“The Living Tower” by Pierre Sartoux (courtesy Atelier SOA Architectes)
June 2007 | Green Scene
Let’s Get Vertical
Are “living buildings” a step to agriculture in the skies?
By Paul Constant
Vertical farming reads like an idea from a 1950’s science fiction novel: dedicate the top six or ten stories of a skyscraper to agriculture, use the building’s own redistributed greywater to fertilize the crops, and then transform the biomass waste from the farm into pellet fuel that, in turn, powers the building. Besides being carbon neutral and self-sustaining once it gets up and running, vertical farming’s other implications — less actual land needed for farms, less fuel needed to transport food — are far-reaching and inspiring. Last month, a story on the possibilities of vertical farming in New York magazine set the eco-blogosphere on fire — not bad for a concept that some architects claim is at least fifteen years away.
Clearly, the very idea of vertical farming scratches an itch in the imagination of a lot of green-leaning thinkers. But is it even possible? “Most of the technology already exists,” says Cory Stoerker, a designer at Seattle firm NBBJ. “Living buildings are right around the corner, but none of these buildings will do all of the things (that vertical farms do) all at once.” Today’s buildings are getting greener from the roof down: Chicago leads the nation in green roof projects, incorporating rooftop gardens into the design of new and preexisting structures. And many green designers, such as organic ARCHITECT in San Francisco or Rana Creek in Los Angeles, consider sustainability as integral to the idea of a building as doors or windows.
The median step between the energy-wasting skyscrapers of yesterday and the vertical farms of tomorrow seems to be the “living building” — a sustainable building that interacts with its ecosystem in a positive, non-invasive way. At “Living Future ’07,” a recent architectural conference in Seattle, hundreds of area architects gathered to discuss buildings that would “harvest all their own energy and water” and “function as living batteries.” The standout conceptual work of the conference was a project dubbed “The Center for Urban Architecture,” planned for the heart of Seattle. The giant multistory glass structure includes a café in the base that would utilize edible plants growing on each level. While it wasn’t quite vertical farming, it was certainly breathtaking — and a sign of exciting changes to come.
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