Flooded London 2030

[Image: From “Floating City 2030: Thames Estuary Aquatic Urbanism” by Anthony Lau].

Continuing with a look at some noteworthy student projects—which kicked off this week with thesis work by Taylor Medlin—we now look at a proposal by Anthony Lau, submitted back in 2008 at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. For that project, Lau designed a “floating city” for the Thames Estuary, ca. 2030 A.D. This “Thames Estuary Aquatic Urbanism,” as Lau refers to it, “gives new life to decommissioned ships and oil platforms by converting them into hybrid homes adapted for aquatic living.”

While the idea of offshore architecture has been relatively depleted of its novelty over the last few years, the presentation and imaginative extent of Lau’s idea is of sufficiently high quality to deserve wider exposure and a longer look.

[Images: From “Floating City 2030” by Anthony Lau].

“Most modern floating architecture involves new-build modular systems for mass production,” Lau writes. “Although this may be the most efficient for space planning, it often lacks character.” His alternative:

The multitude of hull shapes and sizes can inspire unique and inventive design. The proposal aims to express the beautiful forms and internal steel structures of hulls. The hulls serve as nautical reminders of the ship’s past and our previous closeness to water, which we will now embrace once again.

The level of detail in Lau’s resulting models is astonishing; bridged superblocks of partially rebuilt oil platforms rise from the wetlands, amidst floating gardens and forest barges, like scenes from a maritime-industrial Avalon.

You can see larger versions of these images (some of which have been cropped down and recombined to fit the vertical nature of this post, which means that you will see different groupings at this link) here.

[Images: Models from “Floating City 2030” by Anthony Lau].

As Lau writes: “By utilising the flooded landscape, a floating city of offshore communities, mobile infrastructure and aquatic transport will allow the city to reconfigure through fluid urban planning. Wave, tidal and wind energy will be ideal for this offshore city and the inhabitants will live alongside the natural cycles of nature and the rhythms of the river and tides.”

He adds that “this strategy for creating a self sufficient floating city by reusing ships and marine structures can also be applied to island nations such as the Maldives. Over 80% of its 1,200 islands are around 1 m above sea level. With sea levels rising around 0.9 cm a year, the Maldives could become uninhabitable within 100 years. Its 360,000 citizens would be forced to adapt and they could become the first floating nation.”

[Image: From “Floating City 2030” by Anthony Lau].

If Lau’s work piques your interest, you might also want to take a look at a report released last year by the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Building Futures group, called “Facing Up To Rising Sea Levels: Retreat? Defend? Attack?”

Looking to a 100 year horizon of climate change predictions, we will address how the urban, built environment needs to react now. Conservative estimates predict sea-levels to continue ro rise as the oceans warm and the ice caps melt. Coupled with isostatic rebound (the South sinking relative to the North) the effects grow ever more dramatic for large centers of population on the coast. Predicted weather patterns show increased rainfall intesity, leading to sever problems of surface water flooding in built up areas.

The ensuing paper explores the architectural implications of three different hydrological strategies: retreating from the coast, defending what we’ve built there, and attacking the incoming waters with aggressive engineering.

Interestingly, meanwhile, one of Lau’s initiatives since graduating from the Bartlett is to form a company focusing on urban bicycle infrastructure, specifically the Cyclehoop, “an award-winning design that converts existing street furniture into secure bicycle parking.” It’s also quite colorful. But perhaps a Boathoop is in the works for residents of his future Floating City…

For substantially larger project images, click here.

(Follow Lau’s Cyclehoop project on Twitter: @cyclehoop).

submitted by: Hai Luu

“A documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers.”


Original Video: 1hr 25mins

Here is the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jpN8kI0-pY

Submitted by: Hai Luu

Infographic: The 550,000 Miles Of Undersea Cabling That Powers The Internet

Infographic of the Day

They seem so brittle. Cables that are a little more than two inches thick line our ocean floors, culminating in over half a million miles in length, transmitting terabytes of data across the globe every second. What about satellites? As of 2006, they represented just 1% of telecommunications traffic. Most of our information flows through these underwater pipes, laid by ships off gigantic spools.

The Submarine Cable Map, by telecom research firm TeleGeography, is a vintage rendition of the worldwide network that drives our communications infrastructure today.

“The beautiful hand-drawn details found on old maps have always fascinated me and are sorely missing from contemporary cartography,” designer Markus Krisetya explains. “Modern maps are more often than not designed with accuracy and visual clarity in mind. I thought it would be fun to see if we could make a map about modern telecom technology using the aesthetics and artistic flourishes found in antique maps—without sacrificing the legibility of the data behind it.”

The result is gorgeous, like some combination of classic cartography and a modern tube map, or maybe a circuit board diagram. It’s almost odd that the aesthetics work so well, that the sharp, laser-like lines of underwater cables don’t clash with the illustrated watercolors of the main map. I can’t help but wonder if the unifying color pallette was the most important choice here; nothing says “old timey map” like a bit of washed-out fuchsia.

Interestingly enough, the map hides some other big pieces of data near the bottom of the print. On the left, we see which countries are sucking down the most data (spoiler: the U.S. eats the most). In the middle, a short timeline walks us through growing line capacity compared to use (we’ve had to double capacity in the last few years to keep ~80% of the lines free). And on the right, we see the delay in milliseconds of sending messages between countries. That looks irrelevant to you now—and it mostly is, for browsing the web—but compared to research on virtual and augmented reality, we see that this delay could be a huge limitation in the future of networked experiences.

If you’d like a map of your own, 36-by-50-inch prints are available now for $250.

by Lidija Grozdanic, 01/08/13

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have engineered blue-green algae that could help replace fossil fuels as raw materials for the chemical industry. The researchers engineered algae, or cyanobacteria, can be used to convert carbon dioxide into a chemical used to make paint, solvents, plastics and fuels.

Using carbon dioxide as a raw material for reactions powered by sunlight, cyanobacteria, also known as “blue-green algae”, can make significant amounts of chemicals that can be converted to chemical feedstocks. This new three-step chemical pathway allows the cyanobacteria to convert carbon dioxide into 2,3 butanediol, which can be further used in the chemical industry, in the form of solvents, plastics and fuels.

After three weeks growth, Atsumi’s lab at UC Davis, supported by Japanese chemical manufacturer Asahi Kasei Corp., has measured that the cyanobacteria yielded 2.4 grams of 2,3 butanediol per liter of growth medium—the highest productivity yet achieved for chemicals grown by cyanobacteria and with potential for commercial development.

Researchers hope to be able to adjust the system and increase productivity, ultimately scaling up the technology.

+ Atsumi Lab UC Davis

Via Science Daily

Images from Wikimedia Commons

Read more: UC Davis Researchers Engineer Blue-Green Algae to Make Fuel From Sunlight | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

by Kristine Lofgren, 01/08/13

Although scientists have been aware that the polar ice sheets are melting faster than previously expected, the consequential rise in sea levels may be much higher than anyone predicted. A new calculation based on what is known as expert elicitation published in Nature Climate Change shows that ocean levels might climb over 3 feet in the next 90 years.

The Central American country of Nicaragua has never been as fortunate as its neighbors when it comes to energy reserves. In fact, most commercial electricity is generated by imported petroleum while a small portion of domestic energy is generated through hydropower and geothermal power. However that’s set to change with the country’s National Development Plan, which calls for 94% of the country’s electricity needs to be sourced from renewables by 2017.

Credits
This US High Speed Rail System concept is made by Alfred Twu. 

Email: mail -at- firstcultural.com 

See more work at www.firstcultural.com

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
critics: Anastasios TELLIOS & Vasilis CHLOROKOSTAS

suckerPUNCH: Describe your project.

Stratis GEORGIOU: “Reef\” introduces the creation of an “artificial” ecosystem implemented to a “natural” one, speculating on the natural/artificial dipole rapture. Possibly situated in highly polluted sea areas, this “artificial” reef – a rather simple structure, consists of a horizontal grid and nets hanging from it, further claded with bio-synthetic corrodible material – aims to the ecosystem’s regeneration and retriggering, providing vital sources and proper conditions for the sea flora and fauna and at the same time functions as a filter, absorbing toxicants and pollutants.

As part of the two-day workshop “ArchiTextures”, which was introduced by Vasilis Chlorokostas, and whose theme was the introduction to the manipulation of mesh geometries by subdividing algorithms and the “emergence” of unpredictable outcomes through these phenomenally “deterministic” logics, Reef\ further speculates the uncertain formal evolution of this “artificial” reef at a further, corroded state, affected by and affecting the “natural” sea ecosystem.

sP: What or who influenced this project?:
SG: WHATever and WHOever questions, changes and mutates the structures around us and furthermore, the considerations of “natural,” “articifial/cultural,” and “life”

sP: What were you reading/listening to/watching while developing this project?:
SG: Readings Log 25, “Reclaim Resi[lience]stance//… R2″; The Embodied Mind by Francisco Varela and Evan Thompson; How We Became Posthuman by Katherine Hayles; The Exploit: A Theory of Networks by Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker. Listening to sounds, music, noises. Watching my laptop screen and design applications mostly.

sP: Whose work is currently on your radar?:
SG: R&Sie(n), Vasilis Chlorokostas, Marjan Colletti, Biothing, Alisa Andrasek, Jose Sanchez, Usman Haque, Alessio Erioli

Additional credits and links:
Vasilis Chlorokostas, workshop tutor.
[Web site]
Anastasios Tellios, professor, studio tutor.
[Web site]

Source: http://www.suckerpunchdaily.com/2013/02/06/reef/

Posted on February 5, 2013

Tagged with: Nomadic City, Resources

Source: http://www.petropia.org/2013/02/05/nomadic-offshore-urbanism/

Published on Sep 18, 2012

• Category

  Science & Technology

A few days ago, we published one of the finalist entries of the international design ideas competition, Transiting Cities - Low Carbon Futures. The competition was open to designers from around the world; landscape architects, architects, urban planners and associated design disciplines to develop innovative visions for Latrobe City, in eastern Victoria, Australia to make the transition from a singular economy dominated by the power industry (coal mining and electricity generation) into a diversified economy and prosperous low carbon regional city.

Here are now all the winning entries, including honorable mentions and student honorable mentions.

First Prize: Reassembling Flows

Team Name: Parallax Landscape
Team Members: Kees Lokman, Yu Ding, Melissa How
Country of Origin: United States

Project Description (shortened):

In the words of Peirce Lewis, Latrobe has become “our unwitting autobiography, reflecting our tastes, our values, our aspirations, and even our fears, in tangible, visible form”[1] (Lewis 1979). Current industrial land use practices in Latrobe, such as mining operations and dairy farming, come with tremendous environmental costs. Recent reports state that Australians, on average, produce over 20 tonnes of C02 emissions per person per year, ranking the country as the world’s highest carbon dioxide polluter. Beyond greenhouse gas emissions, mining operations are a large source of surface and groundwater pollution. Large amounts of water are extracted from local aquifers for mining operations and irrigation-based agriculture, causing destabilization of soil conditions, increasing the chance of river bank failures, and making the area more prone to flooding and seismic activity. Moreover, intensive cattle and dairy farming operations produce enormous amounts of manure which is currently disposed of in inadequately sized and lined lagoons or storage structures that allow pathogens to escape into the surrounding environment. The result is an unsustainable landscape that privileges short-term economic gain over human and environmental health.

However, Latrobe’s identity on both the local and global level is one that is so deeply rooted in its mining tradition that to deny its significance in the valley’s future is equally short-sighted. By proposing a gradual shift over time from the current coal oriented energy economy and opening up its remnants to its people, this project honors the rich and storied history of the region while responding to the need for cleaner energy alternatives. Reassembling Flows thus aims to change this paradigm by repurposing existing infrastructures, optimizing resource utilization, and structurally integrating ecosystem services into design processes across multiple scales. Understanding Latrobe Valley as a complex system of interconnected flows of industrial processes, ecological systems, and cultural networks allows for the transformation of currently discarded “waste” byproducts from these processes into valuable resources—creating opportunities from liabilities. No longer an exploited landscape of extraction, Latrobe becomes a key part in an extensive network of social, environmental and economic exchanges that extends throughout and spatially connects the Gippsland Region.

[1] Peirce F. Lewis, “Axioms for Reading the Landscape: Some Guides to the American Scene,” in The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes edited by Donald W. Meinig (Oxford University Press, USA): 1979.

Second Prize: Dirty to Mighty: Brown is the new Green 

Team Name: Daichi
Team Members: Daichi Yamashita
Country of Origin: Japan

Project Description (shortened):

Dirty to Mighty is a response to two major issues Australia faces in relation to energy and sustainability.

1. Australia’s declining oil production with merely 3.9 billion barrels of proved oil reserves (0.2% of the world) coupled with the increasing oil consumption, exceeding 1 million bpd of oil in 2011, pose a threat to the country’s energy security. At this rate, self-sufficiency in oil is predicted to drop from the current 50% to 20% by 2020.
2. The world coal consumption continues to rise, especially in Australia´s prime export countries such as China and India. (2.8 and 0.6 billion short tons in 2010 respectively.)

How can Latrobe City act as the key catalyst in providing a solution to such critical and urgent problems?

Currently, the power stations in Latrobe Valley together emit around 65 Mt of carbon dioxide each year. The stations, however; cannot simply be terminated as they generate 90% of Victoria´s electricity and employ 3100 people. In addition, the area is gifted with 65 billion tonnes of brown coal with an estimated 33 billion tonnes to be “potentially economic”.  

Dirty to Mighty proposes to use brown coal to produce not only electricity but also liquid fuel as well as many other high value products, while utilizing the CO2 released during the conversion process into additional products including oil, creating a highly viable yet sustainable means of achieving energy security and economic diversification. Brown coal becomes the essential element leading to a completely new vision of Latrobe Valley which utilizes its abundant natural resources without compromising environmental impacts. Along the axis of the provided site, the project introduces a technological corridor of research/innovation facilities focused on the liquefaction and gasification of brown coal as well as the sequestration and conversion of carbon dioxide.

Honorable Mention: Fields of Synergy

Team Name: PUPA
Team Members: Justina Muliuolyte, Tadas Jonauskis
Country of Origin: The Netherlands

Project Description (shortened):

Latrobe is facing a challenge to control its growth based on changing conditions in industry, economy and lifestyle.  Fields of synergy give unique opportunity to create exclusive and outstanding future. It is a strategy for re-inventing, overlapping and mixing transiting territories. It generates development and creates space for improvement. Such areas combine nature, urban, production and resource fields together.

There is natural exchange of land, infrastructure, mobility, people, economic activities, water, energy and waste-products. Smart management of these fields allows preparing for the future changes, recovering overused territories and improving living environment of existing. Synergy is achieved by combining, re-cycling and cascading principles.

Synergies of combining overlap economies, habitats, and activities so they can exchange knowledge, products and resources. Synergies appear in double use of landscapes, shared services and shared environments.

Synergies of re-cycling take wasted products, buildings, objects and territories to create new function and meaning.

Synergies of cascading create a cycle of re-using the rest products, rest land as a source of the other economies or other habitats.

Latrobe 2050:  new spin off economies are developed from the mining industry; community lifestyles become unique and variable; new flexible mobility connects region into one entity; new tactics for food production is applied; renewable energy takes over brown energy; region increases biodiversity; natural resources are smartly managed.

These goals are achieved by re-adaptation of the old mines and brown fields. Existing mines are showcasing the power of the region. They are industry of pride, identity and uniqueness. Empty excavated old mines give space to re-adapt and experiment.  Innovative and diverse fields of synergies are applied and showcased, where old quarries are merged with nature, urban environment and production. It is the places of the future – not past. 

Honorable Mention: Networked Ecologies: Rethinking Remediation (previously on Bustler)

Team Name: Studio One
Team Members: Mona Ghandi, Carlos Sandoval, Hassan Sazmand
Country of Origin: United States

Project Description:

The inevitable shifts in global climate and economical conditions have made us question and rethink the ability of the cities to resist and adapt to these changes. A city like Latrobe whose landscape, economy and social conditions are based primarily on coal based energy production is particularly vulnerable to the global and local changes.

With the coal reserves and production reducing, the social and ecological conditions in Latrobe have already started to decline. By mapping the area, several sites that are currently underutilized or to become vacant with the mining decline were found. Networked Ecologies rethinks these sites as urban and ecological connectors as spaces that will provide robustness to the landscape.

Depending on the site location and conditions, a variety of programs ranging from landscape / mining remediation, to urban agriculture are defined. These “in-between” sites will grow and develop according to the specific conditions and uses, eventually creating a network of infrastructure that will provide robustness to the city.

This new infrastructure will provide energy production alternatives, by incorporating a wind energy generation system to the building’s tectonic. Networked Landscapes proposes an ecological remediation of the mining sites by creating built wetlands that will also regenerate the species of the area.
The selected sites provide a variety of self-sustainable economical activities creating a stronger local economy that can now provide a wider range of products to the outside economy.

Depending on their distance to vacant buildings, the project re-utilizes and combines with them, reprogramming the buildings with community-oriented activities. The local economy depends on each other, rather than on a central hub, generating a strong economical network.

As the Networked Ecologies expand, the existing functions of the city are intensified and complemented. This new Network is ever-changing and continually growing and adapting to the existing conditions.

Honorable Mention: Hydraulic Network

Team Name: Truitt Foug Architects
Team Members: William Truitt, Carolyn Foug, Marsha Bowden, Adam Wong
Country of Origin: United States

Project Description (shortened):

In the upper reaches of the Rio Grande Valley in Colorado, water is still managed as a commons. I had the opportunity to visit San Luis, home of traditional acequia systems (gravity-driven irrigation ditch) that nurture soils, plants, and animals.  I was there to offer solidarity to the local communities engages in a major struggle to defend the commons and the oldest system of water rights in Colorado.  What the irrigation ditches produce is not merely a market commodity but a denseness of life.   (Shiva, p27).

SHIVA, VANDANA (2002). Water wars: privatization, pollution, and profit. Toronto, Transcontinental Press.

In Water Wars, Vandana Shiva describes the possibility of water management for the use of a larger public.  An integrated ecosystem and way of life exists in one part of the Rio Grande Valley where other water systems have been privatized and divided the larger landscape. As populations in dry landscapes grow, water rights cause conflict and a rush to ‘land grab’ access to viable water systems. Shiva uses Gujarat and Punjab as case studies in the problem arising between large populations, dropping water tables and the privatization of the remaining natural resources. Climate change shows, however, that water issues develop in every region, not simply in already challenged or established crisis zones.

The Latrobe Valley presents a unique landscape whereby the abundant  natural resources have been historically sold for profit, first for local energy consumption and now for the global market.  Water here, in fact, is an impediment to the extraction of coal for cheap energy consumption, and so large swaths of land have been de-watered, causing the water table to drop over 50 meters. The new artificial landscape, revealing the hidden ecology, does provide an opportunity to rethink the relationship of living space to water.  This project re-imagines the Latrobe Valley as an interconnected hydraulic network.  While the current infrastructure acts to separate uses and flows of the entire region in order to facilitate the transport of goods, a slight alteration of the larger landscape quickly transforms the region into an infrastructural space that is decidedly public and connected with the everyday living condition.  Four distinct zones along a section of the valley- Sport, Morwell, Water Treatment, and Solar Pillows describe new ways in which to take advantage of the subtractive landscape.

Student Honorable Mention: The 2nd Law

Team Name: Explorers

Team Members: Carl Hong, Farah Dakkak, Brad Clothier
Country of Origin: Australia    
University: RMIT University

Project Description (shortened):

Reimagine rural region, revolutionized by rehabilitated mines and redesigned landscape. Rebirth of reforestation and reconstruction of nature, recycled and regenerated energies. Remains are restored, to retain regional reminiscence. Reproduce opportunities for future growth through reworking and reactivation of rhizomatic infrastructure. By rebuilding an innovative residential region which integrates agriculture with industrial, Renaissance of Latrobe is now a reality.

Rebirth takes place over a period of time. A timeframe is implemented; through which the site evolves and is mediated for future change. These stages involve the participation and expertise of local miners and the machines they use on site. Doing this over stages means the reactivation of certain sites while others are under construction.

Future growth takes into account rethinking the amount of carbon emissions released and employs means of reduction. Transforming Latrobe Valley into an Eco-Hub, through considering renewable energies such as wind turbines, carbon capture devices, indigenous plantations and the reduction of carbon emitted as the main contributing drivers.

Reducing the amount of carbon emitted through the gradual retreat of coal industries will see the closure of some of Latrobe’s mines. In these instances mining rehabilitation will take place to rejuvenate the landscape and bring new life to it. The restoration plan will take effect using the mining equipment available on site, and will include the redevelopment of these open spaces over time. Providing an array of choices such as scenic and direct pathway routes; benefiting both the residents and visitors by enabling journey choice, also incorporating a range of shade, shelter and seating that provide opportunities for temporal social interaction to take place on site.

Celebrating the history and culture of towns, by generating design that takes into consideration and retains the rural township identity of the site. This is done by the introduction of submerged dwellings, which do not interrupt the existing dairy farmland functions, but build on existing and future networks.
The future will see a further development of the agricultural food production industries on site. Through the expansion of these farmlands and promoting the growth of Indigenous crops, which are well suited for local areas, requiring little maintenance. They also support the biodiversity that is important for maintaining healthy ecosystems. Crop production will positively impact the economy, as well as make way for a more resilient network of townships.

Gradual expansion of the public transport system, in an effort to promote linkage between small and main towns in the Latrobe Valley; providing services for new residential developments on the fringe of expanding main towns, and connecting main touristic attractions along the way.
By promoting diversity and expansion of local industry and economies within the Latrobe Valley the aim is to create a region that depends on a varied amount of mini-industries to fund regional growth. Creating smaller networks that function at small scales within the Latrobe Valley is vital to this, turning local produce into local food, local timber from local plantations and so forth. Tourism also has the potential to bring in substantial funding due to the close proximity of the Melbourne Metro Area.

Student Honorable Mention: Twin Quarries

Team Name: DMDR
Team Members: Daniela Miler, David Rohr
Country of Origin: United Kingdom    
University: University of Edinburgh

Project Description (shortened):

First glance at Latrobe: As we first look at the 1.5 by 20 kilometers strip given for a site we were struck first by the mind boggling scale of the landscape, and second by Morwell’s severe landlocking situation. This community seemed indeed to have spatial issues, partly infrastructural, but mostly related to the fact that it is lodged right next to a massive open mine. No development south of the town seemed to be possible in neither short nor medium term.

The present quarry component forced us to consider the site within the whole region. At this new scale, we started understanding how the mining industry affects the whole area. We also became aware of the site connective character, be it from west to east, or and from north to south: Morwell naturally connects Moe and Traralgon, but as a valley town, it is also located in a central position between two important landmasses, hosting some of Latrobe’s most valuable ecological habitats.
Further research into the different dynamics of Latrobe city emphasised the importance of the intertwined power supply and brown coal industry. Its economic value might be considered as proportional to its controversial and for the less, impressive carbon dioxide production. The information we found lead us to think of the energy domain as a crucial factor into Latrobe’s development past and future.

All entries were assessed by an international jury including Ass. Prof. Alan Berger (MIT), Luis Callejas (Harvard University & LCLA Office), Prof. Julia Czerniak (Syracuse University), Richard Elkington (Regional Development Australia), Prof. Peter Fairbrother (RMIT), Celine Foenander (ABC Gippsland), Ass. Prof Mitchell Joachim (Terreform ONE & NY University), Cr. Sandy Kam (Latrobe City Council), Peter Latz (Latz & Partners & University of Pennsylvania), Perry Lethlean (Taylor Cullity Lethlean Landscape Architects), Chris Reed (Stoss & Harvard University), Malcolm Smith (ARUP), Liam Young (Tomorrow s Thoughts Today), and Lou Weis (Broached Commissions).

The competition is a part of an ongoing research project conducted by The Office of Urban Transformation Research (OUTR) at RMIT University.

All images courtesy of Transiting Cities - Low Carbon Futures Competition.

source: Bustler

by Pi James on 21st Mar 2012
Source: UrbanTimes

Pyramind Farm by Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier

Dr. Dickson Despommier

According to the Vertical Farm Project, by the year 2050 the earth’s human population will have increased by around 3 billion, and 80% will reside in urban centers. The project estimates 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than the area of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. The project asks;

 “How are we to avoid this impending disaster”?

The man behind this project, Dr. Dickson Despommier, believes the answer is simple – farm vertically. Former Columbia professor Dr. Despommier (microbiology and public health in environmental health sciences), widely considered the “father” of Vertical Farming, has travelled the world advising governments and advocating for solutions to environmental problems. I spoke to him from his home in New Jersey. The interview was scheduled to run for around 30 minutes, however we spoke for over an hour and a half. The text below is an edited version of this conversation. His enthusiasm and drive is infectious, and in an already overcrowded, overheating world, what he had to say seems to make a lot of sense.

Read about The Virtues of Vertical Farming (URBNFUTR)

Interview

For those who have never heard of the concept, can you please briefly explain the main premise of vertical farming?

Very simply it’s hightech hydroponic greenhouses stacked on top of one another that grow food within an urban landscape.

There’s been growing interest in vertical farming since around 2008, increasing with the release of your book, “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century”, in 2010. What has changed over the last few years?

When the hardcover version of The Vertical Farm was published there were no vertical farms. Now they exist in Japan, in Sweden, in England, in South Korea and in the US. Most are still in the project phase. They are proofs of concept. A few weeks ago Plantagon began construction on a 17 story structure in Linköping, Sweden. The three story plant in Chicago used to be a beef meatpacking facility. The one in Japan (www.Nuvege.com) is advertising radiation-free food. So basically in a very short time we now have these Vertical Farms going up around the world.

See another video on Plantagon’s development here.

What is the most important reason in your opinion for rethinking the way we view agriculture and sustainability, and why is vertical farming the best solution?

Around 85-95% of crops grown indoors survive. This is because you can control everything inside; you can control the temperature and are not dependent on the weather, climate or other external factors. I asked a farmer I spoke with how many crop harvests had been successful, and he counted – just three out of 20! With statistics like that it just seems more and more impractical to grow everything outside. Farmers love farming; they want to produce food for people to consume. The farmers I’ve spoken to, and I’ve spoken to a lot of them, are interested in vertical farming, because they can continue to do this, and also be working indoors. And by moving these crops indoors, we no longer require soil. You tell farmers they don’t need soil to grow crops and their faces look like you’ve told them the secret to life.

Well I’m very surprised by that too…

Exactly! But you don’t need soil. If you needed soil then why don’t we run out of soil? Why don’t you need to get new soil every time you plant crops? You need water and nutrients. But not the soil. [Moving indoors] would allow farmlands to turn back into whatever they were, whatever ecosystem they were before, which is usually hardwood forest. This re-growth of the forests would eventually reduce the carbon dioxide in the air. And as we’ve seen in Costa Rica, regeneration of rainforests can happen so quickly – it’s really a case to watch for how quickly you can give back the land. And of course by using taller buildings to accommodate this lowers our ecological footprint, and our impact on the planet.

“The Living Skyscraper: Farming the Urban Skyline” by Blake Kurasek.

Josh Tickell, director of Fields of Fuel says that “Vertical farms will be remembered as one of the preeminent breakthroughs of the early 21st century”, – do you agree?

I once opened a fortune cookie that had the following saying inside: “Nothing is impossible to a willing heart”. I kept that on the side of my desk for the whole time that I taught at Columbia. As long as you believe strongly in something, then you’ll continue to work on it. And that is what I guess the definition of passion is. You have a belief in something.

When I first coined the term vertical farm, I was struck by the fact that a) I actually said those two words together for the first time, I didn’t see anybody else using those terms together, and b) how good it felt. I’m stunned that this idea should have actually materialized out of a classroom activity [at Columbia University] which was an act of desperation on my part to mollify the students because they’d worked very hard on a project that didn’t work, and I wanted them to know that it had hope. They wanted rooftop gardening to feed New York – and that’s not going to do it. So I said, just move it indoors and let’s see what happens. And that’s how it came about.

It’s given me huge amounts of joy and satisfaction knowing that this is something I did. I’m responsible for this thing and it’s actually happening. It just doesn’t seem possible, but there it is.

You’ve traveled widely sharing your expertise on solutions to environmental problems with governments around the world. Which city or country do you think is most suited to vertical farms and becoming, in your words, “self-reliant”?

“Fazenda Vertical” by Rafael Grinberg Costa

The place that I visited that is in desperate need of this is the Middle East, because of the desertification of a lot of those countries. In many places they don’t get any rain at all and they don’t have any soil. Therefore they don’t grow any green vegetables, unless there’s very scant water around like in Jordan. So this technology really needs to go over there; they can afford to do it and they need to do it. So that’s one place that I would love to see vertical farming established forever. Other places include those that are technologically gifted. It’s already in Korea, I know it’s going to spread in Japan, I’d love to see it in Iceland.

Iceland? Why?

They have tons of geothermal energy so they can afford to grow plants using grow lights that won’t cost them a cent. And they can grow them all year long in as big a building as they like, and they can have fresh produce that they need, that they don’t have, because they have six months of darkness over there. And the same is true in Sweden and I’m sure that’s why it’s happened there, and in Norway and Holland and Denmark and England. So I think that those countries will adapt to this very nicely.

You’ve been called a “futurist” – what does that term mean to you?

Well I’m very flattered to be called a futurist; a visionary is also another one that often gets used. But I think as scientists we are all futurists because we are trying to invent the future. So therefore the impetus of the natural world is what I appreciate most. But I also love living so close to such an amazing place like New York City. So ultimately I have to judge my futurist activities based on what I would like my future to be. I’m flattered to be called a futurist or a visionary but it’s motivated by very simple self-satisfying things and that is to allow me to continue to enjoy nature. So that’s basically why I do this.

Vertical Farm concept. http://inverde.wordpress.com

What are the next steps in the Virtual Farming movement?

I would like to see the vertical farm become the centerpiece for something I call the eco-city. Now I know that word has been tossed around a lot by people – but without fully understanding what an eco-system is. You can’t be an ecosystem without producing your own food. So if you wanted to imitate the best features of the natural world, that is the ecosystem that evolved on this planet for the last 4.9 billion years, and use the city as a technological equivalent to an ecosystem, then the first thing it has to do is make its own food. And there’s only one way to do that and that’s through urban agriculture in all of its varieties. That is gardens and big buildings with food inside and three story versions and empty lots that are used in the summer – all of this has validity towards making a city more independent of its food supply from the outside. And the closer it gets to supplying its basic needs from within, the closer it can evolve towards being a self-contained unit. And self-contained units are functioning ecosystems.

So I guess that aspect of being a futurist is perhaps the most encouraging because if people accuse me of being a futurist, that means that there will be a future. So let there be a future. And let it be a lot better than the one we would have looked at 20 years ago. I would like to know that the future’s going to be brighter than the past.

What is your message to people who read this interview and want to act and do something to help the vertical farming cause?

To people who just want to join this movement and get involved, I’d say find a group in your local area that’s growing food in an urban setting, it doesn’t matter whether it’s indoors or outdoors, and just join in. Just want to do it with them and learn all you can about it and do it for the right reasons. Do it because you want safe, reliable, mobile food. And don’t give up. It’s discouraging sometimes because of all these roadblocks that are put in the way of us. But don’t give up. Nothing’s impossible to a willing heart. If you think it’s the right thing to do just keep doing it.

Check out this excellent video of Dr. Despommier talking about this issue on Big Think in 2009.

duneLAB

by Beth Buczynski, 12/15/12

Japanese company Ibasei recently devised a tiny underwater turbine that can be placed along a riverbank or canal to generate electricity without harming the environment. Hydroelectricity, produced by harnessing the energy in moving water, is the most widely used form of renewable energy in the world. Still, it’s not always popular among those who care about protecting the planet. That’s because hydropower is almost always executed on a large scale, requiring massive river dams that disrupt the surrounding ecosystem. But there’s no rule that hydropower generators have to be huge. Ibasei’s Cappa compact hydropower generator can deliver 250 W of electricity yet is small enough to be transported between locations as needed.