freiland-wp-vfi

The upcom­ing weeks and months, sup­port­ed by rec­om­men­da­tions from sci­en­tists to nar­row down the effects from the new COVID-19 virus, should be used to under­stand how much poten­tial there is to real­ly become part of a crit­i­cal mass which wants to con­tribute to make the city of the future a more resilient, a more cul­ture ‑based and — most of all — a more life-affirm­ing environment. 

Food pro­duc­tion in green­hous­es has a long tra­di­tion. New tech­nolo­gies give the oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op this kind build­ing type. The devel­op­ment of alter­na­tive cul­ti­va­tion meth­ods, com­pare­able to the inven­tion of the ele­va­tor for sky­scrap­ers, lead to a new build­ing typol­o­gy – the ver­ti­cal farm.

Design­ing and devel­op­ing the city of the future needs a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion. By now this chal­lenge no longer can be applied only to archi­tects or urban plan­ners. The grow­ing world pop­u­la­tion implies to rethink cities from scratch. 

We under­stand the ver­ti­cal farm as a struc­tur­al ele­ment of the city. This new build­ing typol­o­gy car­ries the poten­tial to rearrange lin­ear mate­r­i­al- and ener­gy flows into cir­cu­la­to­ry ones. This intrin­si­cal­ly leads to an increase of the resilience of urban centres.