Urban ver­ti­cal farm­ing is being dis­cussed more and more inten­sive­ly as part of the trans­for­ma­tion of cities towards resilience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Plant fac­to­ries are being built around the world, green­hous­es are being turned into high-tech pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties and vacant build­ings are being revi­tal­ized for indoor food pro­duc­tion. These projects can be found in high den­si­ty in Japan, Sin­ga­pore and on the east and west coasts of the Unit­ed States.

The ver­ti­cal farm as a build­ing typol­o­gy, how­ev­er, is an Aus­tri­an inven­tion and took the form of a true pio­neer­ing achieve­ment half a cen­tu­ry ago.
After the real­iza­tion of numer­ous ver­ti­cal farms in Aus­tria, Europe, over­seas and Asia, the com­pa­ny Ruth­n­er IP came to a rapid end with the death of the inven­tor Oth­mar Ruth­n­er. A few years ago, the ver­ti­cal farm insti­tute made con­tact with the then man­ag­ing direc­tor and son of Oth­mar Ruth­n­er, Oswald, and began to process and dig­i­tize the holdings.

By repro­cess­ing them, the under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges of indoor food pro­duc­tion can be increased, lessons can be learned from “tri­al and error” and knowl­edge can be trans­ferred into the 21st century.