Vertical Farming Concepts 2

Feasting on my garden's summer crop of berries, beans and greens has me thinking about the future of our food again. The ability to propagate, plant, cultivate and harvest ones own food is truly a moving experience and I consider it a privilege to have the land and knowledge to do so. In my opinion the disconnection that has been created between how and where are food is produced has shortened in the last 2 years. This reconnection to the land has many advocates including the ones below who are helping us conceptualise the future of urban agriculture.

Charlotte Avignon Architect

Eco Laboratory by Weber Thompson

Vertical Farming Concepts courtesy of
www.verticalfarm.com

Revitalization at the VanDusen Botanical Gardens

Vancouver's VanDusen Botanical Gardens has been offering its visitors refuge from increasing urbanization for over 30 years. Internationally renowned sustainable landscape designer Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, in combination with Architecture firm Busby Perkins + Will, have been selected to provide an innovative and inspirational facility to ensure its success well into the future.

overview

The building's five-petal roof will be partially covered with solar panels and green roofing.
The roof system will also collect and process rain water.

main entrance

elevation

Living Building Philosophy

At the heart of the Living Building concept is the belief that our society needs to move quickly to a state of balance between the natural and built environments – to define the highest measure of sustainability possible in the built environment based on current thinking.

The Living Building elements have been attained in many projects around the world – just not all together. It is hoped that VanDusen’s project will accomplish this.

Site
It is understood that the buildings would cause no negative impact. The idea is to reverse the trend of land degradation and invite nature’s functions into a healthy interface with people and buildings.

Energy
A living building relies on current solar income. The building’s energy needs would be supplied by on-site renewable energy on a net annual basis

Materials
Those used will be safe, healthy and responsible for all species.

Water

A Living Building is water independent. The plan is for 100 percent of VanDusen’s occupants’ water use to come from captured precipitation or reused water that is appropriately purified without the use of chemicals. Water would be cleaned using juncos, iris and carex grown in the garden.

Indoor Quality

Healthy for all people – the design will focus on the major conditions that must be present for a healthy interior environment to occur.

Beauty & Inspiration
A Living Building Tells a Story. As a society we are often surrounded by ugly and inhumane physical environments. This project will contain design features intended solely for human delight and the celebration of culture, spirit and place appropriate to the function of the building.

perspective main entrance

conceptual master plan for VanDusen Botanical Gardens

for more information please visit:
busby perkins + will
vandusen botanical gardens

The Weekly Green

Progressive product of the week

60 BAG - Biodegradable shopping bag in 60 days
PRODUCT PROFILE:
The 60 bag offers retailers an option to the bulky plastic and highly manufactured paper bags. The bag comes in many sizes and can be ordered to include the customers logo. The creative minds behind this project are product designer Katarzyna Okinczyc and photographer Remigiusz Truchanowicz. The designers goal is to offer retailers a truly ecological alternative to the traditional retail bag.
MATERIAL:
Non-woven, flax-viscose fabric, produced with flax fiber from industrial waste. The bag product can be composted or safely burnt reducing costly recycling processes.

60BAG has received a honorable mention at the Green Dot Awards

The Weekly Green

I think it would be a great injustice to my readers if I published a Weekly Green post this month and left out the grand opening of New York's first Green Depot. While Home Depot is laying off workers Green Depot is adding new employees to its roster. The green building supply store, which already has 15 locations, opened its doors to the public this month in New York City. Green Depot will contain the city's first and only zero-VOC paint bar, a resource and design center and a 3,000 square foot showroom.

Architecture firm Mapos LLC designed the space and anticipates LEED-platinum certification.

Green Depot's new location was previously home to the studios of artists Mark Rothko, Fernand Leger, and author William Burroughs.

images courtesy of Inhabitat

What is Green?
The Icon System
Green depot's icon system is designed to identify at a glance what constitutes a "green" product.

RESPONSIBLE MANUFACTURING
DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN JOBS
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
WORKER PROTECTION
TRUTHFUL MARKETING

LOW CARBON FOOTPRINT
LOCAL BUSINESS STIMULANT

ENERGY-CONSERVING DESIGN
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE
DAYLIGHTING
LOCAL

RECYCLED, RECLAIMED, REUSED
RAPIDLY RENEWABLE
PROTECTED/STEWARDED
NON-POLLUTING
DURABLE
WATER SAVER
WASTE REDUCER

NON-TOXIC
NON-ALLERGENIC
NO OR VERY LOW VOCs
NO COMBUSTION GASSES
NO PARTICULATES
MOLD FIGHTER
AIR PURIFIER
SOUND INSULATOR

For more information please visit their website www.greendepot.com

Restoring Balance

I am continually amazed and inspired at the virility of plant material with  its ability to grow in the most uninhabitable places and thrive. Plant life improves our lives on so many levels and has now come to clean up after us in the form of phytoremediation. This process takes advantage of a plants' natural ability to absorb, accumulate, or metabolize contaminants from the soil or other media in which it grows. It has shown it is particularly effective in the clean up of pesticides, metals, crude oil and contaminants that leak from landfill sites.

When the plants have absorbed and accumulated contaminants, they can be harvested and discarded. If organic chemical contaminants are degraded into molecules like water and carbon dioxide, the plants may not require any special method of disposal. Controlled incineration is the most common method used to dispose of plants that have absorbed large amounts of contamination. For plants that have absorbed metals, controlled incineration produces ashes with a high metal content. Researchers are working on methods to recover the original metals from these ashes. Since phytoremediation is a technology still in the early stages of development, many disposal and metal recovery methods are still being explored. These methods include sun-drying and composting.

Common vegetation used for phytoremediation in North America and their targets.

Alnus glutinosa (Black alder) Target = Bitumen and tar
Festuca rubra (Red Fescue) Target = Crude Oil
Panicum virgatum (Switchgrass) Target = Pyrene
Lolium multiflorum (Annual ryegrass) Target = Diesel

Images courtesy of Josh Jackson

In order for a technology to be sustainable, it should be economically viable and environmentally compatible. Phytoremediation uses the existing capabilities of plants and the systems they support to clean up soil and water. It is more cost-effective than traditional remediation methods for contaminated soil, which involve digging up the entire contaminated area and taking it away to another location for chemical treatment, incineration, or burial. With these advantages the process does come without its drawbacks. Depending on the concentration of contaminants in the soil the process can take upwards of 5-15 years to fully remediate a given piece of land. Phytoremediation works best when the contamination is within reach of the plant roots, typically three to six feet underground for herbaceous plants and 10 to 15 feet for trees. The fact is phytoremediation takes less labour and does not disturb the natural surroundings of the contamination site. Although this style of soil remediation takes time, it is a good way to make use of naturally existing resources.