerillas". The first seed grenades were made from condoms filled with local wildflower seeds, water and fertilizer." As a fledgling guerrilla gardener myself, it's pretty damn cool and quite liberating. Give it a try.

2. Front & Backyard Gardening
The idea of front and backyard gardens isn't a new idea (don't tell Fritz Haeg) but have become a cause celebre for re-occupation of our urban and suburban spaces. Call them Victory Gardens, or Edible Estates, or hell, call them 'this is the only place I can find good sun in my yard' - this isn't a new idea come back, but rather something that has always existed and has now re-emerged as a vibrant movement. Growing vegetables at your home is the ultimate in local food, and also engages people in exercise, meditation, and a range of other benefits - making it both a productive activity and a hobby worthy of your time.


:: image via The Blue Marble

Marc explained that while the idea of taking back the lawn is laudable, there is a grim reality to the concept of agri-buisiness, summed up in the following fact: of 'food' grown in the US, 1.5% is fruits and vegetables, while the other 98.5% consists of grain and oilseed, which any reader of Michael Pollan will know goes to meat production, biofuels, various corn products and other detached food we consume in many ways. This led to another new figure in the story - of Stan Cox, who works with one of my heroes, Wes Jackson at The Land Institute, reinventing corporate agriculture through a new model of perennial production based on the tallgrass prairie ecosystems.


:: Perennial Agriculture - image via The Land Institute

The other models beyond reoccupying the land you have is the sub-economy that include yard sharing or other means that leverage open land with the energy and desire of those to garden. By taking the land of folks that have surplus, or don't have the time to garden places like Your Backyard Farmer or Hyperlocavore offer a range of options to use land in cities for productive uses. Again this trend can also go beyond just gardening to include other trends such as backyard chickens, pygmy goats (great for blackberries) or other trends suitable for urban locales.


:: Backyard Chickens - image via Flicker (zbar)

3. Community Gardens
Another vital aspect of both food production and urban life is the community garden, where the interactions between people are just as important as the growing of vegetables. The idea of a range of programs, including those run by the city (such as in Portland), cooperatives, and other models. While a large part of the eventual urban agriculture puzzle, many communities are currently dealing with huge demand and a lack of funding to provide more supply. While the need to fund these programs will continue, there is also a need to look beyond the plots to a larger picture of gardening in cities.


:: image via The Daily Green

The overall conceptual framework of community gardening can be found at the resource-rich site for the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) which provides information on starting and maintaining community gardens throughout the country. As Marc pointed out, much of the training and education for the ACGA is focuses on engaging community resources and partnerships - taking the tack that is you build community, this is lead to a thriving garden - and you can figure out the training of food production and other added services later.


:: food preservation - image via Eat. Drink. Better

Finally, the idea of subsistence and market farms, or a combination of the two, offers a range of opportunities to offer gardening, community, and the ability to make money through the use of these sites in cities - offering for green job creation. Also, included in the idea of community gardening and education is the value-added ideas of food preservation, chickens raising, small animals, beekeeping, and other more agriculturally related ideas to round out the potential for urban ag.

4. School Gardens
While encompassing a range of institutional gardens such as hospitals, prisons, and other urban uses, school gardens provide a unique opportunity to provide food and education, as well as utilizing large amounts of available land. Modeled after the ground-breaking Edible Schoolyards" program in Berkeley started by chef Alice Waters "...to create and sustain an organic garden and landscape that is wholly integrated into the school’s curriculum, culture, and food program." which has been copied around the country in many locations.


:: image via Edible Schoolyard

A local project that provides a bridge for schools and food in Portland has been taken on by the fantastic local non-profit Ecotrust called the Farm to School program, which: "...enable schools to feature healthy, locally sourced products in their cafeterias, incorporate nutrition-based curriculum in all academic disciplines, and provide students with experiential agriculture and food-based learning opportunities, from farm visits to gardening, cooking, composting, and recycling." These connections between food and school continue to offer many possibilities in cities throughout the world.

5. Rooftop Gardens
Covered in detail on the web, the idea of rooftop gardens is definitely a love of Boucher-Colbert, who installed the project on the Rocket (now the Noble Rot) which has become a model project that gets a lot of comments for the kiddie-pool planters, (an inspiration from Joe Ebenezer from Chicago - read about him here) as a low-cost planter alternative and using it as a test for production techniques which are used in the restaurant one floor below.


:: Boucher-Colbert atop the Noble Rot - image via City Farmer

Obviously there are some limitations to rooftops, and difficulties with gardening due to wind, temperatures and other issues. As we provide incentives for more eco- and green roofs atop buildings, growing vegetables will become a continually growing trend as urban land costs make terrestrial farming a less financially viable proposition.

6. Vacant Lands
The use of vacant lands for farming is definitely a hot topic in areas like Detroit, but even in a number of locations like Oakland, which recently identified 1200 sites available for farming - or Montreal, which has implemented permanent agricultural zones that are protected from development - consisting of almost 4% of the Cities total land.

The focus in Portland is on the much discussed and somewhat disappointing implementation of the Diggable City project in 2004-05 which looked at city-owned lands as possible opportunities for establishing: "... an inventory of vacant, publicly-owned land in the Portland area, and to start a conversation about how that land might be used to support urban agricultural activities." The large number of sites have over time been whittled down to a few - and little has been done on any of this pilot projects - even though hundreds of brownfields, vacant lands, and other opportunities still exist.


:: Portland Vacant Land - image via Diggable City

7. Green Building
The integration of agriculture in green building is definitely making strides, as certain points for LEED ND, and potentially other systems can be achieved through the addition of garden plots of agricultural land. This allows for more multi-functional landscaping that includes productivity and use, which was difficult at times to reconcile with green buildings due to added water use and lack of totally native and adapted plantings. Our next task is to develop more year-round, lower maintenance permaculture-based planting that meet aesthetic and functional goals long-term.

Another aspect which spans this category and the next is the concept of Building Integrated Sustainable Agriculture (BISA), which begins to work with walls, rooftops, and other spaces to integrate food production in buildings. This also begins to expand beyond this to using waste heat and water from buildings to heat greenhouses and extend growing seasons to increase productivity. Examples abound, including Mithun's concept urban agriculture project (using the Living Building principles) as well as older examples like Eli Zabar's rooftop garden in Manhattan, to name a few.


:: Mithun's Vertical Farm - image via Treehugger


:: Zabars Vinegar Factory - image via Vison for our Cities

The concept also begins to looks at other agriculture products like chickens, bees, aqua- and hydroponics to maximize space and maintenance as well as blend systems together into closed-loop systems that treat waste as food for other phases of the system.

8. Vertical Farming
Picking up on the threads popularized by Dickson Despommier et.al, the idea of the BISA mentioned in green building is now blown up into the full-fledged phenomenon of vertical farming, which is exciting but needs some serious thought as to the viability of how this actually works and what the economic and social implications are. Boucher-Colbert was interested but skeptical, as there seem much more obvious low-hanging fruit (pardon the pun) to look at first - but as density and food security become more important, all the options must be on the table.


:: Vertical Farming - image via Vertical Farm

In closing, the eight concepts here span a wide range of possible agricultural interventions in our urban environment for getting to the root of food in our cities. It goes beyond production to include community, interaction, and a range of benefits such as habitat, beauty, and cooling - making the mix as important as the individual ideas. Peak Oil will warrant a close look at cities and a re-thinking of what we eat, where it comes from, and how much transportation is used to get it from farm to fork. So, as we transform from city-dwellers that keep nature and farming outside of the city to those that integrating food production into our spaces and daily lives - these tools provide a valuable arsenal for making the 21st century city a vibrant, healthy, and productive environment for all.