| dc.description.abstract | Increasingly within urban population growth there is a greater demand on the agricultural
resources needed to keep these populations properly fed. As these stresses
on the agricultural space and supply chain increase, they can lead to dangerous
lapses in feeding growing urban populations. How can architecture respond to urban
centers that have an ever increasing need for agricultural space and stabilize food
supplies in those communities?
This system is an agricultural typology with commercial and educational elements to
facilitate the project requirements. This project begins to address the demand for a
stable food supply while by bringing nutritious foods right into the hungry population’s
very urban fabric and does so while maintaining a very tight footprint. Individuals and
groups will work on their own properties and within the urban farm space to refine
technologies and methods for improved harvest yields. Urban farm employees will
also assist the community through hands on education, seminars, and resources to
promote and educate the community on how to best grow food in areas lacking sufficient
land for traditional methods.
Under developed, vacated, and neglected lands that are almost completely abandoned
in parts of the city will be cleaned, tested, analyzed and a phased plan of action
will be created for each area of the newly recovered farm lands. There will be a main
plot of land utilized by the main urban farm itself, and then smaller parcels of private
or public lands will also be designated by their owners to be utilized for agricultural
purposes.
Compressed urban farming will not only provide food but a community connection to
each other and the soil while improving the local air, and water quality.
Justification: This system design is needed now more than ever with projected urban
population growth each year, and ever decreasing available agricultural lands and
increasing distances to those that remain. Depleted and missing farms leave larger
and larger urban populations at the mercy of supply disruptions, but can be corrected
through improved planning and initiatives such as mentioned in this plan. Currently
many European, Asian, and Middle eastern nations with large or growing populations
and lacking suitable arable lands to feed these populations, are purchasing land for
farming, thousands of miles from where the food will be consumed. This urban farming
system however
maintains local growth for local use, decreasing labor, fuel, environmental and spatial
impact. | en_US |
