As metropolitan populations increase it's becoming all the more imperative that cities begin to adopt urban farming practices to feed everyone economically. The Farm{air} concept by Jorge E. Mutis recognizes the difficulty of squeezing horticultural infrastructure into the already dense downtown fabric, so it proposes launching greenhouses into the sky.
This airborne agrarian environment would essentially be made possible by aeroponics technology, keeping plantation bubbles floating above their grounded 'Docs' with helium. The inflated capsules would be assembled from lightweight ETFE panels and fiberglass, and be easily drawn down to the earth for cultivation and harvesting.
Farm{air} would foster crops above the exhaust and the shade of the city, remaining accessible to the consumer base below. This imaginative entry in the Center for Urban Farming Competition represents a new type of ethereal architecture.
Helium-Filled Farmchitecture
The Farm{air} Concept Relocates Agricultural Infrastructure Up
Trend Themes
1. Urban Farming - The rise of urban populations necessitates the need for alternative farming solutions that focus on technology to provide food sources.
2. Aeroponics Technology - The use of aeroponics technology provides an innovative way to cultivate crops and provides an opportunity to solve land scarcity problems in the agricultural industry.
3. Vertical Farming - Vertical farming with the use of helium-filled structures allows for new opportunities to farm crops in urban areas and provides a sustainable solution that can produce food year-round.
Industry Implications
1. Agriculture - The use of aeroponics technology and vertical farming structures can revolutionize traditional farming methods by producing more food with less space and resources.
2. Construction - The creation of helium-filled structures for farming and other purposes allows for new opportunities in both architecture and construction to design and build sustainable structures that can defy gravity.
3. Technology - The adoption of new technologies such as aeroponics, robotics and IoT devices to power urban farming initiatives could provide the agriculture industry with new avenues to explore in terms of optimizing crop growth and yield.