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The Vertical Farm is a concept that seeks to address the major concerns of the environmental degradation of the modern city by composting, recycling waste and farming in a standard tenement building. The reduction of waste and the production of food may increase the quality of life within the city and its surrounding areas.

The site

The vertical farm differs from what now exists. It scales up the concept of indoor farming in which a wide variety of products are harvested in a quantity which allows sustaining a large city without significantly relying on resources beyond the city limits. Raising a wide variety of food such as tomatoes, eggplants, pepper, soybean, green peas, spinach, carrots, cucumber, wheat, potatoes, lettuce, strawberries, bananas, chicken, tilapia is within the capabilities of indoor farming as well as generating clean energy and purifying wastewater [1]. It will require approximately 28m² of intensively farmed indoor space to produce enough food to support a single individual living. Working within the framework of these calculations one vertical farm with an architectural footprint of one city block and rising up to 30 floors could provide sufficient nutrition (2,000 calories/day/person) to accommodate the needs of 10.000 people employing technologies currently available. Vertical Farm may offer an urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems [2].

Fig. 1: Three visualizations of the Vertical Farm concept (source: [6]).

Reasons for having chosen this case study

On the one hand the decision fell on this project because of its new method of resolution, on the other hand due to the long-term thinking. Furthermore its multifunctionality shows various aspects of ecological engineering. The evaluation is only about a Vertical Farm project in New York, because evaluating all the different ideas of places would not be very precise.

Evaluation based on criteria of Heeb

To evaluate the project of Vertical Farm we have chosen the criteria of Heeb, as cited by [3] because they are diversified and easy to apply on this project. Due to the following reasons we excluded three criteria:

Begin of Pipe: Vertical Farm focuses on different problems. The begin-of-pipe thinking can hardly be fixed on one single reason.
Minimise the effects on the environment: This criterion is included in the aspect of the sustainability and the goal to save power resources.
Combine the knowledge of different disciplines: This criterion is also included in the sustainability.

Table 1: Evaluation of the Vertical Farm concept using a set of criteria proposed by Heeb 1994 (as cited in [3])

Criteria	Fulfilled	Partially fulfilled	Not fulfilled	Comment
Focusing on system orientation, sustainability and multifunctionality We understood sustainability include grey energy and manufacturing of the material.		X		System-oriented: Yes: improving internal cycles No: it is not sure that the project idea integrates also adverse and retroactive effects and also interdependencies with the systems surrounding. Sustainability: Yes: VF can be considered as sustainable because of the year-round production unreliable of weather conditions what ensures sufficient local food, the decrease of the amount of land use, the improvement of internal cycles, the independence of non-renewable resources, the small delivery of methane to the atmosphere (compared with traditional agriculture), no use of external fertiliser and no use of pesticide. It might leave a smaller ecological footprint than traditional agriculture. No: The social component of sustainability is not perfectly fulfilled. Goals for the integration of different groups of interest are defined, but there are now guidelines how to realize those goals. Moreover it would need a lot of glass and other high-tech material to build the Vertical Farm [4] which needs a high energy input (grey energy). Vegetables are growing on non-natural soils. Multifunctionality: Yes: Integration of different disciplines (use of waste water and compost, energy production with methane, fish production with worm wastes, plant production with fish waste water etc.) No: The multifunctional material systems are in the beginning of development or at the moment not efficient (Power Glass).
Using imitated and modified ecosystems and ecological processes		X		Yes: Fish ponds, worm culture for decomposition of organic material and as fish food No: monocultures, breeding of vegetables in a non-natural environment
Using and creating system solutions and looking for high system integration and promotion		X		Yes: Use of closed loops, exclusion of pesticide No: Plans of pest control are explained (Filtered metastases, toxic substances and remove pollen and other small particles on air filters mechanical) but detailed information about pest control in case of infection are not mentioned
Keeping energy and resource consumption low, seeking balanced systems, using solar-based energy sources and promoting recycling		X		Yes: independency of oil, avoidance of long transits, use of renewable resources, recycling of waste water and organic waste, using solar-based energy (ex. Power Glass) No: high amount of grey energy used for construction materials and lighting
Keeping the impact in the environment and the potential of risks as low as possible		X		No: vegetables growing on non-natural soils Yes: as the VF is situated in an urban area the shape of the tower block fits into the urban landscape of New York, VF need less land than traditionally agriculture
Promoting decentralized (democratic) structures, promoting non-dependant systems and long-term thinking			X	Yes: Long-term thinking is supported as far the aim of the project is not only to reduce hunger but also to spare cultivable land, to support education, gender equality etc. and because the project integrates the vision of a world whose main part of the population lives in urban structures, a vision which is very probable to become real. No: It is not sure if leaving traditional farming structures behind might be real long-term thinking. It might support the centralisation and cause new problems. Agriculture has to move from rural to urban regions. Goals to integrate traditional farmers without competing them are included in the project idea but real support of peripheral structures would mean to support the traditional farmers where their professional reality is now. Furthermore the technological solution distracts from our human connection to agriculture and food production [5]

Conclusion

As it can be seen in the evaluation table, no criterion is considered to be completely fulfilled. The reason could be that the project of a vertical farm is so far only an idea. There are no pilot studies. This causes a lot of scepticism to consider plans as completely fulfilling the criteria if they have not been realised yet. This state facilitates also the tendency to integrate contradictions or formulate ideas not very precisely which is a reason for various criteria not to be completely fulfilled.

The reasons for not convincing perfectly lay mainly in the lack of realistic integration of social components as coordination with traditional farmers and in the contradiction of willingness to work within sustainability but using a lot of high-tech materials with a big grey energy input and producing vegetables in monocultures.

On the other hand, there are only two criteria which are considered not being fulfilled. In every other criterion there are various points mentioned as positive such as the use of closed loops, the willingness of facing big problems of the future using sustainable structures and long-term thinking and, last but not least, the avoidance of long transports and the independency of non-renewable resources.

Although the evaluation is not very positive, there are a lot of possibilities to improve the project of Vertical Farm, simply by going more into details and by explaining more precisely the methods to obtain the already expressed goals.

We are convinced of Vertical Farm being a good idea having the possibility to motivate people to think of alternative ways to solve the problems of the future. Still, such solutions have to be taken integrating all parties involved, giving them the possibility to decide what and how to produce.

References

[1] Chamberlain, L., (2007): Skyfarming - Turning Skyscrapers into Crop Farms. New York Magazine. (online Sep. 14, 2007), http://nymag.com/news/features/30020/

[2] The Vertical Farm Project - Agriculture for the 21st Century and Beyond (online Sep. 14, 2007), www.verticalfarm.com

[3] Van Bohemen, H., (2005): Ecological Engineering - Bridging between ecology and civil engineering, Aeneas Technical Publishers, Delft

[4] Fitzpatrick, L.A. (2006): Materializing the Idea: Innovative Solution for the Vertical Farm (online Sep. 14, 2007), http://www.verticalfarm.com/pdf/report2006/Potential%20Materials.pdf

[5] Opar, A., (2007): The Farmer in the High Rise. Plenty Magazine (online Sep. 14, 2007), http://www.plentymag.com/features/2007/01/the_farmer_in_the_highrise.php

[6] http://www.verticalfarm.com/designs.php (online Sep. 14, 2007)

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Student term project 2007: Assessing the Vertical Farm Project in New York

Student term project 2007:
Assessing the Vertical Farm Project in New York