Vertical (Diagonal?) Farm from Work AC in NYC

Who has control over the farms? I guess in the big cities, things can only go up. But its a novel idea.

Very artistic ... not very practical.

However, some hydroponics on the south side and roof of a high rise could be made if a method to control fungus and mold were available. Airflow between the garden areas and the rest of the building would need to be quite rigidly controlled.

The cost of this seems like it would be quite a deterrent. The food would probably be pretty expensive to offset the high expense of construction in an urban area and the operation costs. Food and transportation costs would have to be significantly higher than they are now to make something like this truly worthwhile.

The biggest problem I have with vertical farming is that it seems to rely too much on the mindset behind conventional farming, rather than utilizing nature and evolution to create an ecosystem based on millions of years of evolution that creates food for humans (as humans are part of the ecosystem). This is the idea behind polyculture. Check out www.polyfacefarms.com for an example of this in action.

But I love the idea of vertical farming. So the question is this: How can polyculture be intertwined with vertical farming?

Include aqua culture, I'd say thats close enough to polyculture.

I love the concept, but you're basically distributing the same about of sunlight over a larger field. So, I believe the growth rate would be much slower.

Furthermore, the energy required to build these structures would likely exceed that required to transport food from 100 km away that is grown in a conventional field. I haven't seen a lot of numbers to support these concepts.

Agree with others on the cost and practicality, though barring prior famine and/or pestilence (not to mention the supposedly ever-growing human population) this may become a thing of necessity.

And ross, I wouldn't see why not...a decent base of soil, careful watering techniques, composting, perhaps some attempts at recreating terra prieta, and could you imagine people nurturing things like earthworms in an urban environment? I find it hard to imagine, but it may happen someday...

One little wrinkle in the plan, of course: If it's open-air, as I'm sure it would need to be, how would you handle the ecological disaster of surrounding buildings being torn down?

Interesting but I wonder what the environmental cost of construction would be and if the benefits would outweigh those. Where would all the tonnes and tonnes of soil come from that need to carted up the building? Would taking these materials and soil out of the environment do more damage than they would save, or would the longer term saving in emissions from food transport be less?

2 acres per person per year. that is the magic number you need to keep in mind when talking about food production. also consider how much labor is needed to farm that land and where does that labor come from? can you afford food if the help is paid a living wage or can you only afford food if we import cheap labor.

as a farmer i can't help but feel very depresed seeing these ludicrous images. americans are always looking for the techno fix and i'm sorry folks but things are going to get ugly. i suggest you learn at least one worthy skill and become friends with as many people as possible because we will all be relying on one another for food, clothing, shelter and warmth. have a nice day!

@ Marsha
Actually I don't believe this is quite true, for example personal transportation is (relatively) cheap because of all the subsidies the infrastructure gets. I'm sure there is a way the the cities could back these up so that the food was still affordable. After all it would be local and alot of the money would get put back into the city.

This will happen right after we get flying fusion powered cars. The cheapest skyscraper you can build is about $500/sqft (excluding land costs, which are considerable). Expensive farm land is $10,000/acre, or $0.22/sqft. Are you ready to pay $2300 for a zucchini?

Using expensive city land for farming is cute, but stupid. It defeats the whole purpose of the city. As late as the 1940s, most farms were located directly adjacent to cities, until we foolishly turned all those farms into suburbs. Before that, farms had to be close, because we didn't have a cost effective way to transport fresh food over long distances. Instead of making skyscraper farms, we should be knocking down suburban houses and putting the farms back in, but the likelihood of that happening is just as slim.

If you work out the amount of farm acreage required to support one person, you see how pointless trying to put farms in a skyscraper is. In the Toronto example, 8 million sqft of growing area is claimed to produce enough food to feed 35,000 people, which is off by a factor of 100. A vegetarian diet requires about .44 acres per person (around 20,000 sqft). So that billion dollar tower would actually feed about 400 people tops, which goes a long way to explaining why you have a bunch of renderings in this post, and no photos.

Another thing addressing our last quote- it would be nearly impossible to use organic methods on a farm where the plants are crammed together in a semi-enclosed space in the middle of a city. Organic growing requires pretty ideal conditions, and those aren't. You'd be using loads of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides just to keep it all going.

people, people... One word: aquaponics! Combining these vertical farms with fish tanks. Also, as for fertilizer. It is the only resource the cities produce in VAST amounts (well besides GHG and trash) So such vertical farms could actually be used in the process of water treatment. Of cource this would mean that sewage is purely organic - no chemical clensing agents etc. But in an ecocity concept this could be achieved and a vertical farm would certainly tend to needs of residents there.

Yawn. Another pathetic grasp for the life preserver for NYC and other mega cities. Oh hey, we're so totally unsustainable that we're even entertaining the thought of such a pointless endeavor.

Don't worry, you can go to a lovely eco-chic party in DUMBO and have organic drinks. At least until the trucks stop rolling and the food riots start.

Good luck with this, NYC. Nero's a fiddlin' furiously.

IMHO it won't work, compare energy needed to built / maintain it to possible gain. Consider winds that will blow through 'corridors' made by layers. Where do they want to get their water from?
Haw land is going to be used on the 'dark side' of this construction? Where do soil will come from? How soil will be kept in good working condition?
You see - farm is sth different than hotel or appartment complex.

um. . . I can't weigh in too much on this issue, I just don't know enough about it, but I can answer this: "Haw land is going to be used on the 'dark side' of this construction?" (which I'm sure is supposed to be 'how")

the article clearly states (at least for the first farm, which was the main focus) that the area beneath would be used as an open air farmer's market selling the products of the farm.

and, technology is, I know, not always the answer - look at the mess we're in now! - but it IS possible to move BOTH forwards and backwards using technology.
Megacities like New York, and London and Hong Kong and Tokyo, will take generations to deconstruct if the decision to do so ever occurs. Megacities serve important functions in our society and trying to make them more sustainable will NOT be easy but IS vital and necessary. They aren't going anywhere and bashing them for existing is foolish, instead, find ways to work towards positive goals or shut up.

"They aren't going anywhere and bashing them for existing is foolish, instead, find ways to work towards positive goals or shut up."

You wanna bet? Watch what happens when it just becomes too expensive to truck in the supplies NYC needs. Watch what happens when the inevitable Cat 2-Cat 4 hurricane submerges Brooklyn and most of lower Manhattan.

It won't be "deconstructed", it will be "abandoned" and "left to rot".

You want the city of the future? Try Portland OR as a prime example. That's called working towards positive goals. Eco-chic gatherings in DUMBO are decidedly NOT.

Ah joy... the sidewinder atop a greenhouse section... why not put the water solar heating tank inside there to collect solar heat (seems to be much more effective for that particular purpose than solar panel electric heating of water...). Slightly above the plants, but within 2x (3x in cold regions) transparent heat keeping greenhouse structure... that might make into a add-on modification to existing houses thus cutting heating prices and energy cost with wind turbine and solar heating and providing the heating for greenhouses. Hmm... the plants woul probably want to breathe all the outgoing air with human breating made CO2 in it...

Maximizing the low-tech aspects for maximum on the location maintenance ability and reduced dependency on heavy industry materials and heavy scale transportation infrastructures... and some wines and suc outside to cover walls with production of oxygen (and other things) and sustained wall planting and rain water irrigation systems (brick should be able to handle this... the precise masonry used is of essence wether it can withstand the vines groping around it and the assorted living things that brings... small localized birds are probably a good idea to attract as omnivorous pest controls amongst such minor production).

yes... and that is the greenhouse farming aspect.

Even more produce for nutrition, medicines and even possibly for some degree of fibers... mycelias should be quite pleased to exist without much sunlight at all... they might be happy to intensively fill current parking hall buildings (cars... or food production for citizens... you choose...) after serious cleansing from heavy metal pollutants therein... (staring instructions from this book: "Mycelium Running" by Paul Stamets, Ten Speed press... mycelias are nice entities from the handy point that they like to eat all sorts of recyclable biological origin materials ... and metabolize them into mycelias...

In Conclusion: Excellent looking projects and solutions... avoid hightech blingbling that is likely to turn into aliability at the times of need when it is most needed... inhabitants of housing complex/collective can learn parts of maintenance and upkeep they find acceptable (or just preferrable to starvation at bad times)... and our huge cities may well, in their current form, be unable to ever completely feed themselves... but to recycle their wastes into goods for themselves at least and thus increase viability... respectful exchange with farming communities will likely be neccessity for any city's survival. Enough self sustenance production to end toxicity and parasitic relation to surroundings, including communities, and our life supporting ecosystems therein.

Links to concept of Living Machines, which happen to nicely fit perfectly everything depicted above and in this commentary: http://www.toddecological.com/ecomachines.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_machines

Max Turunen
Coalition for Environment and Developement

i dont know if someone had already mentioned it. i think that these structures are not strong enough for farms. one have to consider that these farms need to be watered and so the weights grows. poured

Valcent Products Inc.
High Density Vertical Growth System

This is not an advertisement, just look it up. Very promising technololgy.

Currently sunlight falling on cities and winds blowing by are not only wasted (from a human standpoint) but require engineering to overcome. AC is expensive folks! Using plants to absorb that sunlight is a huge benefit.

While a building devoted solely to farming doesn't seem practical in the city, adding a farming level atop and a farming wall on the equatorial-facing side should be do-able very economically.

As to the fertilizer & watering problem: cities generate a lot of biomass and greywater. It would have to be processed, but that's not a terribly difficult engineering problem.

It seems silly not to add windmills atop existing buildings to convert existing winds into useful energy.

Just so everyone knows, NYC inhabitants use a lot less energy per capita than the average American. Of the states with over 5 million people, New York is the most energy efficient per capita, with 85% of all trips in Manhattan being on foot, bicycle, or public transportation.

Cities are the most efficient way to live, because of density and public transportation. It is the suburbs that are the problem, where people routinely drive 45 minutes each way to work, and drive another 20 minutes each way to shop.

I agree that, barring a major catastrophe, these vertical farm buildings are not going to be financially self-sufficient, but they will enhance the quality of life for the inhabitants (especially if it is a mixed use building with apartments or condos) and will bring people more in touch with nature.

We could always just eat each other and we wouldnt have to worry about any of this mess.

Multi-layer farming could be very effective once there are more efficient energy sources, such arrays of solar panels near the sun that can transmit energy back to earth. In that case there could be layer upon layer of fields, about 1 metre apart, with artificial light and hydroponics. Space elevators would greatly help with extra-terrestrial energy generation and agricultre.
Another possibility would be to use nuclear fusion technology which has yet to be invented.
The structures that contain these fields would not necessarily need to be on Earth. With lower gravity the considerations to take into account regarding structural integrity would be different.
In order to enable agricultural super-structures on Earth I recommend materials based on carbon nanotubes.
I think the example with the hexagons looks very cool.

Whether or not something like this is truly feasible I'll leave to the experts but at least there are people out there thinking up possible solutions. Using creativity to help solve growing problems.

There are a lot of people quick to dismiss a concept. And that's all these are. Concepts. Ideas.

It's great that there are intelligent people on here able to raise red flags and share their knowledge. But I think we should be a little more eager to embrace this kind of "what if" thinking. Progress only happens with creativity.

Obviously, there are bad ideas. In fact, most ideas are "bad" in the sense that they don't work for one reason or another. In my experience, there's usally one good idea to every 100+ bad ones. But that should not deter us from exploring through the bad ones to get to the good ones.

So while these concepts may be flawed in many ways, at least allow them to inspire you to open your minds to other possibilities and throw out some ideas of your own. Maybe it's an idea to make these concepts better or maybe it's something completely different.

There ARE bad ideas. But "stupid" and "pathetic" should be used to refer to a lack of ANY ideas.

The modular systems are brilliant! I hope some benevolent billionaire decides to invest in this someday.

Wow, some very cool ideas and definitely a few implementable.

I grew a chia pet once.

architects?
maybe Karl Rove should chime in on this one.

I'm not sure how old these plans are for the toronto farm building... but in that place where the picture is they're building the new condo which is called the Festival tower... so that's not happening

A race within a race to find a quick fix. Another example of typical American culture. This concept is nice, sure. But everything about is not natural, How can this possibly be cost effective and sustainable? "Green" should not be so costly, trendy, and practically unattainable for the common folk.

i think that it is a good idea overall but the ratio of the cost of building the whole thing and lifting and transporting tons of materials and soil compared to the food production makes it pointless and a waste of money. I think they should simply put smaller farms on already built buildings. (not skyscrapers, it would be 2 much of a hassle to transport them up there.

People should open there minds. Why not use existing buildings and have them modified to bu used as these new city farms, that way you would not have to build or detroy anything, only modify the existing structures. Also food prices would be practical. Farmland is much cheaper however even today there are many many hydroponic farms, they costs millions to set up, takes up thousands of acres of what could have been farmland, and yet there vegetables are still affordable, even more so in some cases because they are local. This is a great idea and it can defiantely work. Plants grown in aquaponics will produce heavier yields, there are actually many indoor gardening techniques that will produce much more food than it's outdoor counterpart.
Permaculture kits should be designed and distributed for people living in cities, if everyone could only cheaply and easily grow there own food in each of there own homes, now that is self reliance and independance! Also if new structures did have to be built to support these urban farms, why not build solar chimneys to produce the energy needed to develop more in the future. Large funnel shaped solar greenhouses that can generate MW of electricity and can be used not only for traditional farming, but can also incorpate horizontal farming. Excellent article!

All of this seems very self indulgent of NYC considering the massive food shortages worldwide that we here in the West seem blissfully unaware of.

It seems to me that if this is all about improving city life, as well as a 'lets be eco' attempt. We should use the wasted tops of existing buildings as parks and gardens.. 'green' spaces, unless of course solar panels take off...

A farm seems silly, and very middle class. What happens if/when the crops fail? And what who would really like to eat something dusted in pollution?.. ever tried to eat berrys from the road side? YUK!

I grow on a small vegetable farm and from what I know of sky scrapers is it is awefully windy high up the plants would be blow right out of any dirt and if they managed to hang on they would be scragly as they tried to reach for available sunlight and fresh air

I would like to see something that addresses the difference in conditions on top of the sky scrapers

I did find the first ste model and interesting one but I do not think the drawings of gardens growing up the sides of building feasable

perhaps making space for large greenhouses to grow produce in the cities would be a better option

Some of the images are rather nice -- although I find the "futuristic" nature of them pretty funny. It is like traveling back to the early sixties or late fifties and seeing all the enormously silly (and almost always highly erroneous) "artist's conception" drawings of "the future."

However, many of the comments seem to reflect the misconception that growing something requires enormous amounts of water and soil. Drip irrigation showed that a fraction of the water is needed than what had previously been considered.

In regard to soil:

In a big city there is currently enormous waste of uneaten/spoiled food that could be made into compost. Every year I grow vegetables and flowers in nothing but pure compost (no added soil). Since cities already have such "potential soil" in their hands, it would be extremely easy to compost it and use that as a growing medium. Even for those who insist on "real soil" in the mixture, compost would displace the need for much of it. This isn't rocket science, you know, and is hardly "new." At least one poster mentioned hydroponics, which shows some awareness of farming! The fact that hydroponics has been around for a long time has shown that soil isn't essential to growing plants, and it is easily capable of being done organically.

Of course, people could also go the route that the TV commercial shows, where one uses a grow light, a small container, and organic tablets. I don't remember the product name -- but it isn't "mind blowing" in either its newness or complexity. If everyone had a few of those , or something like it . . .

Insofar as structures, don't you think that there is at least some intelligence in our engineers and architects? I know that we have true "engineering disasters" from time to time that are truly catastrophic (a la The History Channels excellent shows on the subject), and that we also obviously have a long legacy of stupidity in regard to aspects like energy-efficiency, water catchment etc. etc. not to mention non green-specific issues like leaky roofs.

But I also think the way the drawings and article make it into too much of a "futuristic" idea. If Mayor "Adolf" Giullani hadn't bulldozed the community gardens in New York, I would assume there might be some hope for that city.

Some of the images are rather nice -- although I find the "futuristic" nature of them pretty funny. It is like traveling back to the early sixties or late fifties and seeing all the enormously silly (and almost always highly erroneous) "artist's conception" drawings of "the future."

However, many of the comments seem to reflect the misconception that growing something requires enormous amounts of water and soil. Drip irrigation showed that a fraction of the water is needed than what had previously been considered.

In regard to soil:

In a big city there is currently enormous waste of uneaten/spoiled food that could be made into compost. Every year I grow vegetables and flowers in nothing but pure compost (no added soil). Since cities already have such "potential soil" in their hands, it would be extremely easy to compost it and use that as a growing medium. Even for those who insist on "real soil" in the mixture, compost would displace the need for much of it. This isn't rocket science, you know, and is hardly "new." At least one poster mentioned hydroponics, which shows some awareness of farming! The fact that hydroponics has been around for a long time has shown that soil isn't essential to growing plants, and it is easily capable of being done organically.

Of course, people could also go the route that the TV commercial shows, where one uses a grow light, a small container, and organic tablets. I don't remember the product name -- but it isn't "mind blowing" in either its newness or complexity. If everyone had a few of those , or something like it . . .

Insofar as structures, don't you think that there is at least some intelligence in our engineers and architects? I know that we have true "engineering disasters" from time to time that are truly catastrophic (a la The History Channels excellent shows on the subject), and that we also obviously have a long legacy of stupidity in regard to aspects like energy-efficiency, water catchment etc. etc. not to mention non green-specific issues like leaky roofs.

But I also think the way the drawings and article make it into too much of a "futuristic" idea. If Mayor "Adolf" Giullani hadn't bulldozed the community gardens in New York, I would assume there might be some hope for that city.

Its worth trying. North Americans spend on the average $8000 a year maintaining their automobile. Make cities carfree at the sametime and we will have a better world. Having attended recently the World ECOCITY Summit, I am forever grateful and hopeful . People have envisioned and are enacting extraordinary project. Thank you.Growing more food and having a surplus should never be a problem.
Industrial agriculture has already depleted our soils As a one time certified organic grower I welcome more and more GREEN projects.

Its worth trying. North Americans spend on the average $8000 a year maintaining their automobile. Make cities carfree at the sametime and we will have a better world. Having attended recently the World ECOCITY Summit, I am forever grateful and hopeful . People have envisioned and are enacting extraordinary project. Thank you.Growing more food and having a surplus should never be a problem.
Industrial agriculture has already depleted our soils As a one time certified organic grower I welcome more and more GREEN projects.

This not only will be an excellent development farm it will also be an inspiration to the surrounding viewers who may see this daily

No doubt this is novel idea, only difficulty is city dwellers can show interest in this hobby?.
My experence tell me most city dwellers are lack of any hobbly.
Those who whole heartly love this life, they have only curiosity, and this ardent curiosity lead them to creative work. Vertical farming is hobby, and those who are creative they only devote their spare time to this kind of farming.
There are many creative friends in Pune[India] they are doing this kind of framing from many years.

Vertical farming will be the saviour in the coming decades. With efficient planning, all the rubbish created in a city can be gainfully convereted into agricultural products. An R&D effort to come out with ecofriendly designs suitable for all cities - big and small- is warranted.
However, beware of biofuel menace here also.

it sounds cool, but it seems as if they'll need to add and manipulate a lot of nature's factors.

I'm not sure I want to eat food grown in NYC. Even if it is grown organically between the water and the air there will be plenty of inorganic things in it.

I have to question if daekwon park had answered his own question of reuniting isolated city blocks, how well he answered to his own question. I will say no. I still see strong emphasis on vericality, programtically impractical, and structually non-sensical, acutally very dangerous. I will say he has decieving ideas that seems like he had answered his own question of reuniting. He stated that today's urban spaces are very fragmented, limited and unkind to nature, and he wanted to reunite the city blocks, provide green space, and nodes for the city. However, what he had created is even more fragmented, even to the vertical direction. His design has very limited access both in vertically and horizontally. He just added another problems, rather than solving what's currently exists.
I wonder where he came up with this form. But what i see is that he came accross this form randomly, and have randomly placed green ideas. Randomly placing grass does not mean to be green. Also, can you guys imagin all the vibration and noise from the wind turbine ? This will certainly damage it's own structure also the adjacent builinsg attaced by the bridge. Certainly it is not Symbiotic.

i also dont know if anyone has mentioned the size of the "vertical farms" in one picture its larger than any of the other buildings, it seems like it would cost more and not to mention that it would be quite a beastly building to put in the middle of a city. and what about the amount of pollution in the cities? wont that effect the plants negativly. and haveing to fertalize and pesticide the crops could be harmfull to put in the middle of a city? Its a good i dea i guess i just dont see how it would work

Thats the future...

Marcelo

I really want to see this project succeed because I think this is could be a solution to are rising food shortage…I am trying to get the first working tower built: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/vertical-farm-in-new-york-city

I really want to see further progress on this concept because I think this is could be a solution to are rising food shortage…I am involved in a campaign to build the first functioning tower: http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/vertical-farm-in-new-york-city

I have to say that I disagree with the ocean / sea farm idea, because you're putting floating farms on top of the water cutting off sunlight. I can only see this working well in an area that doesn't have much plankton, because I was on a boat cruise once, and there's these condos that sit over the shore of a lake I live near by, and those kind of condos are banned from being built because they created a kind of underwater desert underneat them, where healthy plankton couldn't grow because there wasn't any sun anymore, and everyone should know that killing plankton, is not a very good idea, considering they're at the base of the food chain for many ecosystems.

though that clip-on prefab idea looks really cool, but not very aesthetic. I think many small vertical farms throughout the city would be best, this way it cuts down on transportation even more, and different plants more suited to growing together can be grown in these seperate places.

I have to say that I disagree with the ocean / sea farm idea, because you're putting floating farms on top of the water cutting off sunlight. I can only see this working well in an area that doesn't have much plankton, because I was on a boat cruise once, and there's these condos that sit over the shore of a lake I live near by, and those kind of condos are banned from being built because they created a kind of underwater desert underneat them, where healthy plankton couldn't grow because there wasn't any sun anymore, and everyone should know that killing plankton, is not a very good idea, considering they're at the base of the food chain for many ecosystems.

though that clip-on prefab idea looks really cool, but not very aesthetic. I think many small vertical farms throughout the city would be best, this way it cuts down on transportation even more, and different plants more suited to growing together can be grown in these seperate places.

As a permaculturalist I have many reservations about vertical farming, but I don't think it's a dead idea. Check out my post at punk rock permaculture E-zine.

www.punkrockpermaculture.wordpress.com

Hi-

Today at Valcent, we are vertically growing foods. Vertical farming is the future of agriculture and food independence. The concept of vertical farms in skyscrappers for urban agriculture is great. Time and money will bring them to our communities. But what about vertical farming in rural communities and developing countries?

At Valcent, we are vertically farming today.

Come check us out: http://blog.valcent.net

Caroline Keddy