Community gardens are already very popular in Berlin, but a group of agro-entrepreneurs is planning to take urban farming to the next level in the German capital. A team of three Berliners is planning to convert an enormous old malt factory in the city’s Schöneberg district into a rooftop farm that promises to be one of the most ambitious urban agriculture projects in the world. The Frisch vom Dach (“Fresh from the Roof”) project will be an aquaponics farm where both fish and vegetables are produced and distributed on-site.

Read the rest of Frisch vom Dach To Convert Former Berlin Malt Factory Into a Rooftop Aquaponics Farm!

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: adaptive reuse, aquaponics, berlin, Frisch vom Dach, germany, rooftop farm, shipping containers, sustainable food, upcycling, urban agriculture, Urban Farming

A new report from researchers at the University of Minnesota says that the world’s food demand will double by 2050, however thankfully there is a gaping hole in their research – the team neglected to consider advancements in urban farming, which could provide agricultural solutions for Earth’s growing human population (as it is already doing in places like Havana, Cuba). The University of Minnesota researchers estimate that an area the size of the United States would need to be cleared by developing nations in order to make enough to feed their growing communities, and that clearing that area will significantly increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere leading to increased climate change. Or, we could build farms on empty urban lots, on city rooftops and in community spaces and feed ourselves on the open land we already have by using new technologies being developed in empty storefronts in London and high-tech laboratories nestled into Subway sandwich shops in Japan.

Read the rest of Food Demand to Double by 2050, Urban Agriculture to Become Increasingly Important

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: agricultural advancements, agricultural demand, agricultural technology, earth population, food demand, food growth, food needs, food technology, human population, urban agriculture, urban farm, urban food solution, urban food source, urban gardening

Read the rest of City Farm: South Providence’s Urban Agriculture Transformation

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: "energy efficiency", a better world by design, A Better World by Design conference, agriculture, city farm, community, Community Land Trust, compost, composting, conference, crop production, crops, CSA, eco farm, education, educational, energy efficient, farmer, farmer's market, farmers, Farmers Markets, farming, food, food system, food systems, foreclosure, garden, green conference, green design, green space, greenhouse, land trust, plants, plots, Produce, self sufficiency, social design, solar panel, solar panels, Southside Community Land Trust, student conference, Sustainability, urban, urban agriculture, urban farm, Urban Farming, urban gardening, urban landscape

The Whittier Organic Food Center is a state-of-the-art food production testing and learning facility that recently took top honors in the Cavin Family Travel Fellowship. The project creates opportunities for social sustainability in Los Angeles, leasing areas of the garden and tower green walls to locals for micro-agro business. Crops are stored for disaster relief, and distribution and sales to local restaurants and school cafeterias, germinating like a seed in the community. The on-site food bank reaches out to those in need and provides on-site housing for students and trade laborers wishing to pursue work in urban agriculture.

READ MORE >

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: "green wall", "sustainable architecture", cavin family travel fellowship, Green Building, green design, green roof, renewable energy, sustainble design, urban agriculture, vertical farm, whittier sustainable food center

Multidisciplinary design firm Except recently unveiled its Polydome concept for meeting the world’s skyrocketing agricultural demands. Using advanced greenhouse technology, meticulously planned crop groupings and absolutely no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, the system can produce an abundant 10-15 lbs per square foot of  vegetables, fish, and even honey. If grown atop rooftops, this bounty of food could even provide the majority of New York City’s food supply.

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: advanced greenhouse technology, agriculture, alternative agriculture, brightfarms, closed greenhouse, companion planting, crop cluster, crop clusters, crop rotation, crops, dutch, eco design, except, food supply, greenhouse, hydroponics, new york city, plants, polyculture, polydome, rooftop agriculture, sustainable design, three sisters, urban agriculture, zero waste

We’ve covered a wide variety of urban agriculture projects in the past – the rooftop farm Brooklyn Grange, the Battery Conservancy’s new turkey-shaped farm, and futuristic vertical farms, to name a few. Our view of them has generally been positive, but perhaps urban farms deserve a second look. Edward L. Glaeser, PhD, a professor of economics at Harvard University recently put forth his radical view that urban farms reduce metropolitan density levels, and thus do more harm to the environment than good. But does his argument really hold water?

Read the rest of Harvard Economist Claims Urban Farms Do More Harm Than Good

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: alternative agriculture, battery conservancy, Brooklyn grange, carbon dioxide emissions, edward glaeser, energy use, environmental design, food miles, green, Green Cities, green design, harvard, harvard economist, harvard university, rooftop farm, turkey farm, turkey-shaped farm, urban agriculture, urban density, urban farm, vertical farm, vertical farms

ON Design’s Roppongi Nouen Farm in the steamy heart of Tokyo comprises a series of stacked glass cubes full of a variety of produce. This 21 square meter urban farm isn’t hidden on a roof, or relegated to a corner plot, but is actually stacked amidst high rises and other buildings. As a result, passersby can observe the vegetables growing and even partake of them in a nearby restaurant.

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: eco design, glass cubes, green design, ON Design, organic agriculture, Roppongi Nouen Farm, sustainable design, Tokyo, urban agriculture, urban life

We’ve heard of supermarket hydroponics before: window hanging, wall-mounted, and rooftop farm concepts have been abundant over the last decade. Truthfully, though, how many have you actually seen? Throughout 2011, the New York hydroponics firm Better Food Solutions plans to change that by installing a network of hydroponic greenhouses atop a number of grocery stores across the nation. The group, also behind the New York “Greenhouse Project” and Brightfarms Systems, believes that by working with grocery stores they can provide local food and further prove that hydroponics is the future of agriculture.

Read the rest of Better Food Solutions Rolling out Network of Supermarket Rooftop Greenhouses

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: "sustainable agriculture", Better Food Solutions, green design, green supermarket, greenhouse, hydroponic rooftop greenhouse, sustainable design, urban agriculture, urban farm

This amazing edible Eathouse is a literal take on urban agriculture by Stuurlui Stedenbouw and Atelier GRAS!. Spotted over at Plataforma Arquitectura, the locally-grown garden home is bursting forth with green walls bearing a variety of edible fruits and veggies. The modular structure is designed to host a summer crop, so all of its construction materials can be easily dismantled for reuse at the end of each harvest.

+ Atelier GRAS

Via Plataforma Arquitectura

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: Atelier GRAS!, Eathouse, edible architecture, green design, Stuurlui Stedenbouw, sustainable design, urban agriculture, vertical farm house

Fresh food is on the move and may be coming to a neighborhood near you – if you live in Chicago. Our friends at The Architects Newspaper tipped us off to Archeworks latest project, a series of produce-vending carts called the Mobile Food Collective. The project finds mobility and agriculture working hand in hand with the hopes of educating and fostering community around urban farming and healthy eating in underprivileged neighborhoods. Each cart serves a multi-functional purpose — they act as mobile farms, stands at the local farmers market, demonstration tables for hands-on cooking exhibitions, and distribution centers for locally-grown goods. The ReBuilding Exchange, a local non-profit, donated all the recycled building materials to build the first full-scale prototype, which will be permanently based at the Gary Comer Youth Center.

Read the rest of Mobile Smart Cart Farms Bring Urban Agriculture to Chicago Residents

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: Archeworks, Chicago Agriculture, Chicago Farm, Farmers Markets, Mobile Food Collective, Smart Cart, Smart Cart Farms, urban agriculture, Urban Farming

Lately it seems that everyone is fixated on food — its production, its enhancement, its delivery and consumption, and ultimately our evolving relationship with it. Amidst this food frenzy, progressive designers have sought new ways to grow food easily and in tight spaces. The Urb Garden, designed by Xavier Calluaud, is a vertical garden outfitted with modular cubby holes and an integrated worm farm, making it a perfect all-in-one solution for urban gardeners. As an added bonus, when fully planted, the Urb Garden looks a lot like an attractive green wall.

Read the rest of The Urb Garden Helps Urban Gardeners Grow Food at Home

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: commerical food production, food networks, food system, urban agriculture, urban farm, urban food systems, urban gardening

Pesticides. Genetic-modification. Mistreated animals. It could just about kill anyone’s appetite to hear about all the horrible news about food production. Fortunately, the emerging food revolution focuses on both health and re-establishing the connection between people and the food they eat (making it harder to abuse our food sources). Designers are both leading and answering this shift in interest. Philips Design has begun an investigation called ‘Food Probe’ that looks at current social trends and how this may affect the way that people will eat in the future — and how this will manifest in design. Their investigation includes three parts: a self-contained farm for the kitchen, a nutrition farm and a high-tech cooking device.

Read the rest of Philips Design’s ‘Food Probe’ Promotes Healthy Eating With 3 Concepts

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: aquaculture, aquaponics, city farms, food production, food systems, futuristic food systems, healthy eating, hydroponics, nutrition, urban agriculture, urban gardening

Combining methods for urban farming with design thinking, MetaboliCity is a design-research project by Loop.pH that explores how designers can help create models for sustainable urban food creation. Set on catalyzing positive changes in the built environment, the name is derived from a vision of a city that metabolizes its resources and waste to supply its inhabitants with all the nourishment they need and more.

Read the rest of MetaboliCity Aims to Grow Sustainable Food Systems

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: city planning, food growing, London Design Week, Metabolicity, urban agriculture, Urban Farming, urban gardening

Urban restoration projects are definitely the new agrarian frontier, as city dwellers rethink the possibilities for crop production in zones formerly deemed barren or simply too gritty. One can no longer be oblivious to the mediocre quality of fruits and vegetables, the costly trucking of fresh produce, or the senseless, landfill-bound packaging involved. It is high time that food production solutions sprout up in one’s own backyard or on windowsills or rooftops that can also patch together a vibrant community. During the summer of 2009, the public art project, Sharecropper, aims to create a united system of agricultural production in the heart of NYC via a fresh interpretation of the landowner tenant agreement. This micro-farming initiative by artist Leah Gauthier might inspire New Yorkers to view wild edibles as agents of change, thanks to the parcel owners who have donated their unorthodox growing spaces for the greening of their real estates.

Read the rest of Sharecropper: NYC’s Micro-Farming Public Art Project

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: "sustainable agriculture", eco art NYC, environmental art NYC, heirloom seeds, Leah Gauthier, micro-farming, microfarming, organic gardening, seed sharing, Sharecropper, urban agriculture, urban greening

The UN predicts that we will need 60% more food over the next 30 years in order to meet the demands of the world’s ever-growing population, and one designer has found an interesting place to look for other alternatives for growing food as agriculturally viable land becomes more and more scarce. That is, up! Skyfarm is a vertical farm designed by Gordon Graff, a student in the Master of Architecture program at the University of Waterloo. The vertically set farm for Toronto is intent on meeting the needs of a tightly packed planet in the face of a limited food supply, while removing dependence on the food transportation via energy intensive and emission heavy methods.

Read the rest of Gordon Graff’s Skyfarm for Toronto

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: Add new tag, canada, gordon graff, self-sustaining, skyfarm, skyscraper farms, toronto, urban agriculture, urban farms, vertical farms

Gardening enthusiasts living in cities will certainly cheer for Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray’s Window Farms experiment. The artist-in-residence duo at Eyebeam have teamed up to develop a DIY system for creating “suspended, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield light-augmented” vertical gardens that will enable anyone to start their own garden right in their very own window. Britta and Rebecca were showcasing their prototype at Eyebeam last week and have enlisted a dozen or so volunteers that are building their own farms — all to go on display in windows throughout NYC from May 31 to July 14.

Read the rest of Window Farms: An experiment in urban agriculture

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg
Post tags: city food sources, diy gardening, diy projects, eco diy project, environmental diy project, hydroponic gardening, social network gardening, urban agriculture, urban ecology, Urban Farming, urban food source, urban garden