How cool - and intelligently forward thinking - is **this**?

[Stinky The Clown]

http://www.verticalfarm.com/

Vertical farms, located in big cities, allowing food to move from farm to market with little carbon footprint and little land footprint.

The rendering below is on the Chicago shoreline, on Lake Michigan

[tblue]

1. It looks like The Viagra Building.

Actually, I think it's a great idea. WTH not?

[FirstLight]

2. THIS is what Obama means ...

when he talks about investing in infrastructure that5 helps us all! you should send this to him, just for future reference ;)

I would love to see those in the place of smokestacks!

[Wickerman]

3. that is great! But how would the guys in my part of the country get their equipment from

floor to floor?



:rofl:

[ContinentalOp]

5. Really really big escalators. -nt-

[Stinky The Clown]

8. "Minnyature Eyezation" ......

...... would be her answer! :)

[Occulus]

14. Each floor would probably include robotic harvesters or

modular farm equipment that could easily be put together and torn apart.

That's a relatively simple engineering problem, though. It just takes someone dedicated- and paid- to develop the system, but there's no reason at all why it's not doable.

I'm frankly surprised that these didn't start appearing in this country ten or fifteen years ago. The technology necessary to build, maintain, and harvest from such farms has been around for quite some time now, as has this very idea of vertical farming.

This is a big ol' DUUUH moment, and I sitting here asking "well, what the bloody hell are we waiting for??!?" Doing this could easily make every major city in the country self-sufficient as far as food demands are concerned, they would quite clearly not be a blight on any skyline, and would have the added benefit of year-round operation, given artificial lighting and a 24/7/365 growing season.

:wtf:

Why aren't we already doing this??

[onethatcares]

19. we aren't doing this because

Monsanto doesn't see any future in it.

Hell, we could be using vacant land as farm plots in the cities, but the government won't allow it. There are homeless people that would be proud to cultivate and produce enough to feed many. But, no, the land has to remain vacant and overgrown.

Our country really has a bunch of strange things going on, doesn't it?

Peace

[TheWraith]

16. Use smaller, electrically powered machines that can be put on a central cargo elevator.

That solves the problem of logistics as well as having to supply fuel to the machines.

[uncle ray]

23. stuff like grain would not be suited for vert farms.

leave the amber waves of grain in the midwest. the vert farms would be good for tomatos, peppers, etc. the kind of food that is best picked by hand.

[ContinentalOp]

4. Brilliant idea!

In other words... it will never happen. :(

[Stinky The Clown]

6. My brother put me onto this idea. he says they're building at least three that he knows of

I don't recall where he said, except that one was in Seattle.

[lapfog_1]

7. Physics???

Plants need sunlight, no?

How does this get enough sunlight to every layer in the farm stack?

I've thought about this too (but for a specific project) and came to the conclusion that I would need space based solar reflectors to get enough light to all of the layers.

Artificial lighting would seem to be a lose, but maybe not.

[Stinky The Clown]

9. Go back to the linked site.

It is very dense with information.

[lapfog_1]

10. Don't have time right this minute, bookmark for later.

Figured if someone understood it all, they could answer that question easily.

[lunatica]

12. rotating buildings and separate moveable floor sections

There's some building plans for Dubai where each floor is able to rotate separately, and also be moved vertically outwards with retractable windows so they could control temperatures. The link is below. Just add your own ideas. I like to think that solar panels, wind sails, and natural habitat space for city critters, like birds, squirrels, etc. can be added. Also ways to catch rainwater and distribute it throughout the floors with a simple gutter system on each floor. They could build a system that would store snow water as it melts. The possibilities are exciting. They could even add bee hives for pollination and bats to control the insects. All natural.

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=85195

edited to add ideas

[Occulus]

17. $3000/sq. ft.

But I think such a building housing a farm could be built for far less than that. After all, the link is talking about luxury apartments- I don't know enough about the architect to know if he's thought about this application of his idea, but I'll guess not for the sake of my argument.

The only problem is, the building at the link has wind turbines on each floor, which generates (supplements? Provides? The link isn't real clear on that one point) the power the building uses to turn. Quite clearly, the concept allows for floors that could turn to the benefit of growing crops, and could supplement that with artificial light as I stated above.

Again, why aren't we doing this in our larger cities? Even a city like Detroit could benefit from this. Want a community garden? Lease a floor on the skyfarm. You could even pay with a percentage of the produce grown...... hmmmm......

This almost looks like a... a.... business opportunity! And, the modular parts for the floors of the building in that link could more conveniently be built here rather than in Italy. Why is that part of our country called the "rust belt" again?

Well, here's a manufacturing opportunity. Another business. Cripes, a whole new industry.

Imagine that.

[lunatica]

20. Actually once it's started somewhere and is seen to work

I'm trying to imagine something in the long term, like how it would affect everyday life. Eventually entrepeneurs and cities will catch on and start doing this in their areas. The possibilities are legion. Farms as we know them could become obsolete and these types of building would create self supporting communities wherever they were built. So that the present urban sprawl and suburbia would break down into manageable communities, which each section becoming a center that grows its own food. This would encourage people to create businesses that are local - like restaurants would want to be close to the food sources.

The need to transport food via semi trucks would dwindle considerably and eventually become practically obsolete. There's so much to imagine!

[Occulus]

34. Oh, I think with this, "urban sprawl" could actually be manageable.

Consider being able to go to your local Farming Arcology (thanks, SimCity 2000) for your produce needs, instead of having to drive ten or fifteen miles (or more!) to a grocery store. For your taxes, or your time, or a bit of both, you could have all the benefits of several major farms all in one place.

You're absolutely right about local businesses, and restaurants would be overjoyed at the prospect of renting a plot or buying directly from the farm and having access to a menu made with nearly 100% fresh ingredients. You could even have floors of these structures set up to be small fish farms, etc.

The possibilities are really extraordinary. I think we need to try this pronto....

[TheWraith]

18. There are tricks that can be used for piping sunlight into a building.

Particularly if you leave the central core open at the top.

[lapfog_1]

25. Yes, I've looked at a number of those solutions.

There was a French firm that used rooftop skylights and fiber optics to pipe natural light into interior offices. As I recall, it's very expensive still.

And doesn't solve the basic problem, only so much sunlight falls on your farm, plants need lots of it to do photosynthesis (i.e. to grow). I could see maybe 3 layers with clever angles, mirrors, etc.

Well, I'll have to read up on it first and see what they actually plan to do.

[Ezlivin]

11. Hell, pot growers have been doing this for years

Most residential high-rises have grow areas in them. That's why you can "order" top quality pot in Manhattan and have it delivered to your door by a brave courier.

[hootinholler]

13. Thanks! I'll have to go have a look later. n/t

[lunatica]

15. a video on sky farming architecture

scroll down a bit

http://www.popsci.com/cliff-kuang/article/2008-09/farming-sky

And here's a breakdown of each part of the building shown in the above video and how it works.

http://www.popsci.com/environment/gallery/2008-09/inside-vertical-skyscraper

edited to add the second link

[bertman]

21. Here's another idea: how about lots and lots of small, family farms growing organics?

It doesn't take acres and acres to grow vegetables and fruits. it does take knowledge of small farming techniques that are already in use all over this country.

There is fertile farmland around almost every city in this country. A lot of it is now beginning to be used by locals who choose to work the land and do it in a sustainable way instead of relying on brocoli and apples from Chile. (No offense to Chile, but why ship them 6000 miles when you can grow them 100 miles away or closer?)

Our government has been so focused on BIG AGRICULTURE (is all of this BIG stuff starting to sound familiar?) that the laws are written to benefit AGRIBUSINESS and not the family farmers who DON"T farm 1000 acres. I have nothing against large scale agricultural farms--except a few things like the use of unbelievable quantities of pesticides and herbicides, overwatering, monoculture that destroys indigenous plants and animal habitat, to name a few--because I do think they are valuable for production of crops that are best suited to large-scale farming like wheat and whatever else requires it.

Where I live in the Research Triangle Park area, in the last fifteen years local farmers' markets have started to spring up in every small town and in the surrounding urban areas. The demand for locally-grown vegetables, fruits, chickens, pigs, beef, buffalo (yep) has boomed. It's such a rewarding experience to go to the market and talk with the people who grow your food. To see their businesses prosper and their children and others' children become part of the organic farming movement. The food does cost more, but I'll gladly pay more to know that I am buying healthy food stuffs whose production did not damage the environment.

Let's get going on the Green Revolution and start subsidizing small-scale organic farming and farmers' markets. It may take some time to develop but it is viable and a better choice, IMO, than building skyscrapers for farming.

But, that is a cool picture.

[intheflow]

33. A combination of both is ideal.

But I think the main point of this design is to cut down on the transportation footprint from rural areas to the cities. Still, there's a lot of good farmland outside Chicago, so in that case it could work well in tandem with the agricultural towers, easily feeding a city the size of Chicago.

[LiberalHeart]

22. Maybe if I clicked the link I'd know how the crops get sunlight and water.

[hvn_nbr_2]

24. The lower floors are gonna need some big honkin' Grow-Lights. nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

26. I've heard of roof gardens!

[That Guy 888]

27. I've thought that urban farming would be good in the past, besides the food

it would also provide some post-industrial urban employment.

The one stumbling block I wondered about is pest, like rats for instance.

[progressoid]

28. And a little scary.

We're using up land so fast that this may be one of the few viable solutions left in the near future.




Or Soylent Green. Yummy.

[lunatica]

30. A source of protein... n/t

[chupacabranation]

29. Ingenious idea, but...

...my sense is that the economies of scale needed to make farming efficient (read: palatably cost-efficient) will be strikingly absent from such a set-up. If we already need subsidies to keep food prices low...

Also, how much real-estate would be available in the urban centers to make such conversions?

I think it's a great idea, I'm just uncertain how the contingencies would play out.

[baby_mouse]

31. Mindbogglingly OBVIOUS idea.

[Hekate]

32. Wow. Bookmarked and kicked!

:kick:

[Bluebear]

35. 5th floor. Cauliflower, snap peas and zucchini. Mind the door, please.