Sustainability aims high! Homes that combine the needs of city life with the comforts and well-being of life in the countryside. A dream? Absolutely no! And to demonstrate this are the so-called vertical farms, i.e. real skyscrapers capable of hosting homes and places of leisure within them, but at the same time producing energy. Some really exist and have already been built, others are currently just projects but they bode well.
He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him
Sustainability aims high! Homes that combine the needs of city life with the comforts and well-being of life in the countryside. A dream? Absolutely no! And to prove it are the so-called vertical farm, “vertical farms“, That is to say real skyscrapers capable of hosting homes and places of leisure, but at the same time of produce energy. Some really exist and have already been built, others are currently just projects but they bode well.
To find an ecological solution to the continuous building expansion, often chaotic and unsustainable, these buildings are proposed as a synthesis of the two housing alternatives, combining their pros and cons. From time to time, the solutions found by the architects who conceived them are different: fromwind power to the production of biogas, from rainwater recovery to the food production directly between the walls of these high rises. But let's see them one by one.
The Living TowerUnique for its recessed structure, the Tour Vivante is a vertical skyscraper which seems to embody what has just been said about the production of energy by buildings also dedicated to other things. Thanks to its particular shape, the sunlight only touches it in certain areas, according to the intended use. The aesthetic aspect also benefits. To make it fascinating there are also the 30 floors that are detached from the agricultural land, with greenhouses all around. This is not a bulky-looking single block but the building, despite its size, feels light. Designed by Atelier SOA, this special skyscraper is equipped on top with wind turbines and is also able to exploit rainwater, produce food and biogas.
Toronto Sky Farm
Coming from an idea of Gordon Graff when he was still a simple architecture student at the University of Waterloo, the concept of the Toronto Sky Farm is to cover the food needs of 35 thousand people per year. Sure, the building fails to feed everyone in downtown Toronto, but it's still a commendable initiative. In addition, half of the building's energy is produced from methane obtained from plant waste.
Hotel House of Peace
The idea behind the aesthetic structure of the House of Peace, built in Tanzania by WOW Architects is inspired by rock formations that are formed in nature. The building, thus, is a free interpretation of the plate tectonics, with its hills shaped by time. The structure of the walls is also similar to that of the fossils often found in these hills.
Almeisan Tower
Designed by the architect Robert Ferry for a design competition for a symbol structure for the Za'abeel Park in Dubai, the Almeisan Tower provides for the use of solar cells and large mirrors that can produce enough energy for the park.
MoMA Tower
Presented by Axis of the world as an alternative to the modern and elegant proposal of Jean Nouvel for the expansion of the MoMA in New York, the building has a design reminiscent of Pop Art, showing the diversity of the various towers with completely different colors and solutions.
South Kas Tower
Architectenbureau Paul de Ruiter designed this building on commission from the Government Buildings Agency of the Netherlands, with a possible mixed use and with the aim of achieving as many objectives as possible for the sustainability in architecture. Thus was born the Zuidkas Tower in Amsterdam, a glass-clad structure that houses various "green houses", as well as lobbies, offices, shops and even a school.
Serra Geodetica Plantagon
Particular here is the concept of vertical farm. The building, in fact, is a geodesic greenhouse containing a spiral ramp on which it is possible also grow in urban environments. No smog, just clean air and water, as the spiral greenhouse has no contact with the outside. The presence of similar buildings in cities, in the future, could lower the costs and environmental damage associated with the transport of vegetables for food. Plantagon recently presented at the Forum Investor Conference in Stockholm, it may soon be a natural feature of several cities around the world.
Vertical Park
Build vertically to minimize the destruction of green spaces. This is the basic idea of the Vertical Park designed by Jorge Hernandez de la Garza for Mexico City. A modular skyscraper, where each module provides spaces for living, working, as well as for developing forms of urban agriculture, collecting rainwater and solar energy.
Harvest Green Tower
Vegetables, herbs, fruit, fish, eggs, but also chickens and a sheep boutique from which to draw for good fresh goat milk. The whole concentrated in a single and futuristic skyscraper powered, obviously, by renewable energies that exploit geothermal, wind and solar energy at the same time. It is the Harvest Green Tower, winner of the winner of Vancouver's Challenge 2030 “, the competition dedicated to the best projects for addressing climate change e reduce carbon emissions in the near future of which we have already extensively described the advantages. The Harvest Green Tower was developed, for the moment only on paper, by the architects of the Romses studio who designed the "vertical farm" down to the smallest detail, complete with photovoltaic glass e wind turbines integrated into the structure.
Pyramid Farm
Another solution for incorporating agriculture into the urban environments of the future was devised by Eric Ellingsen and Dickson Despommier. This is the Pyramid Farm, a type of pyramid-shaped greenhouse which offers a self-sufficient ecosystem, thanks to which to produce a great variety of foods, including fish and chickens, while reducing the production of waste, which perhaps could even become the energy source of the farm itself. It will certainly not contain the jewels of the pharaoh Tutankamon but it will be just as precious!
Francesca Mancuso
