Aqua Farming

AQUAFARMING

How can farming develop a rural zone?!

Sky Farm / VRAP

The Book of Burial, The Book on Agriculture and Exploitation of the Works of Nature. The history of traditional rural settlements in China demonstrates how Chinese agricultural techniques have evolved. These traditional rural construction works, led by small-scale peasant economies, are multi-field and trans-scale projects that have admirably integrated geography, irrigation works and agriculture. This type of production-promoting compound construction has captured our attention and we have dubbed it “agritectonic”.

In late 2015, Vernacular Research and Practice (VRAP) began to apply the concept of agri-tectonic to a number of micro-projects. With “agriculture inclusive urbanism”, a means to realize urban renewal, we try to find the possibility of agriculture feeding cities by designing an experimental model. “Sky Farm”, located in a village in Nantou in Shenzhen, is one of these projects that emphasizes production-promoting compound public space in an urban village.

In Shenzhen, around 10 percent of the land is covered by urban villages that accommodate nearly 50 percent of the city’s population. These urban villages exist as a special form in urban space where small-scale peasant economy is mixed with small-scale industries and where constructions are designed to potentially be inte-grated closely with local settlements. For urban villages that lack public space, Sky Farm is an iterative product that can transform cheap residential space into effective production space and unique consumer space, which is why Sky Farm is so suitable for the new urban village economy.

At a reasonable cost, Sky Farm can provide a highly productive space and thus help achieve the maximum promotion effect possible. PVC, easy to obtain in urban villages, has been chosen as the main material. Also, a standardized structure featuring convenient dismantling and transportation processes has been applied so that the device can be built even by ordinary people. On four sides of the 
device are farming nets for climbing vines with relatively large meshes to make space for plants and fruits while an anti-bird net is placed on the top for fruit protection and rain water collection.

Through a low-pressure water pump, “nutrient water with fish excrement” from those black boxes can be recycled to water and fertilize the plants. In this manner, a Sky Farm covering 400 square meters operates with extremely low cost, land occupation and maintenance. It is estimated that in a summer, Sky Farm is able to collect 300 tons of rain water, breed more than 200 fish and produce more than 200 jin (400 kilograms) of vegetables or fruits (cucumber has been taken as a test example).Sky farm, with its treillage capable of resizing as required, can be built on rooftops, in streets or in any availa-ble space that’s larger than 1.5 square meters, making it a veritable “mobile farm”. As for the structure of this device, its lower part is designed to leave maximum space for public use while its upper part opens maximum space for plant proliferation.

These Floating Farms Could Be Key to Feeding Future Populations

The Barcelona firm’s design comprises a multi-level agricultural barge that can be constructed, pushed out to sea, and left to work mostly on its own. The farm is designed to operate on three levels: a bottom level containing wave barriers, an aquaculture fish farm, a slaughterhouse, a packing facility and desalination plant; a second tier for hydroponic and aeroponic food production; and a rooftop level featuring skylights to let in light and photovoltaics to provide the energy required to power everything.

At 656 by 1,150 feet , each level is approximately 750,000 square feet - enough room to grow up to 8.1 tons of vegetables and 1.7 tons of fish per year. The architects estimate that this would cover the project’s expenses within 10 years. And since the farms are modular, a few or many of these structures could be grouped together to provide enough food for entire communities, especially those located in areas without arable land, or with a population so large it overwhelms its food supply capabilities. And unlike other forward-thinking agricultural techniques like urban farming, it spares valuable land space for other types of construction.

As well as making the farming process autonomous, putting the structures on top of the water allows the farms to adapt to rising water levels and avoid flooding issues common to traditional agricultural techniques. While this strategy may seem outlandish to the uninitiated, it actually has a long and successful pedigree, having been employed for centuries by Bengali farmers to react to dramatic changes in water level during flood seasons. The farmers construct beds in lakes and rivers using several layers of bamboo and water hyacinth, fill them with semi-decomposed aquatic plants and then seed. The beds are tethered to the lakebed to prevent them from floating away. This has resulted in production rates up to 10 times more fruitful than neighboring land-based practices.

However, the true innovation of the Smart Floating Farms project is taking non-traditional farming techniques and combining them with already-existing technologies. The world population is predicted to grow from 6.9 billion in 2010 to 8.3 billion in 2030 and to 9.1 billion in 2050. By 2030, food demand is predicted to increase by 50% (70% by 2050). The main challenge facing the agricultural sector is not so much growing 70% more food in 40 years, but making 70% more food available on the plate, and to react to these daunting figures, new agricultural techniques must be developed.

As the architects acknowledge in their design statement, the project “is not meant to solve all of humanity’s hunger problems or to replace existing traditional agriculture. The driver behind the project is to open a new initiative which can be complementary and compatible with other existing production methods in order to help reduce food risk associated problems in different areas of the globe.” One project alone will not save the world, but embracing the technologies available to us is a great start towards tackling these issues. If only it were as easy as the touch of a button.

The site that we chose:

Reference: https://www.archdaily.com/893174/sky-farm-vrap

              https://www.archdaily.com/773962/are-floating-farms-the-solution-to-our-agricultural-needs

Worked by: Arselda Brahimi 

Ketjona Lleshaj