New Vertical Farm Design

The Incheon International Design Awards (IIDA) 2010 Award winners have just been announced on Design Bloom, and one of them is for a vertical farm.  The designers, Benet Dalmau, Saida Dalmau, Anna Julibert, and Carmen Vilar expain: 

We wanted to build a new environmentally-friendly town where the environment is considered as an important part of everyday life.  We propose "Spiral Garden System": a public sustainable place like a green heart, easy to maintain and self-sufficient, created by a joint population that will stimulate social interaction among neighbors...To sum it up, we propose an ecological project in a way to give sustainable change to daily city lives, where humans and nature can coexist.

Sounds great to me!  And after looking at the pictures, I say: Do it!

To read more about this project and other in the IIDA 2010 competition, visit Design Bloom.

Green Right Now Interview with Dickson Despommier

Now that the book has been released, media outlets are increasingly interested in Q &A's with our VF guru, Dr. Despommier.  Below is an excerpt from a recent interview done by Samantha Weinstein of Green Right Now. 

What would happen if this was put into effect on a grand scale? What would happen to small farmers who are already struggling?

This is what happens already: The farms eventually fail and big corporations step in and say, “It’s okay. I don’t care if your farm fails. We will supply you with seeds and we will pay you a living wage to farm with our seeds.” So you have Monsanto and Cargill and other corporations taking over these small farms. Even if the farms fail on an annual basis for many years, it wouldn’t matter to Cargill because they own so much farmland that 80 percent will succeed regardless. That is why 2 percent of the farmers in the US control 50 percent of the farming. They take advantage of the farms that are already there. They buy their farms and say, “You can stay in business. We will even double the amount of money you made farming, but we want you to farm what we want you to farm.” And some farmers agree to that because they like farming. That’s not a solution though, is it? That’s an industrial application of a failing technology to an increasingly difficult situation where fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides have to be used more and more to produce the same amount of food. It wears out the land and spoils the environment.

To read the interview in its entirety, head on over here.

And if you haven't already, go check out the book! 

Grab Your Copy In Bookstores Today!

I began today with a stroll to my local Barnes and Noble.  At long last, I was holding the finished product of over a year of hard work, and let me tell you, it was blissful.

This book is packed full of persuasive prose making the case for a new kind of agriculture.  Pages of shiny images accompany the text, limning the words with carefully selected visual stimulants.  If you don't already have your copy (it's day one, I know, but still...), I highly recommend grabbing one for you and one for your favorite niece or nephew next time you're at the bookstore.  If anything, this book will spark the imagination--and for that alone, it's relevancy is indisputable.

Robo-Plant

I saw this from Andrew Price over at GOOD magazine.

This "nomadic plant" functions as follows:

Vegetation and microorganisms live in symbiosis inside the body of the Nomadic Plants robot. Whenever its bacteria require nourishment, the self-sufficient robot will move towards a contaminated river and 'drink' water from it. Through a process of microbial fuel cell, the elements contained in the water are decomposed and turned into energy that can feed the brain circuits of the robot. The surplus is then used to create life, enabling plants to complete their own life cycle.

The designer, Gilberto Esparaza, has a history of coming up with projects that make you think twice about the world we live in.  For that, we thank you, Gilberto.  The world benefits when we're pushed to think.

Urban Ag Status Update

It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in a room with Newark's Deputy Mayor, Stephen Pryor, where he voiced Newark's support and pursuit of Vertical Farming in his town--our slogan, it was decided, would be, "Bringing the Garden Back to the Garden State."  Then Chicago's Mayor Daley trumpeted the same message from his mayoral throne, only to announce his abdication from the position a few short months later.  In New York, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has been very consistent in his advocacy for Vertical Farming.  And it makes sense that he should be: New York City is the most densely populated US city with more than 70,000 residents.  Unfortunately, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been more tepid in his support. 

I know it's easy to think that things are very stagnant in this sphere, that the naysayers are winning.  Actually, they're not, and I'm going to look at a few recent initiatives that bode well for our ultimate goal of a Vertical Farm-fed world.

Plantagon Is Cool

On listening to Dr. Despommier's interview on the Diane Rehm Show, it dawned on me that I've never posted anything about an interesting company called Plantagon.  They seem to be interested in effecting the same kind of future as we are here at the Vertical Farm Blog, so they've got our support.  This just goes to show that there's a ton of activity surrounding urban ag.  Which is fantastic. 

Dickson Despommier on the Diane Rehm Show

Tune-in to the Diane Rehm's NPR show today to hear Diane speak with Dr. Despommier and Bob Young, the chief economist with the American Farm Bureau (and its catchy catch-phrase: the voice of agriculture). 

Can't wait to hear how this discussion unfolds.  If you listen to it, write your comments at the bottom of this post, or give DoctorDickson a "tweet" about it, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Expermenting With Wordle

Income Levels and Food Production/Person

This amazing website, Gapminder, has assembled hundreds of thousands of pieces of data into a massive database where you, the user, can compare just about anything you want against just about anything else you want.  Was that clear enough?  If not, check out the website--it's definitely worth it to play around with the graphs yourself. 

Here's one I came up with. (Follow the link, then click the "Play" button in the bottom left hand corner of the graph.)

If this whole operation works how it's supposed to, then the graph you're looking at show the income per capita on the X-axis versus the net production per captia of food--countries USA, India and China are in yellow, blue and red, respectively, each one's 2005 population level reflected in the size of its bubble.  Get used to these graphs, because I'm  sure I'll be coming back to Gapminder again to find some more interesting stories. 

Next graph idea: by country and year, $ spent on fertilizers versus $ spent on crop insurance.  Can a graph highlight the economic wastefulness of our present food system?  I'll come back to this tomorrow.

If you have any good ideas for using Gapminder, please, share them in the comments section below...

1BillionHungry

The FAO of the United Nations has recently launched a campaign to get people riled up about the one billion stomachs that don't get enough to eat. 

If you want to sign the petition (like I did), head on over here and make your voice be heard.

(Caveat: with all its resources, this viral campaign is the least the UN FAO can do to stop the terrible, terrible inequity which is the 21st Century hungry human.)

Turn Plastic Into Oil

A Japanese man and his company, Blest, have been touring the globe showing off a little machine they invented which can turn plastic garbage back into oil.

As the video describes, plastics are made from oil, so why shouldn't we be able to turn plastics back into oil once we're through with them?  This is great thinking.  Why do we dump tons and tons of plastic waste into landfills (and oceans) every day, when the technology currently exists to reclaim the energy in that waste and turn it into fuel?

Plastic waste, the video says, "are a treasure."  I'm not sure why our species is so good at squandering.

Share your thoughts...

More Newark News

Remember Newark?  Well, Dan Albert and Peter Greaves of Weber Thompson recently issued a press release detailing a bit more about their involvement with getting a vertical farm up and running in Brick City.  I'll let them tell you:

July 23, 2010

At a time when the world ponders how to feed its nine billion people, Seattle architects Weber Thompson have designed a Vertical Farm for the Garden State to help solve that problem. The Newark Vertical Farm (NVF) a radically new prototype for Newark, NJ, illustrates the ideas promoted by Dr. Dickson Despommier for an approach to high capacity controlled environment urban farming. Principal Peter David Greaves, AIA, LEED AP and Ecological Designer Dan Albert, Associate ASLA, LEED AP and Dr. Despommier made a presentation of the design to government officials including Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Stefan Pryor and City Councilman Donald Payne, Jr., along with leaders from the Greater Newark Conservancy and Brick City Development Corporation.

The term “Vertical Farm” was originally coined by Dr. Dickson Despommier at Columbia University. The vertical farming concept begins with a simple idea: grow food in a climate-controlled multistory building free of pollutants, pesticides and seasons while producing the highest-quality produce in an urban environment. The Vertical Farm, designed to supplement the existing food supply while bringing more healthful products to our cities, is but one of a host of solutions needed to address the complexities of bringing food to people. Despommier envisions buildings filled with stacked soil-less growing systems designed to produce the maximum yield and eliminate contamination. This concept has been illustrated by designs ranging from 10-story structures to dragonfly wing-inspired behemoths that tower over Manhattan.

The Newark Vertical Farm represents not only the next generation for Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming but also an approach to design which incorporates integrated and overlapping sustainable design features. More than just a Vertical Farm, it is a research and development program for sustainable design in an urban context. It is an open system designed to attract any number of features for both demonstration and research into the best ideas for sustainable design of our cities. Both a demonstration project and a laboratory, NVF is envisioned to be a flexible armature for uses relating to vertical farming, urban agriculture, sustainable design and energy efficiency. The main building contains the vertical greenhouse, and research labs separated by a full height atrium for light and ventilation. The greenhouse space contains high intensity soilless growing systems and is designed to be flexible and adaptable. The ground floor showcases a demonstration green house for public interaction while the upper floors serve as an agricultural laboratory. The purpose of the building is to develop, test, and educate with the ultimate goal of a commercially viable building type. 

The site is also designed to showcase sustainable site strategies in an urban environment. The buildings and the site are oriented to maximize solar exposure, with the Vertical Farm green house section facing due south and the more conventional urban agriculture plot with south to north rows. The spaces are arranged in a series of overlapping rooms that allow both observation and function to coexist. The parcel is organized to create numerous opportunities for both demonstration and research platforms relating to the study of vertical farming, urban agriculture, urban gardens, water conservation, constructed wetlands, on-site power generation, and more. The site, like the buildings, is designed to attract a range of uses and to be adaptable as these uses evolve over time. 

Dr. Despommier, Peter Greaves and Dan Albert have spoken of the Vertical Farm concept and emerging ideas about urban agriculture at a number of conferences including The King County Government Confluence and the Living Futures 2010 unConference. Dr. Despommier and Dan Albert will also be on a panel this coming fall at the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design on September 29th in New York, NY. This is the second prototype vertical farm structure designed by Weber Thompson. Their Eco-Laboratory project has won numerous national and regional awards. 

Dr. Dickson Despommier is the author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding Ourselves and the World in the 21st Century to be released by Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press on October 12, 2010. 

For more information on the rationale behind Vertical Farms please see: 

A new use for urban high-rises: farming by Dan Albert 

The Vertical Farm Project - Dickson Despommier 

To top it off, they've released pictures of what their finished project might look like.  They're sweet.

(all images: Copyright © 2010 Weber Thompson, PLLC All Rights Reserved)

Chicago's Mayor Daley Wants One Too!

Thrilled at the notion of growing healthy food just blocks from where he spent his childhood, Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley said last Friday that he would support efforts to establish vertical farming in his hometown.  Who will be first, Newark, Chicago, or somewhere else, I don't know.  But the race is on!

Read the full story at Journal Sentinal Online.

Update: check out Plant Chicago, the group pushing for VF in Chicago.

Vertical Farming Gets...Stung?

It's been terribly hard to keep this a secret, but now it's finally out: Sting has acquired the movie rights to the Vertical Farm Book!  Check out Deadline, where the news broke first.

Basically, wherever the first vertical farm gets built, Sting has first dibs at making a documentary about it.  Who knows, with Newark chomping at the bit, he might not have to wait long.  

Also check out the Rainforest Fund, which he and wife Trudie founded.

BP Spill and VF

I hope we’re all still outraged over the BP oil spill.  I hope that those people out there who call this the Age of Indifference are wrong.  I hope this catastrophe doesn’t get forgotten in all the miscellaneous hoop-la. 

If you watched President Obama’s speech last week, you were probably left a little bewildered.  What exactly is the plan?  This oil accident is profoundly devastating to local economies which rely on a non-oil-laden ocean; hopefully, BP will recoup them for current and projected future losses.  But this oil spill affects us all.

I have to admit, part of me is concerned that this is a spill from which the world will never recover.  I thought how ironic it would be if this were the end of man; no atomic bomb, no massive sea level rise (by the way, what’s the deal with Al Gore?), no meteor; just an accident from capitalism as usual.  But then I looked at a world map: Earth is BIG.  It will recover; however, whether we’re fit to stick around is another matter. 

It's Happening in Newark

This is very big news.

Last Monday, a group of government officials and businessmen gathered to hear a proposal for bringing vertical farming to the Garden State.  In attendance were Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Stefan Pryor and City Councilman Donald Payne, Jr, along with leaders from the Greater Newark Conservancy and Brick City Development Corporation, among other groups.  Dan Albert and Peter Greaves of Weber Thompson presented their site-specific project, which was inspired by their original Eco-Laboratory drawings, and the room sparkled at each change of the slide, as, one by one, the guests all fell for vertical farming.

After the presentation, Councilman Payne proclaimed, "This is something that should happen here," to which Deputy Mayor Pryor answered, "Absolutely.  I agree." 

Here It Is, the Book

First of all, everyone should pre-order their copy of Dr. Despommier's upcoming book. October 12th is the release date listed on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com, so I assume you'd get your copies right around the middle of that month. I bet that everyone has a special niece or uncle or sister or grandpa who would love this book, so maybe pre-ordering a couple copies is a good move.

Can't wait to hear what people have to say once it drops.

Earthday Round the Corner

On this, the eve's eve of the 40th anniversary of Earthday, we should remember to still celebrate what April 22nd, 1970 was a call for. It was a call to improve the quality of life on Earth, to engage politicians, musicians, writers, business leaders and anyone else breathing, that the planet is a prerequisite to our own lives, and that beautifying it beautifies us.

So when John Tierney of the New York Times wrote an article--"7 New Rules to Live By"--I was struck that he did not mention vertical farming. You see, vertical farming is simply a creative expression of the solution to a handful of man-made problems: climate change, hunger, water scarcity, species extinction, all of these are problems whose solutions lie in producing daily behaviors that are in line with the world we hope to produce. So the first question is, What kind of world do we want to produce?

I'll start.

Josh Tickell on Jay Leno

Josh Tickell, whose movie, Fuel, illustrates a path for discarding our nation's oil crutch for energy needs, was interviewed on Jay Leno about one year ago.  Leno seems especially enthralled by the notion of a solution in vertical farms.  So that this clip doesn't gather cobwebs, I'll share it here, where hopefully it will be something pleasant to some, and something at least remarkable to most. 

Leno Hosts FUEL Director Josh Tickell from Stacy Hess on Vimeo.
(Video courtesy of Vimeo.) 

If there's one thing to take away from this, it's that good ideas are sticky.  That means that the most important thing that supporters of vertical farming can do is tell people about it.  Tell someone a good idea, and it will stick there, like planting a seed, and then germinate when one hears the idea again and again.  If we spread this idea like gigantic wings, then it will fly.    

A Quite Right Food Panel Night

This past Thursday, on April 8th, Leonard Lopate of WNYC hosted a panel discussion on everyone's favorite topic: urban farming.  Panel members included friends of Vertical Farming Annie Novak of Greenpoint Rooftop Farm and Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer, as well as urban ag all star Will Allen of Growing Power in Milwaukee, and artist Fritz Haeg, who created Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn, a book documenting the urban food movement around the country. 

I've got to be honest--I haven't watched the whole thing.  But I wouldn't be surprised if Vertical Farming came up in this discussion.  Scott Stringer has made it very clear that he wants to have Vertical Farms in New York, and Will Allen is actually working on a sort of low-tech Vertical Farm outside of Milwaukee.  (From what I understand, he is converting an abandoned warehouse into another of his urban food oases.) 

Watch the whole conversation (87 minutes, heads up) on the Green Space (WNYC's studio for stuff like this) website here.