SkyFarm

In the coming years 70% of the population will live in cities. Skyscrapers are a solution to densify cities in order to save urban soil and public budgets for city services, but in this scenario only a small percentage of the urban population will have access to a healthy eating. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use. Urban agriculture arises as a solution that provides with healthy food without compromising the environment. But how to achieve this when cities have to deal also with polluted air and water resources? how to get a sustainable life inside a 21 century skyscraper community? How can we do to transfer the knowledge of producing fresh natural food to the next generations?

Skyfarm is one possible answer to achieve these goals by allowing people to grow healthy and organic food inside a vertical city, and also being a sustainable and useful infrastructure that will also be a public space.

SkyFarm will use the latest technology on urban farming solutions, it will be a sustainable vertical hydroponic farming facility, not only economically and ecologically but also socially. We want to create a new kind of indoor public space, a topographic landscape, that seeks to achieve a sense of belonging on its users and that is able to build a local identity for the community.

Skyfarm will not only provide people with healthy food and be the building public plaza but will also be an education facility that will show up the production process, to transfer the knowledge in order to raise awareness and replicate in other interior building spaces.

The creative concept of the project originates from design guidelines and program inputs, following a logical development, from analyzing the situation context to its possible materialities and assembly. Process, form and structure follow these premises, resulting on a design that reacts to its particular situation and program requirements. The main challenge was to combine the best plaza usability with a maximum possible farm facility area.

To achieve this, we propose a public indoor landscape, an ethereal topography that host inside it the farm facility. This topography is the result of the two main program requirements: first, the need of a restricted access and a hygrothermic controlled area, and second, an open and welcoming public space. As a result, the atrium floor rises in the areas where the farm needs room, and it descends in areas where a path connection is needed. This translucent topography will show up how vegetables are produced, and also will connect all the levels in a public path, generating social areas and meeting points.