Having a long term goal to modify the habits of the city dwellers towards viable nutrition setting a new understanding of our overall lifestyle modification, towards the future of urban agriculture lifestyle, by aggregating, at the first glance the two incompatible processes of present urban residential use and urban agriculture into a new architectural typology: AGRITECTURE. The principles of the new typology states that each living space must be equipped with a farming medium that cover from 50-80% of the occupants requirements of vegetation. There are countless design possibilities to implement the applications of hydroponic farming systems in existing and new structures.
The following proposal demonstrate the ability of integrating the use of microfarming into the structure of the building envelope creating a living building membrane while providing an energy efficient way to grow food. The proposal was named “THE CELL”, implying that the building envelope as a living membrane.
Concept and implementation of a closed-loop, self sufficient micro farming system, as a proposal for an Agritecture building skin design.
Architectural visualization of an interior space with the living membrane of microfarming units.
Faced with the issue of protecting the building core as well as housing the main microfarming units integrated into the building structure itself, applying the Agritecture methodology, the building envelope is designed to house the microfarming units according to the best energetic performance acquired from the site, as well as the corresponding building functions.
The placement of the microfarming systems based on the building functions and energy analysis.
The microfarming system is composed of a series of smaller connected systems that acts together as one closed loop membrane, where nutrient-rich water solution is introduced to the system starting point, it flows down through a series of outlets with natural gravity until collected at the end through a vertical pipe and stored in a reservoir for checking the acidity of the solution and modified.
Exterior visualization of the microfarming system
