Sky Farm Replay

It's interesting to see how trends seem to hone in on one person that becomes the locus of most of the attention around a subject. Patrick Blanc and vertical gardens, Fritz Haeg with the 'revolutionary' idea of tearing up the lawn and planting vegetables, Michale Pollan and well, everything related to food - and now Dickson Despommier - who seems to be the media darling around the idea of Vertical Farming. The NY Times featured another article around this idea, positing: "What if “eating local” in Shanghai or New York meant getting your fresh produce from five blocks away? And what if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food?"


:: image via NY Times

Some specifics: "Dr. Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. “I’m viewed as kind of an outlier because it’s kind of a crazy idea,” Dr. Despommier, 68, said with a chuckle. “You’d think these are mythological creatures.” Well, from some of the imagery below, it looks as if they may be...


:: image via NY Times


:: image via NY Times

And some technical support: "He says his ideas are supported by hydroponic vegetable research done by NASA and are made more feasible by the potential to use sun, wind and wastewater as energy sources."


:: image via NY Times

Via NYT: ""A vertical farm has to be adapted for a specific place," said Augustin Rosenstiehl of Atelier SOA Architects in Paris, whose firm has created renderings of the crop-filled skyscrapers." One of SOA's visions more compelling images is found below:


:: image via NY Times

An interesting example via the article is from Seattle firm Mithun, who's Living Building Challenge winning entry: "...a small-scale vertical farm design for a Center for Urban Agriculture in downtown Seattle. The design won an award in the Living Building Challenge of the Cascadia Region's chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2007... The Mithun vertical farm design differs from Dr. Despommier's high-rise concept, but has piqued the interest of officials in Portland, Ore. "It was pushing the envelope as to how people might live sustainably in the future," said Bonnie Duncan of Mithun."




:: image via NY Times

This is a very cool example and one that has been featured locally in the Seattle DJC in May. Not sure exactly how this 'piqued' the interest of Portland officials, as we've been talking about rooftop ag. here for a while (the first I remember was 2001, where there was talk of taking an abandoned helipad atop a parking structure and converting it to a community garden ... but whatever.

Another interesting competiton winner from a Seattle firm is Bumper Crop (again via the Seattle DJC), an interesting agricultural intervention from MillerHull Partnership, featuring: "...movable aeroponic plant trays shade parking and reduce the heat island effect at a Scottsdale strip mall. Biofuel and textile-quality plants take irrigation from a treated city sewer line. Rainwater capture waters plants that could be harvested on-site at a lot-side farmer’s market."


:: image via Seattle DJC

But just don't forget the one name for Vertical Farms - and that's Despommier. Dickson Despommier.

Vertical Farming: In Depth

I have a fascination with Urban Agriculture, more recently so due to the strategies that are being considered for implementation that either maximizes production per land acre, or maximizes the amount of acres used in the City for ephemeral or permanent farm operations. A recent post by WebUrbanist, '5 Urban Design Proposals for 3D City Farms: Sustainable, Ecological and Agricultural Skyscrapers' had some interesting prototypes summarized as well - which will undoubtedly show up later in L+U in greater detail, building upon a number of previous posts on rooftop/building urban ag models.

On a related note - have you ever run across a couple a stories that provide such depth and understanding of a subject that you pretty much have to share it with everyone, practically verbatim? Here's a great example, an article in New York Magazine entitled 'Skyfarming: Turning Skyscrapers Into Crop Farms' is one of those pieces that seems to be almost a primer on the subject. I myself had some questions prior to going in - the following is a step-by-step guide to some of the essential components that managed to answer all of my questions (almost!).

Either way, it's a good story and good storytelling - even if a bit much. All quotes and images via the article, authored by Lisa Chamberlain with graphics support via: Architectural Designs by Rolf Mohr, Modeling and Rendering by Machine Films; Interiors by James Nelms ­Digital Artist @ Storyboards Online.



The article focuses on the work of Dr. Dickson Despommier: "...a professor of environmental sciences and microbiology at Columbia University, who believes that “vertical farm” skyscrapers could help fight global warming... Imagine a cluster of 30-story towers on Governors Island or in Hudson Yards producing fruit, vegetables, and grains while also generating clean energy and purifying wastewater. Roughly 150 such buildings, Despommier estimates, could feed the entire city of New York for a year. Using current green building systems, a vertical farm could be self-sustaining and even produce a net output of clean water and energy."

The Basics
(well as basic as possible...)



1. The Solar Panel Most of the vertical farm’s energy is supplied by the pellet power system (see over). This solar panel rotates to follow the sun and would drive the interior cooling system, which is used most when the sun’s heat is greatest.

2. The Wind Spire: An alternative (or a complement) to solar power, conceived by an engineering professor at Cleveland State University. Conventional windmills are too large for cities; the wind spire uses small blades to turn air upward, like a screw.

3. The Glass Panels: A clear coating of titanium oxide collects pollutants and prevents rain from beading; the rain slides down the glass, maximizing light and cleaning the pollutants. Troughs collect runoff for filtration.

4. The Control Room: The vertical-farm environment is regulated from here, allowing for year-round, 24-hour crop cultivation.

5. The Architecture: Inspired by the Capitol Records building in Hollywood. Circular design uses space most efficiently and allows maximum light into the center. Modular floors stack like poker chips for flexibility.

6. The Crops: The vertical farm could grow fruits, vegetables, grains, and even fish, poultry, and pigs. Enough, Despommier estimates, to feed 50,000 people annually.

Further Detail
Aside from the massing and program elements - there are ample opportunities for high tech innovation as well in the vertical farm - including power generation and on-site sewage treament. Some detail on this system:



1. The Evapotranspiration Recovery System: Nestled inside the ceiling of each floor, its pipes collect moisture, which can be bottled and sold.

2. The Pipes: Work much like a cold bottle of Coke that “sweats” on a hot day: Super-cool fluid attracts plant water vapors, which are then collected as they drip off (similar systems are in use on a small scale). Despommier estimates that one vertical farm could capture 60 million gallons of water a year.

3. Black-Water Treatment System: Wastewater taken from the city’s sewage system is treated through a series of filters, then sterilized, yielding gray water—which is not drinkable but can be used for irrigation. (Currently, the city throws 1.4 billion gallons of treated wastewater into the rivers each day.) The Solaire building in Battery Park City already uses a system like this.



4. The Crop Picker: Monitors fruits and vegetables with an electronic eye. Current technology, called a Reflectometer, uses color detection to test ripeness.

5. The Field: Maximization of space is critical, so in this rendering there are two layers of crops (and some hanging tomatoes). If small crops are planted, there might be up to ten layers per floor.

6. The Pool: Runoff from irrigation is collected here and piped to a filtration system.

7. The Feeder: Like an ink-jet printer, this dual-purpose mechanism directs programmed amounts of water and light to individual crops.

8. The Pellet Power System: Another source of power for the vertical farm, it turns nonedible plant matter (like corn husks, for example) into fuel. Could also process waste from New York’s 18,000 restaurants.

9 to 11. The Pellets: Plant waste is processed into powder (9), then condensed into clean-burning fuel pellets (10), which become steam power (11). At least 60 pellet mills in North America already produce more than 600,000 tons of fuel annually, and a 3,400-square-foot house in Idaho uses pellets to generate its own electricity.

So... the question is not whether we can do this. I have the utter faith in our ability to make anything work technologically. The bigger issue should be: Is this the best way to build, grow, and feed ourselves? I understand the utopian vision of wanting to explore these visions, but a big question - is this sustainable? While defining the concept is difficult, there are certain limitations with technological solutions to things that i fear is that the human element of food production get's lost in the search for more production on less land.

Some rationale the article: "Why build vertical farms in cities? Growing crops in a controlled environment has benefits: no animals to transfer disease through untreated waste; no massive crop failures as a result of weather-related disasters; less likelihood of genetically modified “rogue” strains entering the “natural” plant world. All food could be grown organically, without herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers, eliminating agricultural runoff. And 80 percent of the world’s population will be living in urban areas by 2050. Cities already have the density and infrastructure needed to support vertical farms, and super-green skyscrapers could supply not just food but energy, creating a truly self-sustaining environment."

While maximizing production to available acres is good - and reducing food miles by producing (in a sustainable way) food as close to the consumer as possible - we provide a good basis for fundamental sustainability. I applaud and understand this idea - but there are a few issues missing from the discussion.

One: decentralization of food supplies offers us flexibility in dealing with potential problems associated with local conditions. I don't mean growing all of our food in one spot - but concentrating production to a small set of buildings makes them susceptible to failure and blight on a grand scale.

Two: the automation of the facility loses one of the essential components of agriculture - job creation and economic stability for rural regions. Instead of concentrating farming in small scale operations with few humans, maybe we can efficiently manage production using more eyes and hands on the product... leading to better management of soils, water and other resources.

Three: Elimination of agricultural lands as both a cultural and ecological system - and missing the benefits of both of these contributions to human beings and nature. Industrial agriculture has tainted what used to be both a noble and beneficial profession that had a strong land ethic, shaped our landscape with 'amber waves of grain' and provided a place and purpose for many people worldwide.

The concentration and use of buildings and new forms of agriculture will be a necessary component to our overall food production system - but these should never be seen as the panacea for sustainable agriculture. Changing from more local production, in a variety of means, done in a sustainable manner - is the real key to a truly sustainable agriculture. In dense areas where there are certain limitations to growth of adequate food supplies, supplementing production with vertical farming makes sense. In others, it just becomes a knee jerk and grandiose reaction to a system that is fatally flawed and inherently unsustainable (agribusiness). If we really look around and are smart about it, we can supply all of the needs of our residents with available lands, rooftops, and occasionally building - but it will really take a paradigm shift in how we both produce, transport, consume - and more vitally, think about our daily meals.

Vertical Agriculture (Back to Earth)

Digging through the archives based on the last couple of posts, I was definitely struck by the myriad shapes and sizes that these vertical farming proposals take and the overall excitement that has grown in a short amount of time. This caused me to want to dissect them a bit further in terms of form and function for growing food in efficient ways. First a bit of background from the 'invention' of vertical farming on this video featuring Dr. Dickson Despommier.



Discounting for a second those proposals that incorporate indoor hydroponics using artificial light - the idea of growing in buildings using sunlight is the focus (some info about the indoor varieties) of many other projects out there. A few additional proposals worth noting - just to include them in the overall catalogue (as previously mentioned, the best assortment of ideas in this genre is found at the Vertical Farms site - under the auspices of Despommier - which has been interviewed multiple times (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here to name but a few) - call him the mother of this particular invention.

These proposals include this one from last year which got a lot of attention, Harvest Green by Romses Architects, featuring vertically integrated food production.


:: image via Treehugger

Via Treehugger: "The concept of 'harvest' is explored in the project through the vertical farming of vegetables, herbs, fruits, fish, egg laying chickens, and a boutique goat and sheep dairy facility. In addition, renewable energy will be harvested via green building design elements harnessing geothermal, wind and solar power. The buildings have photovoltaic glazing and incorporate small and large-scale wind turbines to turn the structure into solar and wind-farm infrastructure. In addition, vertical farming potentially adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edible parts of plants and animals. Furthermore, a large rainwater cistern terminates the top of the 'harvest tower' providing on-site irrigation for the numerous indoor and outdoor crops and roof gardens."



:: images via Treehugger

Another smaller scale example from Romses Architecture features the idea integrated into a eco-community. From Arch Daily: "“Harvest Green Project-02′ as a part of Vancouver ‘The 2030 Challenge’. Harvest Green Project is rooted in a concept that challenges the status quo of how energy and food is produced, delivered and sustained in our city, neighbourhoods, and individual single-family homes. Taking cues from the citys eco-density charter, and in particular, it’s new laneway housing initiatives, the Harvest Green Project proposes to overlay a new ‘green energy and food web’ across the numerous residential neighborhoods and laneways within the city as these communities address future increased densification. The city’s laneways will be transformed into green energy and food conduits, or ‘green streets’, where energy and food is ‘harvested’ via proposed micro laneway live-work homes."




:: images via Arch Daily

Some others you've probably seen over the years:

Vertical Farm by Mithun
"Architects at Mithun, a Seattle architectural firm, proposed a small-scale vertical farm design for a Center for Urban Agriculture in downtown Seattle. The design won an award in the Living Building Challenge of the Cascadia Region's chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2007."


:: image via NY Times

Food Pyramid (Eric Ellingsen & Dickson Despommier)


:: image via NY Times

Atelier SOA Vertical Farm
Via NY Times: "A vertical farm has to be adapted for a specific place," said Augustin Rosenstiehl of Atelier SOA Architects in Paris, whose firm has created renderings of the crop-filled skyscrapers."


:: image via NY Times

Another version from Atelier SOA - with a woven ribbon of gardens throughout the slick black facade.


:: image via NY Times

Gordon Graff's Skyfarm for Toronto
Via Inhabitat: "Instead of soil, Skyfarm’s plants float on trays of nutrient-rich water, growing hydroponically over 59 stories stacked half a dozen storeys deep. Farmed within a controlled environment, crops will no longer be subject to the vagaries of climate, infestation, or disease and the dense hydroponic agriculture can guarantee considerable yields. With the potential to operate year round, one indoor acre has been estimated to be able to yield the equivalent of between four and six outdoor acres, or enough food for 50,000 people a year. With the installation of several Skyfarms in the neighborhoods of especially large cities, the prospect to dramatically transform local food production is there."




:: images via Inhabitat

“The Living Skyscraper: Farming the Urban Skyline” by Blake Kurasek




:: images via Urban Greenery

Urban Agriculture: Hybridized Farm Bridge as City Garden - Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui & Lorene Faure


:: image via Bustler

A more technical proposal, I covered this previously, but the breakdown of the elements of a vertical farm as imagined in NY Magazine - which shows the interrelated elements of a possible project - complete with robots to maintain them on a 24-hours a day basis.


:: image via NY Mag

I think the much more exciting news is the implementation of large-scale rooftop farms (more on this soon) - which seem to be analoguous to terrestrial farming. As other bloggers may have noticed, any post related to urban agriculture and vertical farming will inevitably lead to a comment by Charlie - there's been a few, who undoubtedly is paid to plug Valcent whenever the opportunity arises. The message is simple and sweet: "“I can’t think of any technology that addresses more urgent issues than Valcent’s vertical farming system”, says Robert F Kennedy Jr. http://bit.ly/cPb00g; Reuters Video features Valcent’s VertiCrop vertical farming system: http://bit.ly/a9p47W" Not that I'm wholesale against this form of promotion, but 1) is shameless promotion, and 2) it's not applicable to the content that was posted. Regardless - there will be more of this as companies fight for market share and prominence in this fledgling territory.


:: image via Inside Urban Green

Finally, as I mentioned there's some interesting (and necessary) debate happening, which is worth a read as the pendulum of vertical farming swings back to reality. There's the debate on Treehugger"Vertical Farms, a Tower of B.S." about high-rise farming. Also of note is this recent article in Fast Company entitled which references a story on EcoGeek with some cautionary lessons entitled: "Let's Make This Clear: Vertical Farms Don't Make Sense ".

The vertical farming movement isn't useless by any stretch - but it's important to realize that these proposals - although provocative, aren't the only answer to our issues of feeding people in ever growing urban areas. The discussion is good, although interesting that - not as a mode of discounting the concept - but of placing it in it's proper context around the viability of growing food in cities - and by most importantly making it a catalytic movement in inspiring actual small-scale solutions that will actually work.

Vertical Agriculture (Modest Proposals)

While the flights of fancy that drive many of the concepts of vertical farming are quite breathtaking, there's a subset of these projects that, while not quite ready for the pages of design magazines, have much more applicability for building-integrated agriculture in new construction and retrofits. A simple and much discussed example that has been around for years is the rooftop greenhouses on Eli Zabar's Vinegar Factory in Manhattan (dare I say one place where vertical solutions may be appropriate due to density).




:: images via The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

Picking up on this trend is are a range of greenhouses for growing veggies in soil as well as expanded concepts including hydroponics aquaculture. A post in City Farmer mentions the work of Cityscape Farms, which offers solutions for urban farming using integrated food as waste from these combined systems.


:: image via City Farmer

Another project that is tying the ground-based agriculture with rooftop solutions comes from the Badger School for Urban Agriculture and Community in Madison, Wisconsin, with the Center for Resilient Cities and Milwaukee-based Will Allen's Growing Power as leaders of the effort.


:: image via City Farmer

While I'm always a bit dubious of 'first of' claims - this South Bronx affordable housing complex aimed a combating food insecurity with rooftop farms and greenhouses (from Brightfarm Systems): "...will be able to supply enough produce to meet the annual fresh vegetable needs of up to 450 people. Like many inner city, low income communities, the South Bronx suffers from food deserts, where residents lack access to fresh vegetables at affordable prices."




:: images via City Farmer

Still more modest interventions include creating space atop - which tend towards the augmentation of rooftop gardens by implementation of cold-frames or vertical elements. These range from the modest fire-escape planters and balcony growing to rooftop structures to provide additional growing season (at a much smaller cost than greenhouses). An example from the Bastille Restaurant in shows this hybrid.


:: image via City Farmer

The concept of mobility is always an issue - so another small-scale garden greenhouse starts to attach to vehicles - such as this mobile greenhouse spotted in Brooklyn. A bit silly and obviously not a solution, but a visible example to create awareness of food production in urban areas - and more accessible than rooftops and distant farms.


:: image via Urban Greenery

One of the most enlightened proposals I've seen is the modular system from Casa HuertaTreehugger: featuring a series of vertical greening components for maximizing food production in high density slums. Via "A group of architects from Argentina have come up with a project called Orchard House, which proposes the implementation of vertical gardens in shanty towns to provide local people with food and improve the visuals of these villages."




:: images via Treehugger

The social component of this is just as important as the scale. As Despommier mentions in this Discovery News video - the optimum size to feed 50,000 people with a vertical farm is 30 stories of a 5 acre lot. While potentially viable, how transferrable is this to common use and how many people will be employed in these endeavors? Also, will this be another elitist addition to cities for the haves - while paying lip service to less fortunate people and areas much more significant food insecurity. Would we be better served with a more decentralized and multi-pronged (even if still vertical) approach using walls and other elements woven within the fabric of our urban areas.

The scale is a big issue - and is at the heart of any agricultural endeavor. Our evolution from home gardens and shared community gardens to feed ourselves to more large-scale methods of agribusiness increased our ability to produce food manifold. It also made our agriculture more polluting, significantly increased transportation costs, and depleted the workforce for farm-based areas through the use of mechanization. This is what we subsidize on an annual basis - not the most productive form of food production.

This begs the question - are we interested in feeding ourselves (or the world) or are we also creating jobs and skills for folks to feed themselves and doing so in a way that is equitable and socially responsible? While nay-sayers may disregard the role of urban farming as impractical to feed urban areas, I say the role is of vital importance. As more people move to cities it will become more and more important to offer productive green jobs to city-dwellers. Agriculture used to be a major employment driver that slowly gave way to industry, manufacturing, commercial, service and white-collar economies - an economic heritage in which we are all suffering and 'waiting' for things to get better. If we could find ways to increase the skills and direct the energy of 10% plus unemployment on feeding ourselves - we would have better food and a more robust and healthy economy and workforce.


:: image via Treehugger

This is why I like the proposal from Argentina so much - as it's simple, modest, and imminently scalable (but also innovative) to any area of any size. More from Treehugger: "The idea is to build some of these houses inside shanty towns in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with the help of organizations and private companies, and then teach the system to local people for them to be able to put together structures on their own. By doing that, the project seeks to generate cooperative work that creates jobs and production in shanty towns."

On Landscape Criticism 2

Following up on the previous review of editorials from Urban Omnibus in the post 'On Landscape Criticism', I wanted to continue with the next three essays. The continuation of thinking delves into some more specifics.

In 'On Criticism 4', William Bostick warns of the perils of the broad focus in terms of minimizing the impact of criticality: "When we write about architecture, yes, we should write about it in context. Big, city-shaping forces are at work here, but those can be cumbersome ideas, and trying to talk about them pushes us into metaphor territory or worse, theory." I think this is a double-edged sword, and perhaps to shy away from it minimizes the overall potential of architectural and landscape criticism. This may be part of the difficulty in establishing a viable strategic stance for landscape, as it isn't neat and tidy but is big and cumbersome... the hermetically sealed and controlled box is easy to assess, the untidy landscape urbanism is not.

The fact that the 'danger' is to, gasp! move into theory is pretty funny - as I can think of no more welcome addition to discourse than some good theory. To explain, I don't think we need more intellectual posturing or overly wrought scientific methodologies applied to landscape, and there is still the need for critique of objects. It's more but theory as a hybrid of the analytical and the philosophical - neither completely empirical (which is impossible and irrelevant) nor wholly detached from the reality (which is somewhat useless aside from thought exercise). This is perhaps why the majority of what passes for landscape critique is formless, as we have yet to determine a model that seems to work.

As Bostick continues, he finds the interest in some of the personalities versus the work, which aligns with much of the journalistic bent we find in much writing. We love celebrities (the TMZ reference from faslanyc is an apt metaphor) in all things - even over the actuality of originality of the work. There are many reasons why firms tend to have the names of their founders prominant, not just as a reference to that person's talent, but as a defined way of 'branding' a product. Look at landscape architecture firms - at least the more prominent... mostly name firms, with a strongly branded personality that can both inspire the work and provide a interview-friendly mouthpiece for the media. You know the names - van Valkenburgh, Schwartz, Walker, Hargreaves, Sasaki, etc.. Even recently I noticed that 'Field Operations' has tied the name James Corner directly to the firm splash page... as Corner the 'personality/brand' has a lot more media potential than Field Ops the 'firm'. It's an interesting concept, and important, because when you talk about a firm like 'Diller Scofidio + Renfro' you do so as both a collective and as individual people (well, maybe not Renfro), but still marketing genius.

I've talked at length before about the celebritization of many facets of new design beyond the firm (i.e. Fritz Haeg, Dickson Despommier, Cameron Sinclair, Emily Piloton, or the pinnacle - Brad Pitt who made Make it Right a household name). This isn't to diminish the work (which is good, great, and more), but really to point the lens at what matters: the actual work created by these folks and its relevance, or a way of personify the work and literally put a face to it. It may be impossible, but is it possible to talk about the work, it's context, and it's people in equal measure? Furthermore, is it possible to detach, in our culturally dense worlds, any piece of work, particularly in criticism, from the myriad forces that shape it (including the media itself?).

Continuing on, I waited with anticipation to read faslanyc's 'On Criticism 5' which focused on the landscape side a bit more (venturing into the small 'a' if you will). His tenets regarding the superficiality of the current state includes both the inherent insecurity of landscape architecture and the divide that exists in rhetoric and attitude between academia and practice.

The first, and most visible, is our insecurity, which is frankly obvious in the type of criticism that we tend to embrace... a . As mentioned, this is a product of the demise of modernism and the failure of post-modernism, leaving us lacking in a viable -ism to hand our hat on. Again referencing Koolhaas' essay 'Whatever happened to Urbanism?, he: "...gave voice to an unsettling feeling that had been haunting practitioners since it became apparent that modernist architecture was not the panacea it claimed and not as important as it supposed. Forced to confront superfluity in a single generation, the critical discourse within the profession took up defensive positions to weather the storm."

While I agree with the above assessment, I think it has more to do with an inherent lack of confidence in the validity of the argument, or at least in our ability to express it in appropriate ways. The closest analogy I can include (at the risk of getting political) is the ability of the 'right wing' to hone in with laser precision on the essence of the issue and create a collective viewpoint, versus the 'left wing' looking a nuance and subtleties (context you may say) and getting mired in the details, resulting in a watered down and incoherent message. It's an oversimplication, but people tend to understand a simple black-white argument and place themselves within that versus muddling through various shades of gray. Do we want to over-simplify things to the point of polarity? No. But we do need to specifically occupy critical terrain and build fortifications with continuing expanded thought to strengthen that position. Otherwise, we internally bicker or worse, flip-flop :)

The second is more insidious, as it addresses the severed split between the academic and the pracitioner - which results in a typically incomplete application. One side is mired in complexity of language as a way to distance itself, the other can't be bothered with 'theory', because we have important work to do. The blending of both thought and action is notably absent to the majority of the profession - much to the detriment of the whole. As faslanyc points out: "For this reason, the majority of practitioners have abdicated their responsibility to contribute to the contemporary discourse within the professions. It is currently dominated by writers and theoreticians with no foundation in praxis..."

"...As a result, the critical discourse has become a series of self-catalyzing memes and hyperbolic metaphors characterized by a forced focus on concept and cult of personality. Only projects deemed exemplary according to a conservative set of values (standards of beauty, economic viability, social popularity) are discussed and then largely in a laudatory tone. This is not healthy criticism."

Continuing on, we move to the concept of meaning in landscape architecture, which was captivating for me early in my career. The idea of instilling meaning into a design is fascinating for a fledgling landscape architecture professional - giving another facet to provide depth to design beyond 'style' or in modern obsession 'sustainability'. You can have both, right? Referencing Marc Trieb's essay on the subject from Landscape Journal 'Must Landscapes Mean?' (of which I have a dog-eared copy somewhere) it is easy to think there is possibility in a collection of narrative metaphors linked into a language. But will anyone understand, or better yet, will they care?

Finishing up, there is the overall idea of where to go - which goes back to our current situation of landscape architecture criticism - 'where do we start?' faslanyc includes four ideas to consider: "political process, cultural context, a focus on criticism through time, and polemics." I'll leave you to read them in the essay specifically, but a few thoughts spring to mind.

Regarding political process, this seems to be the beauty of some of the more interesting landscape urbanism thinkers - navigating the manifold players and barriers, spread over long periods of time, to achieve an appropriate and flexible solution (and perhaps more important, convincing these folks that the 'design' is never done.) Corner at Fresh Kills seems the best example of this in action, with a glacial timeline and myriad bureaucracy to navigate making the political as much a site factor as the site itself.

Culture has been addressed previously, but seems the antidote to one of the great flaws to the overly rational methods incorporated in the McHargian method - infusing the aspect of people and culture to inform the purely scientific. Data with a conscience perhaps? Additionally, landscape absolutely needs the element of temporality in design and criticism, both in terms of inherent flux in the system, but also to highlight the unfinished nature of the work and the role of maintenance personnel as actors work towards.

The final portion, polemics, is the key to our taking a fresh look at professional criticism - and needs to be included - with good argument and context in support. While all projects exist in a cultural frame, each has differing goals and objectives - so something as simplistic as 'cost' isn't a viable argument. While the High Line is mentioned, a more appropriate case for this is my ongoing criticism of the ASLA Headquarters Green Roof. The critique is not with design, technique, application, or intent - but that the goals of the project were to promote the concept of green roofs as a visible pilot project. While the former are well executed, the latter came to bear with a price tag that would make all but the most motivated of clients flee. In this regard, it is a failure and should be considered such. The purpose of course, isn't degradation, but an honest accounting of all of the goals and how well we met them. Every designer should be able to handle this.

"As a profession, we gain nothing by constantly patting the same people (and by extension, ourselves) on the back for a job well done. Designers know that no project is perfect. Self-righteous celebration is not the job of criticism within the profession."

These four elements proposed by faslanyc are a great working method for current landscape criticism, as they expand the argument beyond mere style or sustainability to include other factors that must be included within all arguments. The inclusion of a range of voices from many different disciplines, working with an honesty and transparency, will do nothing but help us improve.

A final essay on Urban Omnibus is left to discuss, focusing on the idea of 'bias', of which this post is already too long to accomodate... stay tuned.

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.