About Me
Saturday, 19 September 2009
Monday, 24 August 2009
Friday, 31 July 2009
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Major title??
thinking of a title for my major project:
> sustainable urbansim
> sustainable urban regeneration
> Eco-community
> sustainable urban neighnorhood
> sustainable urban village
> sustainable urbansim
> sustainable urban regeneration
> Eco-community
> sustainable urban neighnorhood
> sustainable urban village
Monday, 15 June 2009
Growing Food Locally: Integrating Agriculture Into the Built Environment
Tremendous energy is expended transporting food from fields around to world to our tables. Large-scale, centralized food production is vulnerable to disease and other threats, and there are health benefits to more local food production. In this context, there is growing interest in producing food closer to home, even in urban areas.
There are two broad approaches to more localized food production. First, the vacant land around buildings—which comprises about 15% of urban land nationwide—can be turned into productive gardens and farmland. There are thousands of community gardens and hundreds agricultural enterprises (both nonprofit and for-profit) that are converting this unused, urban land into productive land for vegetables, fruits, and other crops. In some urban farms, isolation from contaminated soils is provided with a layer of clay.
Second, there is a tremendous amount of commercial roof area in urban and suburban locations, and some of this space is suitable for productive green roofs or rooftop greenhouses. With greenhouses, soil-based growing is practiced by some, but most growers have turned to lighter-weight hydroponics (growing in which nutrient solutions replace soil). The innovative field of aquaponics marries aquaculture (fish farming) with hydroponics to permit ecological systems in which fish waste provides the fertilizer for plant growth.
Both of these approaches offer challenges to architects and farmers alike. Finding plots on the ground that are uncontaminated and receive enough sun for vegetables can be difficult in dense urban centers, and rooftop systems can easily overload existing structural supports if not carefully planned.
There are two broad approaches to more localized food production. First, the vacant land around buildings—which comprises about 15% of urban land nationwide—can be turned into productive gardens and farmland. There are thousands of community gardens and hundreds agricultural enterprises (both nonprofit and for-profit) that are converting this unused, urban land into productive land for vegetables, fruits, and other crops. In some urban farms, isolation from contaminated soils is provided with a layer of clay.
Second, there is a tremendous amount of commercial roof area in urban and suburban locations, and some of this space is suitable for productive green roofs or rooftop greenhouses. With greenhouses, soil-based growing is practiced by some, but most growers have turned to lighter-weight hydroponics (growing in which nutrient solutions replace soil). The innovative field of aquaponics marries aquaculture (fish farming) with hydroponics to permit ecological systems in which fish waste provides the fertilizer for plant growth.
Both of these approaches offer challenges to architects and farmers alike. Finding plots on the ground that are uncontaminated and receive enough sun for vegetables can be difficult in dense urban centers, and rooftop systems can easily overload existing structural supports if not carefully planned.
Green Buildings and Food Production
Our existing food production system is rife with problems. The average mouthful of food travels 1,500 miles before reaching your plate, losing nutrition and flavor while consuming a huge amount of energy. Agribusiness has created vast monocultures of grains, corn, and soybeans, decreasing biodiversity and necessitating the use of vast amounts of pesticides and other chemicals. The mammoth, centralized operations that produce our food, especially meat and poultry, mean that a single contamination event can put huge numbers of people at risk. We need a new model of food production.
Green building could play a role in producing healthier food closer to home, even in urban and suburban areas. In suburbia, we can garden our backyards as our grandparents did with their Victory Gardens during World War II, when up to 40% of vegetables were home-grown. In cities, we can create productive gardens out of abandoned and unused vacant lots, which account for an average of 15% of our urban landscapes. On land that may be contaminated, we can follow the model of City Farm in Chicago, which uses a layer of clay to isolate contaminated substrate from a rich, compost-based soil for growing crops.
Other strategies for local food production are much newer, higher-tech, and less familiar. The nation’s 4.8 million commercial buildings have about 1,400 square miles of nearly flat roof, an area the size of Rhode Island. On those roofs, green roofs or rooftop greenhouses can be constructed and planted with edible crops. New hydroponic greenhouses can achieve significantly greater yields than soil-based greenhouses, with far less weight. A hybrid system called aquaponics merges aquaculture (fish production) with hydroponics, so that the waste from the fish fertilizes the plants, providing an integrated, balanced system.
What do you think? As the green building movement evolves, should the integration of food production be a consideration? In an increasingly urbanized world, should our buildings and the landscapes around them become a part of our agricultural system?
Green building could play a role in producing healthier food closer to home, even in urban and suburban areas. In suburbia, we can garden our backyards as our grandparents did with their Victory Gardens during World War II, when up to 40% of vegetables were home-grown. In cities, we can create productive gardens out of abandoned and unused vacant lots, which account for an average of 15% of our urban landscapes. On land that may be contaminated, we can follow the model of City Farm in Chicago, which uses a layer of clay to isolate contaminated substrate from a rich, compost-based soil for growing crops.
Other strategies for local food production are much newer, higher-tech, and less familiar. The nation’s 4.8 million commercial buildings have about 1,400 square miles of nearly flat roof, an area the size of Rhode Island. On those roofs, green roofs or rooftop greenhouses can be constructed and planted with edible crops. New hydroponic greenhouses can achieve significantly greater yields than soil-based greenhouses, with far less weight. A hybrid system called aquaponics merges aquaculture (fish production) with hydroponics, so that the waste from the fish fertilizes the plants, providing an integrated, balanced system.
What do you think? As the green building movement evolves, should the integration of food production be a consideration? In an increasingly urbanized world, should our buildings and the landscapes around them become a part of our agricultural system?
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