Skyscraper vertical farm planned for China
From Inhabitat comes another dose of future-pr0n, a truly epic vertical farm project:
Urban Forest is a commercial high-rise building that takes the form of an urban mountain with over 70 floors, each one different and unique. Each floor is an abstract curved shape, layered slightly off-center to give the facade an organic look as it rises up into the sky. A central cylindrical core structure supports all the floors and hosts the mechanical systems and elevators.
Each floor is also covered in floor-to-ceiling glass windows, providing expansive views of the city. A walk-around balcony of differing widths hosts the green garden space, as well as pools, trees, and courtyards. Some floors are nothing but open space, while others contain offices or residential space. Each floor is seen as a separate and unique level of the urban forest and is meant to combine both nature and the urban metropolis.
Why do I keep blogging these crazy schemes? Because eventually one of them will succeed and I frankly can’t wait to go check out the one that does in person.
Speaking of ambitions, good news for Masdar City; the Dubai debt crisis shouldn’t affect it.
Vertical farming is really a joke proposal. It would require massive amounts of energy to build a vertical farm, and even the daily operation would use more energy than you would save from transporting food shorter distances. This means a vertical farm would generate large amount of net carbon and contribute to global warming. It would also be much less resilient in the face of energy shortages or peak oil. However, that’s not to say that growing more food in urban areas isn’t a good idea. Growing food on lawns and building community gardens are both great idea.
http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/12/vertical-farming.html
[...] A part of Jeremy’s inspiration comes from this idea he notes about science and technology “flowing inexorably towards natural systems.” This is very interesting to me to talk about – he’s basically saying that as science and technology evolve they end up looking more like what is happening in nature. This is a powerful idea, one we see replicated by current advances in science and the wonders we see in architecture. [...]