Vertical Farms Get the New York Times Treatment
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 07.15.08
Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier
Bina Ventkataraman in The New York Times covers vertical farms: "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?"
The politicians are even getting into it; Scott Stringer, Manhattan borough president, is “sketching out what it would take to pilot a vertical farm,” and plans to pitch a feasibility study to the mayor’s office within the next couple of months, he said. “I think we can really do this,” he added. “We could get the funding.”
The Times also speaks to some skeptics. "“Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise?" asks planner Armando Carbonell. "My bet is that the investment banker will pay more.”
SOA design
Augustin Rosenstiehl, a French architect who worked with Dr. Despommier to design a template “living tower,” said he thought that any vertical farm proposal needed to be adapted to a specific place. Mr. Rosenstiehl, principal architect for Atelier SOA in Paris, said: “We cannot do a project without knowing where and why and what we are going to cultivate. For example, in Paris, if you grow some wheat, it’s stupid because we have big fields all around the city and lots of wheat and it’s good wheat. There’s no reason to build towers that are very expensive.”
For Dr. Despommier, the high-rise version is on the horizon. “It’s very idealistic and ivory tower and all of that,” he said. “But there’s a real desire to make this happen.” :New York Times with a good ::Slide show
See our roundup of Vertical Farms in TreeHugger
Vertical (Diagonal?) Farm from Work AC in NYC
More TreeHugger on Vertical Farms
Futurama Farming in New York
Vertical Farming – The Future of Agriculture?
Mithun Architects' Vertical Farm for Seattle
Vertical (Diagonal?) Farm from Work AC in NY : TreeHugger
Sky Farm Proposed for Downtown Toronto
TreeHugger on Urban Farms
Sky-High Hotel Herbs and Vegetables
Urban Farm Spreads Its Roots in Impoverished St. Louis ...
An Urban Farm Floats and Grows in NYC
P.S. Farm ? PS1's Public Farm 1 is now open for picking :
A Farm Grows In Brooklyn
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Farm land is a lot cheaper then a building. It is a very good idea to have more localized food production, but I really don't think this is the answer.
These don't upset me as much as they used to, and I can see that they might even be beautiful in a way. But I'm still not convinced that they're all that efficient.
Besides, they seem to elevate efficiency to disturbing levels. The frequent inclusion of chickens in vertical farms makes me very uncomfortable. I'm not a vegetarian, but still feel that animals suffer when they are treated as machines.
I'm not totally opposed to all this, but it does seem to embody an attempt to escape nature rather than work with it.
A romantic and miguided idea. A 30 story building might expose ONLY as much as two acres of vetical land to be farmed- providing adjacent buildings are sited to avoid mutual shading. The average farm only generates $500/acre. Even if we assume they are planting baby vegetables for high end restaurants, this is a silly way to deploy $50M.
Maybe, just maybe, it pays to replace sedum green roofs with urban gardens. But vertical farms should be left for the Jetsons>>>
I disagree, I think that the investment will will be exponentially outweighed by the results. I really want to see further progress on this concept because I truly 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
Skeptics like Carbonell will come around. Recent events on Wall Street mean a tomato is probably worth more than an investment banker these days.
Urban rooftop and vertical farming are neat ideas. May not work in Manhattan, but hopefully elsewhere.