The New York magazine has had an interesting initiative with the purpose to improve the cleanliness of the New York City. They assigned four architects to came up with green structures that will be placed on the Canal Street and the most interesting idea came from Work AC.
Dan Wood, Work AC co-principal, thought that a farm would be liked by everyone therefore he designed a vertical green farm. Amale Andraos, another Work AC co-principal and also Dan Wood’s wife, said that they are concerned about “urban farming and the notion of trying to make our cities more sustainable by cutting the miles [food travels]“.
The vertical farm will be called Locavore Fantasia and it will feature different crops at each level. These farms might not replace green roofs, but they certainly are a good alternative.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
So nice to grow fruits in a highly polluted city, just besides a couple of roads with heavy traffic.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Wow that is rad
April 19th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
sounds good but could you imagine the weight that building would have to support? the soil? the water? the things being grown?
i’ll believe it when i see it.
April 19th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
It’s just a sign that the real problem with the planet is over population, sad to think that one day we may drive for miles and never see anything but buildings, roads and people.
April 19th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
[...] The Vertical Farms of NYC Green Vertical Farms In The New York City [...]
April 19th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
wow! wonderful idea! now that would be a cityscape worth building.
April 20th, 2008 at 12:21 am
I really like this idea, I think its innovate
April 20th, 2008 at 4:32 am
If you built that, there would be competition to dubai =)
April 20th, 2008 at 10:25 am
There is a growing corps offirst generation urban farmers across Canada and the U.S who are taking up commercial farming in their backyards and front lawns and neighborhood plots. What is enabling them is SPIN-Farming, a franchise-ready farming system that makes it possible to earn significant income from land bases under an acre in size. You can see some of these backyard and front lawn farmers in action in the gallery area of the SPIN-Farming web site. (www.spinfarming.com).
April 20th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
“Wolfie Rankin says:
April 19th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
It’s just a sign that the real problem with the planet is over population, sad to think that one day we may drive for miles and never see anything but buildings, roads and people.”
You are absolutely correct. Too many people on this earth and it’s only getting worse. What we need is a real pandemic to cut our numbers by half or more… It’s the only way to make the most of what little we have left.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:13 pm
“You are absolutely correct. Too many people on this earth and it’s only getting worse. What we need is a real pandemic to cut our numbers by half or more… It’s the only way to make the most of what little we have left.”
yeah right….. boy oh boy we sure need a huge pandemic to kill half the people, just hope I’m in the half that survives. Pray for me guys!
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:09 pm
This is an interesting idea. They have been on the drawing board for years. Just google skyfarming or vertical farm. They can be designed to be self sustaining growing all organic foods including livestock.
April 24th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Yeah right…nice way to raise prices on veggies even more…
you know that to grow a COW you use as much soil as a grain field requires?
eat more pasta and less meat…that will help a lot
April 24th, 2008 at 7:59 am
“You are absolutely correct. Too many people on this earth and it’s only getting worse. What we need is a real pandemic to cut our numbers by half or more… It’s the only way to make the most of what little we have left.”
Kill yourself and hopefully you’ll start a trend.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Jerry McBride-
“what we need is a pandemic?” who is “we”? the people who don’t die? feel free to off yourself if you are really concerned about this.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
“yeah right….. boy oh boy we sure need a huge pandemic to kill half the people, just hope I’m in the half that survives. Pray for me guys!”
Don’t be so selfish Ryan, take one for the team.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Although this approach is not practical, it is nice to see that people’s ideas of what is important is changing. I am in Phoenix, and I have started an overhead hanging vegetable garden. It provides much needed shade in my backyard, and will soon give me fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and grapes.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Looks like they’ve designed a golf course about halfway up. This will serve two purposes: recreation, and thinning the herd with stray golf balls killing people below! Perhaps if we filled the golf balls with some sort of virus, we could be even more efficient…
Seriously, this is never going to happen. There are already far better ways of growing food in the city, some as close as your OWN BACK YARD! I think these outlandish designs really get the designers off, but they distract from the hard, dirty work it’s going to take to feed this planet. Not much new; our parents and grandparents did it in the Depression and WWII.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
“what we need is a pandemic?”
Not really sure why everyone’s attacking this idea in disbelief. It’s the truth. That’s one way that regulates the population. We’ve found a way to overcome the regulation without overcoming the reason for it- insufficient food supply. That doesn’t mean that the OP or I or anyone here wants to be among the dead. That doesn’t mean that anyone wants anyone else to be among the dead. It’s just the truth, and by scoffing at it you’re only hiding your head in the sand and hoping the problem will be solved in a prettier way. There are not nice solutions to every single problem in the world. Deal with it.
April 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
New York has enough fruits already. I agree with the pandemic idea. Let’s eliminate the surplus population. Get rid of all the fat ugly girls first, then then get rid of at least 3 times as many guys.
I could live with that.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I live in the part of NJ that is still the Garden State. I’m surrounded by apple & peach orchards and vegetable fields. The road stands will have strawberries by next week, and then comes the corn. It’s got some appeal, but a few weeks ago, to produce all of this bounty the farmers were spreading manure, the pesticide sprayers were in the orchards, and there was a whiff of ammonia in the air. Farms are nice, farms are essential, farms smell bad.
As a boy, I spent plenty of time on Canal Street (not “the” Canal Street as the article calls it). I know the city quite well. Farms won’t fly in NYC. It makes a nice picture, but the picture doesn’t present the whole story with out the smell.
May 18th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Ryan - Since you did not specify HOW I should pray… First I prayed that you’d be mashed flat by a Mack Truck but then I realized that your thick skull could damage the truck, thereby necessitating repairs to the truck inducing negative environmental impact… So then I just prayed that you’d be struck dead by lightning - But again with the smoldering carbon release
- so now I’m just praying that you get pneumonia and drown in your own mucus…
May 19th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
So, Mr. Moderator… Mass genocide is an idea that sits well with you but suggest that I pray they might die? And THAT’S what got your skirt all ruffled? You’re a joke.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
OK, I may just be an overwhelming optimist, but I do not think that the solution is a pandemic or the need for anyone to die. The way I see it is the simple fact that we need to re-think our use of space. “Vertical farming” verticalfarm.com and “farm-scrapers” are the next logical step. Now you might think these buildings would produce a foul smelling aroma that permeates from them, but this is not true. Most of the food would be grown by hydroponic method… Now what does that mean? No need for manure or high methane content fertilizing. The quality of the food would increase, the taste would be better, and almost everything would be recycled. Cows and chickens will be raised in these buildings also (most likely on the upper floors) and anything that is a byproduct of these animals will be quarantined and used to help power the building and anything left over will be disposed of properly. This all means no smells to deal with. Not only that but these food producing ideas can be adapted to other needs as well, such as, recreation “vertical parks” maybe? We could create any type of terrain in these buildings. Driving miles and miles and not seeing anything but buildings sounds like it sucks, but park your car at the “Madison gardens building” (hypothetical name) and take a stroll around the open space park on the 2oth floor and you would have all the green you wanted. Go to floor 15 and play ball, or soccer. You could put virtually any kind of recreation in these buildings. I agree we have overcome the regulation of our population and haven’t thought it all out properly; though, this does not mean we need to “thin things out;” society (in other words we) just need to start thinking “high density” and make the best use of it. I believe there is a need to save hundreds of thousands if not millions of acres of natural environment for our future generations; the only way to do so is to have millions of acres of tall buildings. I do not see this as a bad thing. With proper planning and innovative thinking; I see it as progress. Time to be smart about it and not come up with half-hazard solutions like “thinning ourselves out” or hoping for some “pandemic” (which, by the way, I cannot understand anyone thinking we have the need for it) and start coming up with life-long solutions! It is the future; whether you like it or not.
June 13th, 2008 at 2:35 am
good but thousands of hectors land can be irrigated in undeveloped countries at the same cost.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
It’d never happen, you’d never make enough money compared to the same space being used for residential zoning or commercial office space.