SEP 18

This is really neat to see! I love the American Gothic shot in the middle of the building. :)
I have read bits but not seen any info on when this building "pays for itself" in regard to the carbon footprint from building it. I would imagine pretty quickly but all those solar panels come at a carbon emisson cost. Just wondering if there was any mention of this?

Vertical agriculture is akin to buying glass beads to pave your walkway with so that you don't have to have gravel shipped in from the quarry.

Maybe it is practical - maybe you can do it without glass shards screwing up your feet, but that's beside the point.

It's completely unnecessary. There is plenty of land, and plenty of transport for something so necessary to our society as food. Just because you can't see it from your hipster loft doesn't mean we lack it.

And good luck with making it self sufficient - that's something in the vicinity of 150-300 watts per apartment you've apportioned depending on tech, after daily adjustments and storage losses.

Believing that to be sustainable, an urban residential tower needs to be able to survive indefinitely in quarantine from the rest of the world, is idiocy. The very idea of civilization, and the cities that it implies, involves people becoming dependent on each other, not turning into survivalist jack-of-all-trades.

So what if it doesn't go completely off the grid? It's a great step in the right direction. It doesn't solve every problem in one go, but this kind of solution can ease the strain our global agricultural industry puts on the environment, and make it simpler for cities to get food without polluting as much via long-distance transportation. Regular "horizontal" farming isn't going to disappear. These vertical farming innovations will supplement the food and energy supply in an efficient way that doesn't add to the environmental problems we face, and if adopted more widely along with other initiatives, will be part of the solution. Plus it will add some greenery to the steel and concrete of urban landscapes.

Whos' to do the hard manual labor for to run the farm? In a vertical configuration, machines are impractical in not impossible, so I suppose latin american serfs will do it, as usual. And where do they live? Not downtown Seattle, presumably, unless their employers decide to pay a Living Wage. If they don't live there, then they commute, and the project looks a little less "self-sufficient" and "off grid". So maybe the owners feel good about themselves, but prevailing economic patterns which are hardly sustainable, apart from their human cost, are reinforced. If the owners were themselves to farm, then this could be positive, but those with the money to get into something like this don't work, they speculate, and if they do work, it's certainly not manual.

I would assume that the food produced would be sold at market prices, if not higher (think 'organic'). Considering that it is really just a big greenhouse, it is likely they would be growing cash crops like fruits, vegetables or nuts but not staples like grains (which need large fields anyways). Greenhouses can make lots of money, and they provide a range of jobs from low-wage field-hands to high-wage crop managers. The only question is how many of the greenhouses the local economy can support. In a city like New York, we're probably talking hundreds.

we just need a big culling

You can't really believe that a building of that size would produce enough to feed its inhabitants, right? The amount of greens-space per unit is wildly insufficient to feed a fraction of the building's population.

It looks interesting, and like a pleasant place to live, but don't fool yourselves into thinking it's "self sufficient."

You first.

I dont quite see how this is the best use of resources when both the plants and the solar array need to be exposed to direct sunlight to reap maximum benefits. One will have to shade the other for 1/2 the day in this design.

First, I think this is a great idea in theory. However, one major concern I would have is where the soil is going to come from. We can't make soil yet, so it would have to be removed from somewhere. Second, replenishing lost nutrients from the soil will require outside inputs, unless there are also mammals grown for fertilizer (manure), or a legume is rotated frequently to replace nitrogen. Maybe in something as labor intensive as this necessarily will be, a "management intensive grazing system" would be well implemented (see www.acresusa.com or any of Joel Salatin's books). Regardless, I think its a great idea. And for some earlier commenters - the building wouldn't be wholly self-sufficient, only energy and water self-sufficient (read article carefully).

All that vertical solar should work great in an urban environment, until the property owner next door decides to build the same thing.

MMMM Food that tastes like exhaust fumes!

I know where american serfs live. In Mexico!


Hahahahahahah

Regardless of the many negative comments on the subject, i think a green building such as this on is step in the right direction. If we keep bad-talking all improvments we will remain exactly where we are, in the middle of a nasty gray cloud of smog. I, for one, am optimistic and would love to see more buildings like this one.

Honestly, using solar panels in most of the united states is a waste of money and resources. The US Southwest, namely the dry region, are the only place in the US where solar is actually cost effective due to their virtually rain-free days.

This farm concept would make better use of wind and geothermal-exchange. In fact, Geothermal exchange could make the building even more off-grid than it is already.

As for the vertical farm - interesting, but I don't find the idea of eating food that is grown in a car-heavy environment like a city to be appealing. Particulate pollution, gas pollution... it doesn't stay out of the crops unless you operate the crops in an enclosed environment.

And the one thing the building specs don't answer - what of children, where do they play? Either they will be living in the building, or coming over to visit. Are they going to be allowed to trample the grass, or play near the crops, or will kids be outlawed?

And if you are going to make efficient use of the space, why not put the parking underground and free up even more ground-level space? Parking lots are deadspace in an urban environment, it would detract from the very purpose of the building to take up sun-exposed real estate just to park the gas cars.

this entire concept have appeared in the thread. It is not my project but to continue discussion:

* Re PV value in Seattle: While PVs have higher production value in SW desert, this does not mean that they are without value elsewhere in the US. Distributed power generation, without all of the transmission and distribution costs, has high value that can compensate for lower efficiency. And, at this time, PV is one of the easiest renewable energy forms to do in the most distributed fashion. Yes, there is a straight cost premium in most areas compared to grid-power (especially against low-cost hydro), but there are other benefits -- tangible (continuity of power, power quality) and intangible (understanding of helping to reduce humanity's impact on the earth).

2. Urban quality agriculture: Truth is that urban agriculture is something going on around the world, with rooftop/other gardens producing food to some degree in every city of the world. I have not seen relative pollution/contamination figures compared to industrialized agriculture (with pesticides/otherwise), but it would be interesting to have an open analysis/discussion of that.

3. Clearly, due to sunlight requirements, not every building in every city could be this "green". But, there would be 'niche' areas within cities (how about north side of a river or park) where a building would have a high amount of solar exposure to enable agricultural growth throughout the height of the building.

4. RE solar vs agriculture -- come off it, if the architects can't design it so that the solar panels and the plants aren't competing for the same sunshine, then they shouldn't be licensed.

5. Soil replenishment ... perhaps, for example, through cleaning up the gray/brown water for nutrients?

Some thoughts/reactions ...

:)

The only way this building would be self sufficent is if they grew weed and sold it to the hippies that think this crap up. They could then use the profits ensure the future of our capitalist nation! long live the republic!

I thought of this a while ago.
What you need to have is a skyscraper.
Cover it with fiber optics and so wind turbines on the top.
Instead of apartments make greenhouses in modulat configuration
where it is easy to swap the equipment needed for a carticulat plant to be grown on the particular floor.
Minimize the number of humans in the green houses by staffing them with robots. The nutrients can be delivered to the floors with additional plumbing and elevators (for solids).
The fiberoptics collect the sunlight and channel it directly to the plants.
Everyhing is monitored by a small staff of technitians and scientists.
All the reclamation/recycling systems can be built into the building.
It can produce all kinds of food, also can be configured to produce petroleum.
Some floors can be open to the air completelly, others may have air delivered to them.
Saves a lot of space, can be put right in the middle of the city, be a landmark. Bottom floors can be used for retailing the produced products.
The posibilities for bussiness are limitless.

If you are looking for self-sufficiency and are also trying to address the concern voiced above about what happens when someone builds a high-rise next door, here are a couple of references worth checking out:

http://www.edibleforestgardens.com

http://www.growbiointensive.org

Edible Forest Gardens, in particular, sets forth a bold ecological vision in which an edible perennial garden becomes self-sustaining largely by mimicking the ecological balance of a natural forest. Of particular interest is the fact that many edible plants (which are described in detail in the two-volume set available for sale on the website--I own it) grow well and fruit in partial or even complete shade. Yes, the fruits and vegetables you know well from the grocery store generally need full sun. But if you are willing to expand your culinary horizons to items like Solomon's Seal, pawpaws, wild garlic and ramps, you can produce plenty of food without full sun.

The Grow Biointensive website and book emphasizes more annual gardening rather than perennial, and seeks to minimize the total number of square feet needed to grow food for one human being for a year.

Both of these books should be read and their underlying philosphies incorporated into this design.

UNA GRAN INICIATIVA Y NOS GUSTARÍA TRAER ESTAS EMPRESAS A CHILE Y ESTUDIAR SUS POSIBILIDADES DE NEGOCIO.las empresas interesads en ingresar al mercado chileno pueden contactarnos
Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
agriculturablogger.blogspot.com
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I pity the poor trees that have to live thru this. Such a waste of all resources.

I felt an initial smile, chuckle, "cute idea" sort of reaction. After some consideration, it strikes me as a wildly impractical vision of architects who are not remotely connected to paying for the construction costs. Triangular building, asymmetric sloped glass(?) walls; large indoor trees (Evergreens in the illustration??)... It is certainly not any kind of a reproducible model that could be done on a wide scale. Large scale changes are what is needed. Apartment buildings with basic, cost effective passive solar orientation, super-insulated detailing, greywater recycling, small greenhouse sunspaces; but this architectural drawing seems to be pure fantasy. Where are the 34,000 sq ft of solar PV cells (note the ;D)? Hydrogen cell backup??? Its interesting in a speculative way, but where are the real projects that can actually be built? I saw a global warming movie that documented apts ALREADY BUILT in Europe that had an ANNUAL total utility cost of $50. We need practical, buildable, reproducible systems that people can afford, even more so with the current housing credit crunch. The nature of architects seems to be to design projects as art (making a name for themselves, working for wealthy clients), rather than designing cost effective and practical structures.

engineer, you may have a point :D

This does stimulate discussion, though ;D

You get "Two Thumbs Up" from me on this idea.
This could be a template for more of the projects up and down the West Coast.
Good luck !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to the "GUTSY" design architects, I agree that this concept may ask more questions than it answers, but it is thought provoking and with some fine tuning, may help ease our footprint on mother earth. Hopefully this will provoke some debate in the halls of power around the world.

As I read I see a lot of nay sayers. Why is this to be viewed as a bad thing? It may not be entirely self-sufficient, but it's definitely more so than any other building I've heard of. It may not be the solution to all our problems, but it seems to be a good step in the right direction.

I think that the 'naysayers' great. Picking up on the faults means that plans like this can be improved upon and better solutions offered. As long as better solutions ARE offered.

Emma :)

What about the folks that already live on the
"dark side" and would sue to keep their Sun?
Is such a massive shadow legal?

an other vertical farm tower here : http://www.livingtower.new.fr

Check out the vertical farm planned for Las Vegas..!?

What's with all the negativity? You have to start somewhere and at least someone is acting rather than just talking. I commend everyone for great ideas, but do something about it and bring them forth, don't just jot them down as superior solutions in the comments section.

I applaud the creativity of the design. It is a response to the Living Building Challenge. The LBC requires many things to be provided for on site. I think the design is an excellent urban response to the Challenge, but some of the above criticisms are also quite appropriate. Perhaps the LBC's requirement that everything be provided for On-site isn't a very good idea.

Wow, I really wasn't expecting to see so many doubters. There seems to be many of you who are laboring under false pretenses about the amount of power and produce this building could produce. I have grown enough food for a family of four in a 6 x 6 space using a mixture of soil and hydroponics for about 5 years now with no problems. Takes about 25 hrs/wk of labor and costs approx. $115/mo in power to run. If I was able to have a space about 20x20 I would even be able to reclaim all the soil (right now I have to replenish it about twice a year).
It does seem odd that they didn't even consider a vertical axis windmill or two, would help augment the electricity production and cut down on the amount of solar panels needed.
As far as the amount of food produced- it seems that many people didn't take into account the multiple blooming seasons and the increased harvest from having controlled environments. This really will work...now they just need to realize they can put a biomass fuel production center, and algae tanks into each of these buildings.
--Lighting: forget fiber-optics or large HPS/MH lamps...check out Luciant Techs new LED's. They only use 3-5 mW, are the size of a pinky nail, and produce the same amount of light as a 150 W Halogen...and they can be tuned to the exact red/blue frequency that plants need to grow (no wasted energy).
-- Harvesting and farming labor--You got me on that one. Maybe we will have little modified Roomba's that will run around and harvest stuff. Could just rent 4 of the apartments to central american families. That would equal about 60 workers...I'm sorry. It might work as a equal share thing between tenets with agreed upon laborers taking up any slack.
We will see these building in our lifetime, and many of them, for the simple reason that there is not enough land to support the continued population growth. It's easier than people think to grow plants in controlled environments,and large scale production is in some ways easier than growing those five plants in your college dorm-room closet. I am looking forward to living in a badly maintained, leaky, mid-cost one bedroom apartment that smells vaguely of decomposing plant matter and cut lawn.

Howdy,
I am very interested in your program and was wondering if you were looking for employment. I am graduating from Warren Wilson College located in Asheville, NC with a degree in Biology and Environmental Studies. I have a lot of experience with growing vegetable, landscaping, and horticulture. I am passionate about urban farming and growing food. I could email you my resume. If you are not looking for employment is there any other contacts in the vertical farming world you could educate me with. Thanks for your time.
Cheers,
Shannon Waldron

This project has some very interesting ideas. I would, however, like to see more publications on these exceptional ideas that list designers that are available to the average wage earner. Finding one to put these ideas down onto paper, planning and construction is not an easy task. As owner of a first generation passive solar home built along traditional home design has resulted in substantial energy savings and continues to work 22 years after construction. However, I would like to continue to apply state-of-the-art ideas to off-grid passive solar technology which would represent, I think, the ultimate challange in solar applications. As for food production I think I will let that up to the farmers. On the other hand, maintaining plants indoors does have its advantages in trading CO2 for O2 as well as providing estetics and a treat if one grows fruit indoors.

A) these plants are indoors and that will provide better conditions, (no pests, no exhaust from the city)

B) Electrically it won't be self sufficient if one it to assume they use lights to power the photosynthesis.

C) I think water wise they could/might be self sufficient especially with Seattle's rainfall (plants transpire most of the water they take in,)

D) Soil/labor is not used/needed. Most can be grown aeroponically (right word?) on trays that can be moved to a central 'machine' for automatic processing. Or a harvester the size of a floor sweeper can be used.

Solar lighting with fiber optic cables is free. Fiber Optic cable has the possibility of lasting a lifetime and is constantly being improved. Length of cable shouldn't be a factor with so many 'sun faces'. UV can be filtered out or left in. Light cycles mimic outdoor light, brightest
at midday, softer and warmer morning and evening.

Water is recyclable and can be distilled with free solar energy.

Solar energy is present even on cloudy days, and can be stored successfully from sunny days.

A building this size would probably be selling power back to the grid. That pays for what's not produced off-grid, perhaps.

With enough fiber optics, when the price comes down, this entire building might be able to exist underground. No shadow.

All organic matter can be broken down by bacteria to produce natural gas. This can be done in a controlled environment. The organic matter would be human waste and food waste. The natural gas can be made into hydrogen, which creates CO2 for the plants to be saturated in. The hydrogen would power a fuel cell.

I urge everyone to visit Dr. Dickson Despommier's website www.verticalfarm.com and read all scientific/economic info about them BEFORE commenting. This prevents un-informed/speculative comments like that about soil or solar problems. Thanks ;)

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/campai...-york-city

As a Partner in an Architectural Firm with an actual vertical farm project on deck, I am surprised by the negativity and lack of understanding of Photovoltaics for electricity & the varieties of systems available to grow plants, not to mention the chance to treat black water created by the surrounding communities.

Perhaps my colleagues visions may seem "more architecture and less farm" which makes them look like flights of fancy. Some of the ideas out there sound so technology forward that they seem like sci-fi and are not cost effective at this time, while many are so large that you wonder if it is the product of someone's ego and not their careful assessment of local needs and opportunities.

For our project in New York City (where land is notoriously expensive,) the numbers make sense for a medium sized project. Which although may not feed the nation, it could provide fresh produce to surrounding communities where dietary staples available to rest of us are not available freshly or organically.

In other words the focus is not on making a giant factory to feed humanity but instead to allow people who don't live near farms to have available a non-truck ripened vegetable.

Be part of the solution: Our office actually grows tomatoes, cucumbers and 9 other vegetables on marginal space around a parking lot, making our lunches in the summer much more fun.



FYI photovoltaic panels don't actually need sunlight, they need daylight and even in overcast grey days produce nearly as much as they produce under direct light.

Also thermal solar panels used to replace your hot water heater now cost the same as installing a new hot water heater with it's plumbing and gas or electric connections, finally making this affordable for home owners.

Technology is advancing so it is important to keep up to date instead of speculating.

This idea may work if it was more about "gutting" an existing building, renovating it with these ideas, than building an intentional community around it. Better to use an existing building, modify it, than you have a really green idea.

Hi,

what companies can be invested in that promotes what you are doing?
Georgine

Moving food back into cities just makes sense considering the impact of unnecessary "food miles" that most food travels from point of growth to our local supermarkets. Valcent has created a vertical farming system that uses 90-95% less water than conventional farming and can be set up in tight spaces (like cities) to provide local, fresh produce. It can be placed anywhere: warehouses, skyscrapers, and industrial sites included. There's lots of info on the Valcent blog about the system's first instillation at a UK zoo http://blog.valcent.net/?p=653

I love all the negative talking about the subject :-) Just shows who the people are that actually make new strides into efficiency through effort and failing but are trying, and those who are the ones who watch it all happen instead. Tesla and Edison were actually laughed at also... I love hearing the nay-sayers who keep thinking they're smarter without actually doing the work and research... most of the arguments are good, but I especially like seeing the disagreements that are based in opinion, it's hilarious.

Anyone who's done hydroponics knows how ultra-productive a small space with proper setup and attention can be. I assume these vertical stacks also pump up the CO2 to 2000ppm or so to help growth (by about a factor of 4).
Since global warming and the whole GH hypothesis is BS ( http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4 FALSIFICATION OF THE ATMOSPHERIC CO2 GREENHOUSE EFFECTS WITHIN THE FRAME OF PHYSICS ), we should of course, were it possible, do everything possible to bring the whole planet's atmosphere up to that level, too.

Someone was wondering how they would have enough soil for VF, but if you actually look up more detailed designs for VFs, you will see that many of the crops will not need soil due to hyperponic growth. In this method of agriculture, soil is not needed. the plants are suspended in containers, and nutrient-rich water flows over their roots, supplying them with all the food they need. As far the the other concern about half of the building being shaded throughout the day,photovoltaics (solor power) would supply enrgy to the shaded portions - the solar panels would be located on the roof, where they would be under direct sunlight most of the day. Yes, it would require a lot of energy to power that many lights, but new advances in photovoltaics have made them highly efficient, and the power is almost level with the price of regular power - or will be soon enough. Another question someone asked was how the plants would have enough nutrients. Many designes propose the use of city greywater (sewage), which contains a lot of nutrients. The water would be evaporated, leaving behind the nutrients, and then it would be re-cooled and ppurified for use on the plants. So graywater would supply nutrients andwater, and we would be able to recylcle our cities' waste. Anyone can argue that there are still flaws in the idea of VF (though I would not put the entire thing off as bogus, considering how many learned architects, agronomists, and urban designers have explored the idea), but this is why there are no VF farms yet - it's not a completely finished plan. Prototypes would be built and testd first - more experimentation is surely needed before we can decide whether vertical farming is right for our cities or not. It's not realistic to say we don't need it. If you consider how little arable land we have in proportion to the world's population, and how many crops are destroyed by natural disasters (which are increasing regularly due to global warming), is seems clear that we need a more reliable way to obtain more food. The world's population is predicted to reach 9.5 billion by 2050- I think we need to do something about our food problem (and more so, the food shortages in other countries) before then. The biggest problem I have with this idea is that no matter how you look at it, VF is expensive , and it's likely to be for a long time. The countries that need food the most aren't exactly rich, and this country is economically instable and in a lot of debt anyways. For vertical farms to make a real impact, we would need a lot of them. I think it's a good idea, despite the flaws that have yet to be worked out, but I think that it will be a while before vertical farms truly "take root" - pardon the lame pun.

U guys are being too hard. No Idea started out perfect!!! Thomas Edison didn't come up with the right way to light up a lightbulb the first time he tried!!! And besides, WE HAVE NO ROOM for regular farming! Get that thru ur head! Vertical farms are a creative way to take up less land but produce more. It'll pay 4itself by absorbing moreco2than it took to build it, and solar energy will reduce its carbon footprint. Plus, LESS plants will go to the trash And MORE will go to your tables. And despite what you might think, that's good!!!