PLAYFUL AQUAFARMING
CASE STUDY :Sky Farm / VRAP
The Book of Burial, The Book on Agriculture and Exploitation
of the Works of Nature. The history of traditional rural settlements in China demonstrates how Chinese agricultural techniques
have evolved. These traditional rural construction works, led by small-scale
peasant economies, are multi-field and trans-scale projects that have admirably
integrated geography, irrigation works and agriculture. This type of production-promoting
compound construction has captured our attention and we have dubbed it “agritectonic”.
In late
2015, Vernacular Research and Practice (VRAP) began to apply the concept of
agri-tectonic to a number of micro-projects. With “agriculture inclusive
urbanism”, a means to realize urban renewal, we try to find the possibility of
agriculture feeding cities by designing an experimental model. “Sky Farm”,
located in a village in Nantou in Shenzhen, is one of these projects that
emphasizes production-promoting compound public space in an urban village.
In
Shenzhen, around 10 percent of the land is covered by urban villages that
accommodate nearly 50 percent of the city’s population. These urban villages
exist as a special form in urban space where small-scale peasant economy is
mixed with small-scale industries and where constructions are designed to
potentially be inte-grated closely with local settlements. For urban villages
that lack public space,
Sky Farm is an iterative product that can transform
cheap residential space into effective production space and unique consumer
space, which is why Sky Farm is so suitable for the new urban village economy.
At a reasonable cost, Sky Farm can provide a highly
productive space and thus help achieve the maximum promotion effect possible.
PVC, easy to obtain in urban villages, has been chosen as the main material.
Also, a standardized structure featuring convenient dismantling and
transportation processes has been applied so that the device can be built even
by ordinary people. On four sides of the device are farming nets for climbing
vines with relatively large meshes to make space for plants and fruits while an
anti-bird net is placed on the top for fruit protection and rain water
collection.
Through a low-pressure
water pump, “nutrient water with fish excrement” from those black boxes can be
recycled to water and fertilize the plants. In this manner, a Sky Farm covering
400 square meters operates with extremely low cost, land occupation and
maintenance. It is estimated that in a summer, Sky Farm is able to collect 300
tons of rain water, breed more than 200 fish and produce more than 200 jin (400
kilograms) of vegetables or fruits (cucumber has been taken as a test example).
Sky farm, with its treillage capable of resizing as required,
can be built on rooftops, in streets or in any availa-ble space that’s larger
than 1.5 square meters, making it a veritable “mobile farm”. As for the
structure of this device, its lower part is designed to leave maximum space for
public use while its upper part opens maximum space for plant proliferation.
These Floating Farms Could Be Key to Feeding Future Populations
The
Barcelona firm’s design comprises a multi-level agricultural barge that can be
constructed, pushed out to sea, and left to work mostly on its own. The farm is
designed to operate on three levels: a bottom level containing wave barriers,
an aquaculture fish farm, a slaughterhouse, a packing facility and desalination
plant; a second tier for hydroponic and aeroponic food production; and a
rooftop level featuring skylights to let in light and photovoltaics to provide
the energy required to power everything.
At 656 by
1,150 feet , each level is approximately 750,000 square feet - enough room to
grow up to 8.1 tons of vegetables and 1.7 tons of fish per year. The architects
estimate that this would cover the project’s expenses within 10 years. And
since the farms are modular, a few or many of these structures could be grouped
together to provide enough food for entire communities, especially those
located in areas without arable land, or with a population so large it
overwhelms its food supply capabilities. And unlike other forward-thinking
agricultural techniques like urban farming, it spares valuable land space for
other types of construction.
As well as
making the farming process autonomous, putting the structures on top of the
water allows the farms to adapt to rising water levels and avoid flooding
issues common to traditional agricultural techniques. While this strategy may
seem outlandish to the uninitiated, it actually has a long and successful
pedigree, having been employed for centuries by Bengali farmers to react to
dramatic changes in water level during flood seasons. The farmers construct
beds in lakes and rivers using several layers of bamboo and water hyacinth,
fill them with semi-decomposed aquatic plants and then seed. The beds are
tethered to the lakebed to prevent them from floating away. This has resulted
in production rates up to 10 times more fruitful than neighboring land-based
practices.
However,
the true innovation of the Smart Floating Farms project is taking
non-traditional farming techniques and combining them with already-existing
technologies. The world population is predicted to grow from 6.9 billion in
2010 to 8.3 billion in 2030 and to 9.1 billion in 2050. By 2030, food demand is
predicted to increase by 50% (70% by 2050). The main challenge facing the
agricultural sector is not so much growing 70% more food in 40 years, but
making 70% more food available on the plate, and to react to these daunting
figures, new agricultural techniques must be developed.
As the
architects acknowledge in their design statement, the project “is not meant to
solve all of humanity’s hunger problems or to replace existing traditional
agriculture. The driver behind the project is to open a new initiative which
can be complementary and compatible with other existing production methods in
order to help reduce food risk associated problems in different areas of the
globe.” One project alone will not save the world, but embracing the
technologies available to us is a great start towards tackling these issues. If
only it were as easy as the touch of a button.
The site that we propose for the "agriculture aquafarming" is in the right side of the bridge that connects Paskuqan with Tirana.
Both sides of the lake we propose to apply the concept of agri-tectonic structures that will solve the problem of passage, clean the water and make it possible for the biodiversity to live.
Sky Farm is an iterative product that can
transform cheap residential space into effective production space and unique
consumer space, which is why Sky Farm is so suitable for the new urban village
economy.
WORKED BY ARSELDA & KETJONA
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