Locavoracious: Envisioning the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York City by Jacob Russo

LOCAVORACIOUS Envisioning the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York City

by Jacob Russo

Acknowledgements I cannot express enough thanks to my thesis advisors for their continued support and encouragement throughout this project: Dale Clifford; Christine Mondor; and Azizan Aziz. I offer my sincere appreciation for the learning opportunities provided by my committee. My completion of this project could not have been accomplished without the support of my other professors: Dana Cupkova; Kai Gutschow; Jonathan Kline. Finally, to my parents, Joe and Marilyn, who support me and always encourage me to think creatively: my deepest gratitude.

LOCAVORACIOUS lo·ca·vore /ˈlōkəˌvôr/ noun 1. a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food vo·ra·cious /vəˈrāSHəs/ adjective 1. wanting or devouring great quantities of food.

Abstract The integration of an agriculturally productive landscape in urban spaces can radically change the way we consider food production and consumption in megacities and allow them to become “locavoracious”. The idea of continuous productive urban landscapes is not new; it is the notion that urban agriculture can contribute to more sustainable and resilient food systems while also benefitting the urban realm. This thesis aims to address the possibility of “farming” in multiple planes of the built environment—not only ground or roof but also façade—creating a new dynamic landscape for urban food production. A megacity is an urban agglomeration with over ten million residents. In 1950, there were only two: New York City and Tokyo. Today, there are 23 and by 2050 there will be 37. A major driver of this thesis is to reconsider how megacities of today and the future should produce and consume their food. The design strategy, located in Stuyvesant Town, Manhattan, attempts to create a multidimensional landscape for agricultural production that bridges the gap between three major components of urban architectural tectonics: the façade, the roof, and the ground. The integration of these key components is essential to creating an urban topography that maximizes available growing space and seamlessly blends infrastructures and flows. The goal is to use Stuyvesant Town as a proof of concept. Seeing as it has abundant open space and available, essentially homogenous, rooftop space, it will inform the development of future productive landscapes that encompass larger areas and even whole cities. Ideally, the principles and tectonic strategies envisioned for Stuyvesant Town will be applicable to other sites and will become a new paradigm for the creation of cities.

Contents

Why Should I Care?

1-12

What Are They Doing?

13-28

Stuyvesant Town

29-42

Locavoracious

43-93

Bibliography

94-99

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

A Brief History of Ag

? 7

The practice of agriculture is over 9,000 years old and has developed over thousands of years from early cultivation to the huge agribusiness complex of today. Some of the earliest sites of planned sowing and harvesting of plants included the Fertile Crescent of India, Western Asia, and Egypt (1). Agriculture was propelled into the machine age in the 18th C. with the invention of the threshing machine (2), used to separate grain from stalks and husks. Horse drawn harvesters were introduced in the 1830s, which allowed for faster harvesting. Horses were later replaced by steam traction engines (4). The early 20th C. brought the introduction of the self-propelled harvester (5,6), allowing for greater efficiency and mobility. The modern combine (7) is an ideal harvester, effectively perfecting the process of earlier harvesters (combining reaping, threshing, and winnowing into a single process). The modern agricultural process has been honed over hundreds and thousands of years, but what does the future hold? Should agriculture continue to exist in the same form as it has for so long? How we obtain our food is heavily reliant on how we live. For centuries we lived in close proximity to acres upon acres of arable land but that is no longer the case. Today, there are more people living in urban areas than in rural areas. By 2050, the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban population is expected to increase to 6.3 billion people. With so many people living in cities, what will our combines do (8)? We must begin to think of a new paradigm for agriculture. Why should we be confined to the ground plane? If we are to live in cities we must be able to live sustainably. Thus, the city is our new landscape--our new field. And our new combine? We may not currently have the machines avaiable to harvest our vertical and rooftop farms, but we can start by doing it ourselves. The metropolis is the Fertile Crescent of the 21st century. So let us begin how they began: by hand. 2

Rise of the Megacity A megacity is an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;urban agglomerationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; with over 10 million residents. In 1950, the world had only two of them: New York City and Tokyo.

1950

In 2012, global megactities reached a total of 23 including Sao Paolo, Lagos, Mexico City, Dhaka, and Shenzhen.

2012

2025 The United Nations predicts that by 2025 the world will host nine new megacities in Asia, making 37 total. 8 out of the 9 will be in the developing world. This will have a huge impact on how these cities obtain their food. With land increasingly being used to build on, where will the populations of these megacities grow their food? The rising sizes and populations of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cities is a major incentive to start to integrate agriculture with urban life. 3

Why Did They Care?

A LOOK AT SOME OF HISTORY’S UNBUILT URBAN VISIONS AND THE FEARS THAT BEGOT THEM Garden City, 1902, Ebenezer Howard

POLLUTED AIR

Tokyo Bay, 1960, Kenzo Tange

FOREIGN INVASION

Plug-In City, 1964, Archigram Broadacre City, 1934, FLW

SLUMS + OVERCROWDING WASTE OF RESOURCES

‘Throughout history, architects and planners have dreamed of “better” and different cities--more flexible, more controllable, more defensible, more efficient, more monumental, more organic, taller, denser, sparser or greener. With every plan, radical visions were proposed, ones that embodied not only the desires but also, and more often, the fears and anxieties of their time.... A better city for the future always seems to imply a redefined relationship to “nature” and the environment, a relationship whose form--whether it requires sprawl to embrace wilderness or compression to minimize impact--depends on the broader ideology it embodies.’ -Amale Andraos

Dome Over Manhattan, 1960, Buckminster Fuller

Agricultural City, 1960, Kisho Kurokawa

DISORGANIZED TRAFFIC

SPRAWL

Brasilia, 1957, Lucio Costa

URBAN CHAOS

Radiant City, 1935, Le Corb

INFLEXIBILITY

Stuyvesant Town fits into this framework as it too was a product of the fears and anxieties of its time. The neighborhood was created in the 1940s so returning WWII veterans could have a peaceful place to live within the urban chaos and inflexibility of the urban condition of New York City at the time. The plot of land, which was filled with slums + overcrowding, was effectively wiped clean and resurrected as the neighborhood that stands today.

The island of Manhattan has an area of just under 34 square miles and a population of about 1.6 million people. The average American eats almost 1 ton of food per year, which for Manhattan means 1.6 million tons of food every year. The amount of land required to produce Manhattan’s diet is a wopping 5,065.5 square miles (or 3,241,920 acres)--150 times the land area of the island itself. Even if all the buildings in Manhattan used their rooftops to produce food, there would still be a “food layer” of 656 feet on top of every building. So the question is: WHAT CAN WE HOPE TO DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE? There is no single answer but we can start by re-examining the way we relate to food in the city.

Land area needed to feed Manhattan by current U.S. production efficiecy standards.

x150 6

33.77 sq mi

Manhattan’s Hungry!

the breakdown other veg. crops

vegetables

eggs

poultry pulses alcoholic bevs. fruits

starchy roots

stimulants

oilcrops

meats

23 miles

STRATOSPHERE The majority of the land used to produce food for Manhattanites is dedicated to vegetable products, either for direct human consumption or for feedstock. Almost as much land is necessary for fruits and starchy roots, and less than a fifth of the land is dedicated to meats, poultry, eggs, oilcrops, stimulants, pulses and alcoholic bevereages..

If all that land was stacked up into one thin tower, it would be approximately 23 miles high, reaching all the way into the Earth’s stratosphere--probably not the best idea. So, maybe Manhattanites cannot grow all of their necessary food “on-site” but we can begin to develop a better relationship to our food and the processes by which we acquire it--a more visible process that can in some cases be closer to home.

The Vision

“gridlocked”

impervious

adaptable

pervious

currently, we have a SYSTEM OF CONSUMPTION fed by independent sources

we must strive for a SYSTEM OF PRODUCTION with internal interdependencies 8

? food waste

food2energy

water waste

the REALITY: concrete jungle

clean water

the VISION: productive landscape

Farm the City

concrete jungle access to nature

habitable space

privacy

The idea of bringing the farm to the city is on the forefront of sustainability discussions today. It is the product of concern for how we get our food and the biophilia effect--the manifestation of the desire to promote the so-called instinctive bond between humans and other organisms. This project aims to tackle this issue in relation to habitable space, access to nature, and privacy. All three are closely connected to the idea of urban agriculture and can play a role in defining a new paradigm for not only bringing the farm to the city, but to our home within the city.

city in the park

biophilia effect

Below is a map showing some of the closest traditional produce farms to New York City. In terms of milage, they are not very far but if you consider what it takes to get the food to the city, it could be argued that it is too far. What will it take to bring the farm to the city?

com p

C L OT SH IE N G t os

L O O P gr

har

l el

F SE O CU O RI T DY

LF O O C AO LD

A big question on the radar today is how can we start to live in a way that promotes recycling and reuse and eliminate our waste by taking advantage of its benefits and making it work for us? This is the closed loop way of life. But how do we achieve it? How can we successfully combine outdoorliving in an urban environment with local food production? How do we achieve true food security? This thesis aims to understand what it takes to live this way in terms of space, systems, social dynamics, politics, economics, infrastructure and the urban realm. In terms of agriculture, growing, harvesting, selling and composting are among some of the many activities involved in the complex process of closing the loop. It will be essential to consider factors of climate, context and scale. The hope is that through this investigation, using Stuyvesant Town as a proof of concept, a new paradigm will emerge for urban agriculture locally and globally.

OL UI T V D OI ON RG

st ve

Closing the Loop

WHAT ARE THEY DOING?

PF1, NYC (2008) Public Farm One was the 2008 winner of the Young Architects Program competition to design a temporary structure for PS1 MoMA’s summer Warm-Up music festival in Brooklyn, NY. Work Architecture Company, led by Dan Wood and Amale Andraos, came up with idea for an urban farm concept built with inexpensive and sustainable materials that could be recycled after the festival. The farm “landsacape” was made from cardboard tubes that formed a continuous surface creating multiple zones of activity including swings, fans, sound effects, innovative seating areas, and a refreshing pool at its center, as an Urban Beach. The tubes serve as planters, preassembled in a “daisy” pattern of six tubes arranged in a hexagon around a seventh central tube. The central tube alternates either as a “picking hole” to access the crops or a structural column, extending to the ground. (http://work.ac/pf-1/, http://www.archdaily.com/708/ps1-young-architects-program-2008-work-architecture-company/)

PLANTING STRATEGY 51 varieties of herbs, fruit and vegetables were selected to thrive in the urban environment and planted to bloom in succession throughout the summer. The plants were also organized by the “daisy pattern,” each daisy planted with a single species.

POWER P.F.1 was completely off-grid. The solar power system consisted of an array of eighteen photovoltaic modules to power all of P.F.1’s power loads — videos screens, speakers, lights, cell phone chargers and all of the irrigation pumps. IRRIGATION A drip irrigation system was designed to deliver a controlled amount of water to each planter-tube, fed by a cistern which collected more than 6,000 gallons of rainwater over the course of the summer.

What Are They Doing?

UF @ Pasona, Tokyo Urban Farm at Pasona Tokyo Headquarters is a nine story high, 215,000 square foot corporate office building for a Japanese recruitment company, Pasona Group, located in downtown Tokyo. It is a major renovation project consisting of a double skinned green facade, offices, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden and most notably, urban farming facilities integrated within the building. The green space totals over 43,000 square feet with 200 species including fruits, vegetables and rice that are harvested, prepared and served at the cafeterias within the building. It is the largest and most direct farm-to-table of its kind ever realized inside an office building in Japan.

(http://konodesigns.com/portfolio/Urban-Farm/)

Vertical Shelves

Vertical Posts

Hydroponics

Collaboration

FACADE AND BALCONIES The double-skin green facade features seasonal flowers and orange trees planted within the 3â&#x20AC;&#x2122; deep balconies. Partially relying on natural exterior climate, these plants create a living green wall and a dynamic identity to the public. This was a significant loss to the net rentable area for a commercial office. However, Pasona believed in the benefits of urban farm and green space to engage the public and to provide better workspace for their employees. The balconies also help shade and insulate the interiors while providing fresh air with operable windows, a practical feature not only rare for a mid rise commercial building but also helps reduce heating and cooling loads of the building during moderate climate. The entire facade is then wrapped with deep grid of fins, creating further depth, volume and orders to the organic green wall.

What Are They Doing?

Windowfarms Windowfarms is a Brooklyn-based social enterprise that helps city dwellers around the world grow their own fresh food. Windowfarms makes vertical indoor food gardens that optimize the conditions of windows for year-round indoor growing of greens, herbs, and small vegetables. Their mission is to revive agricultural biodiversity and to connect eaters with sustainable food production for a healthier future. Windowfarms began as an experiment developing environmental solutions through open source collaboration and has evolved into a social enterprise that organically fulfills a mission toward healthier people and a healthier planet. Through cultivation of plants, Windowfarmers gain experience with a nearly-lost fundamental human art and get a microcosmic view of the food system. They develop a stake in the conversation, and come up with new ideas for how to take care of ourselves and our planet in troubled times. ( h t t p : / / w w w. w i n d o w f a r m s . c o m / a b o u t - t h e - c o m p a n y / )

ESTIMATED YIELD = 400LB/YR/WINDOW

A reservoir at the bottom of every water infused with nutrients that system cycles the liquid nutrients umn of plants for a week or two simple pump and an easy-to-use

Windowfarm holds plants love. The through each colat a time using a mechanical timer.

DIY Version 2: Standing 3-Bottle DIY Version 3: Hanging 2-Column Airlift Windowfarm Organic-Ready Windowfarm

What Are They Doing?

Windowfarms are designed to do a better job of using organic nutrients than other hydroponic systems. Organic nutrients can be tricky to use — organics tend to separate into a sludge over time at the bottom of their reservoirs and to clog water pumps. Windowfarms are designed to keep the organic sediment circulating through your plants’ roots. By using air pumps, with no mechanical parts to clog, the systems are far less subject to pump failure, and you won’t spend hours every week cleaning your water pump. The electric air pump is super efficient and is turned on only some of the time. Most hydroponic systems use both a water pump to regulate water flow and an air pump to aerate the water. A windowfarm uses only one — the far more energy efficient air pump — to do the work of both pumps. Bubbles from the air pump carry little pockets of water as they travel up a rigid tube spine and release the water onto the plant’s roots. The air pump turns on only when the timer flips it on. For most plant and microclimate combinations, 15 minutes every hour or two is more than enough.

Chocolate Factory, Dublin The Chocolate Factory is located in the old Williams & Woods building, in the Northern Centre part of Dublin. Historically, the famous Toblerone chocolate bars were produced here. After production of the pyramid shaped chocolate moved elsewhere, the building deteriorated and decayed. After years of neglect, the Williams & Woods building — the first concrete building in the city — is being rejuvenated to become a creative hub comprised of spaces for design, art, music, dance, photography and many other creative fields for, spawning the growth of a strong Chocolate Factory community. Along with these workspaces, The Chocolate Factory will house a hostel, a cafe and restaurant, an art gallery and a venue space for events and hire. On the roof, a completely modular farm is being developed using only recycled materials and based on the concept of composting. (http://popupcity.net/series/bloggers-in-residence/modular-urban-rooftop-farm-uses-only-recycled-materials/)

FEATURES Despite the relatively small size of the roof, the farm feels full and complete, hosting all elements of a classic farm, ranging from old-school chicken coops made from recycled wooden frames, to mushroom beds, composting planters made of repurposed blue barrels, a beehive and futuristic aquaponic installations. Striped mattresses are set up to create vertical growing units and wooden crates form beds for veggies.

OUTREACH Besides producing and selling the actual produce, the rooftop farm organizes workshops and education projects. By inviting people to the roof, they want to make people aware of the huge potential of urban farming that could generate up to 20 percent of Dublin’s food demand, according to the farmer.

What Are They Doing?

Lufa Farms, Montreal “Our vision is a city of rooftop farms.”

Lufa Farms is an agricultural and technology company located in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville neighborhood of Montreal, Quebec, specializing in new agricultural technologies in urban zones. Covering an area of 31,000 square feet, Lufa Farms produces vegetables year-round for about 2,000 people in the greater Montreal area. The farms produce forty varieties of vegetables grown without synthetic pesticides, capturing rainwater, and recirculating irrigation water. The company delivers more than 2,000 baskets per week, or about 700 pounds of produce per day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lufa_Farms)

locally grown

Lufa Farms uses hydroponic cultivation methods, which allow them to grow using a fraction of the water needed in conventional field agriculture. Since they recirculate 100% of irrigation water, their greenhouses don’t load the municipal drainage system and the plant nutrients don’t end up in lakes and rivers. They release beneficial insects into the greenhouse to combat crop-harming pests. Ladybugs are introduced to help control aphids that damage plants by feeding on their sap. They use a wide range of insects to combat pests, and have even developed biocontrol software to ensure healthy, great-tasting produce for their customers. At Lufa Farms, they use responsible and sustainable agricultural practices and have chosen to use various hydroponic cultivation methods in order to minimize their environmental impact, even though the methods are not eligible for organic certification.

Farming on rooftops is way to take back arable land lost to development. It simulatenously gives urban residents access to local produce that they would otherwise have imported from dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of miles away.

Every week, they pick a variety of fresh seasonal and greenhouse-grown produce for your basket. You can customize your order by removing any items that don’t suit you and adding as many additional à la carte items as you’d like.

What Are They Doing?

Lufa decided to build urban rooftop greenhouses in large part because of the massive energy savings associated with growing on city rooftops. Though they do use natural gas to heat on cold nights in the winter, their rooftop greenhouses use considerably less than similar ground-level greenhouses. They offset all of their natural gas consumption by never refrigerating their produce and by growing near their urban customers rather than shipping the produce to cities hundreds of miles away. At Lufa, they compost their organic waste to produce a wonderfully nutritious, 100% local, 100% vegan compost that revitalizes Montreal gardens and green spaces. They have decided to compost their organic waste on-site using an in-vessel rotating drum located in the basement of their building.

Brooklyn Grange, NYC Claimed to be the largest urban rooftop farm in the world, Brooklyn Grange serves the local community with real organically produced vegetables and fruits. With over two acres of rooftop under cultivation in Brooklyn and Queens, Brooklyn Grange has sold over 40,000 lbs of veggies to restaurants, CSA members and the public via weekly farm stands. ut the farm has expanded beyond its mission to grow vegetables — it currently keeps egg-laying chickens and it has launched a commercial apiary, cultivating bees for their honey. Brooklyn, by the way, could be considered the international capital of urban farming. (http://popupcity.net/green/top-5-ofthe-greatest-urban-rooftop-farms/)

THE BROOKLYN NAVY YARD: Farm on Roof of Building #3

37-18 NORTHERN BLVD: Flagship Farm

THE APIARY: New York City’s Largest Bee Yard

THE PRODUCE

salad mixes

tomatoes

peppers

kale

herbs

seasonal veges

Brooklyn Grange’s farmers manage their rooftop farms with great care and adhere to organic standards. They divert organic waste from dozens of different channels to create compost which continuously replenishes and brings fresh biodiversity to their soil. They are particularly proud of their crisp, colorful, ever-evolving salad mixes and their sweet heirloom tomatoes in the peak of the summer season and their hens are particularly proud of their big, orange-yolked eggs.

ESTIMATED YIELD = 20,000LB/ACRE

When they set out to sion was to create a licious vegetables for They currently have

grow food on the rooftops and unused spaces of New York City, their misfiscally sustainable model for urban agriculture and to produce healthy, detheir local community while doing the ecosystem a few favors as well. over two acres of rooftops under cultivation in Brooklyn and Queens. What Are They Doing?

The CPUL City CONTINUOUS PRODUCTIVE URBAN LANDSCAPES “The CPUL City concept proposes that urban agriculture can contribute to more sustainable and resilient food systems while also benefitting the urban realm. Such a physical and environmental design strategy also provides a strategic framework for the theoretical and practical exploration of ways to implement such landscapes within contemporary urban design. Within the CPUL concept, urban agriculture refers in the main to fruit and vegetable production, as this provides the highest yields per square metre of urban ground. Key features of CPUL are outdoor spaces for food growing, shared leisure and commerce, natural habitats, non-vehicular circulation routes and ecological corridors. Its network connects existing open urban spaces, maintaining and, in some cases, modifying their current uses....”

“...urban agriculture should be integrated into city-wide networks of open space, providing a coherent and multifunctional landscape.... We suggest that the benefits are significant enough to consider CPUL as an essential sustainable urban infrastructure.” (Bohn&Viljoen) 20

What Are They Doing?

“The CPUL City concept recognizes that each city and each site will present a unique set of conditions and competing pressures to inform the final shape and extent of its productive landscapes. It envisages a ‘mixed economy’ of growers practising urban agriculture projects for the community and by the community, smale-scale and large-scale, commercial and communal. Broadly speaking, commercial-scale production will be necessary if urban agriculture is to have a quantifiable impact on food production, whilst personalised production is very significant from a social and behavior change perspective. It is generally acknowledged that urban agriculture will not meet all of a city’s food needs., and any systematic review of urban food systems needs to consider relationships between a city, its local region and beyond.” ALMERE OOSTERWORLD MVRDV‘s proposal for an urban development in Almere Oosterworld, the Netherlands, is a template for a D.I.Y. project that puts power into the hands of neighborhoods and communities.

This development strategy is bottom-up, inclusive and very intuitive to the needs of individuals and their communities. It allows the design to develop organically and over a stretch of time as needs change and neighborhoods grow. MVRDV writes that the proposal “is a revolution in Dutch urban planning as it steps away from governmental dictate and invites organic urban growth in which initiatives are stimulated and inhabitants can create their own neighbourhoods including public green, urban agriculture and roads”. (http://www.archdaily.com/227503/d-i-y-urbanism-almere-oosterworld-mvrdv/)

What Are They Doing?

Vertically Integrated Greenhouse The Vertically Integrated Greenhouse (VIG) is a highly productive, lightweight, modular, climatically responsive vegetable culture system designed to be installed in the curtain wall of a high rise building. The system is achievable with extant technology and draws from modern advances in both hydroponic methods and building design. The design was developed in 2007 by Kiss + Cathcart with Arup, Engineers and Bright Farm Systems. The Vertically Integrated Greenhouse design integrates hydroponic food production into a DSF, for installation on new high-rise buildings and potentially as a retrofit on existing high-rise buildings with adequate southern exposure. A south facing vertical facade at northern latitudes admits a fairly even distribution of sunlight throughout the year. Solar radiation is highest in winter, when produce prices peak. Plants are grown on trays suspended by a simple cable system, and all planting and harvesting occurs at the bottom level. Systems modules can rise as high as 10 or 20 stories each. An adaptive control system alters the angles between rows of plants in the manner of Venetian blind, maximizing solar absorption diurnally and seasonally. ( h t t p : / / w w w. k i s s c a t h c a r t . c o m / i n t e g r a t e d _ a g r i c u l t u r e . h t m l )

What Are They Doing?

Yields: The VIG is modeled on a hypothetical design, the 2020 tower, for a New York City location. To deploy the VIG across a facade 60 m wide for 50 floors of the tower would take 135 modules (2m wide, 1.5m deep and 40m high) producing over 400 tons of crop annually, slightly exceeding the total fresh vegetable consumption of all of the 3,000 tenants occupying those floors. Beyond the value of the produce, energy benefits and human productivity benefits, the ecological value of local food production is substantial. Each of the 135 modules in this system would conserve 300 tons of fresh water per year, avoid up to 3.75 tons of CO2 emissions, and replace 1/10th of a hectare of cropland, reducing habitat impact and agricultural runoff. Finally, no chemical pesticides will be necessary in the VIG. ( h t t p : / / w w w. k i s s c a t h c a r t . c o m / i n t e g r a t e d _ a g r i c u l t u r e . h t m l )

What Are They Doing?

MFO-Park, Zurich The large “park house” is a double-walled construction covered with wire mesh, a “latticework” in the old ornamental gardening style, enveloped by sumptuously sprawling plants and open on three sides. The spacious hall is interrupted by four wire chalices at the rear, a copse in a forest of climbing plants. Four pools of water embedded in the moss carpet reflect the incident light. The double walls’ intermediate spaces are traversed by flights of steps, covered walkways and projecting balconies. At the very top, on the roof, is the sun deck. A precise architectural body emerges, formed by delicate foliage, filled with green light-play and fleeting fragrances, free of purpose and open to all senses. The residential and service buildings in the center of northern Zurich are enhanced by the numerous possible uses of the plaza and “park house”. The facility is suitable for sport and games, for meetings of all kinds, or events such as film screenings, concerts and theatrical performances – all with a baroque backdrop of hedges. The MFO Park, measuring 100 meters long, 34 meters wide and 18 meters high, is the largest pergola in the world. http://www.burckhardtpartner.ch/en/refe r e n c e s / i t e m s / n e w - m f o - p a r k . h t m l

What Are They Doing?

Oasis No. 7, Haus-Rucker-Co Haus-Rucker-Co were a Viennese group founded in 1967 by Laurids Ortner, Günther Zamp Kelp and Klaus Pinter, later joined by Manfred Ortner. Their work explored the performative potential of architecture through installations and happenings using pneumatic structures or prosthetic devices that altered perceptions of space. Such concerns fit with the utopian architectural experiments of the 1960s by groups such as Superstudio, Archizoom, Ant Farm and Coop Himmelblau. Alongside these groups, Haus-Rucker-Co were exploring on the one hand, the potential of architecture as a form of critique, and on the other the possibility of creating designs for technically mediated experimental environments and utopian cities. Taking their cue from the Situationist’s ideas of play as a means of engaging citizens, Haus-RuckerCo created performances where viewers became participants and could influence their own environments, becoming more than just passive onlookers. These installations were usually made from pneumatic structures such as Oase No. 7 (1972), which was created for Documenta 5 in Kassel, Germany.

An inflatable structure emerged from the façade of an existing building creating a space for relaxation and play, of which contemporary echoes can be found in the ‘urban reserves’ of Santiago Cirugeda. The different versions of the Mind Expander series (1967-69), consisted of various helmets that could alter the perceptions of those wearing them, for example the ‘Fly Head’ disoriented the sight and hearing of the wearer to create an entirely new apprehension of reality; it also produced one of their most memorable images. Haus-Rucker-Co’s installations served as a critique of the confined spaces of bourgeois life creating temporary, disposable architecture, whilst their prosthetic devices were designed to enhance sensory experience and highlight the taken-for-granted nature of our senses, seen also in the contemporaneous work of the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark. Contemporary versions of such work can be found in the pneumatic structures favoured by Raumlabor and Exyzt. h t t p : / / w w w. s p a t i a l a g e n c y. n e t / d a t a b a s e / h a u s - r u c k e r - c o

What Are They Doing?

WINDOWFARMS.ORG

TYPOLOGIC ANALYSIS

PASONA URBAN FARM

VERTICALLY INTEGRATED GREENHOUSE

PRECEDENT

CRITERIA

TYP OF STRUCTURE

TENSILE

CANTILEVER

DOUBLE SKIN

SCALE OF STRUCTURE

WINDOW

FACADE

NONE

BUILDING

NONE

YEAR-LONG

SEASONAL

YEAR-LONG

ON THE BUILDING

SCALE OF OCCUPANCY

GROWING SEASON BASED ON ENCLOSURE

MUTABILITY OF STRUCTURE/FORM

SEMI

NONE

SEMI

STRUCTURAL INVOLVEMENT

NONE

MINIMAL

MAXIMUM

EASY

MED

LOW

MED

HIGH

GOOD

EXCELLENT

TO SATISFY AG NEEDS

INTEGRATION OF SYSTEMS

8 MAINTENANCE

AGRICULTURAL VIABILITY

10 YIELD

LOW 400 LB/YR/WIN

11 ECONOMIC VIABILITY 1

GOOD

HIGH 6613 LB/YR/PCL, 400 TON/YR

MED

EXCELLENT $9M-$32M NPV

POOR

TENSILE

WINDOW

NONE

SEASONAL

NONE

EASY

CANTILEVER

FACADE

UNIT

YEAR-LONG

SEMI

MINIMAL

MED

DOUBLE SKIN

VOLUME

BUILDING

FLEXIBLE

MAXIMUM

DIFFICULT

SCAFFOLD PNEUMATIC

LOW

What Are They Doing?

MFO-PARK

the takeaway: new potential

OASIS NO. 7

live and grow in the same space implement a volumetric agricultural system that is flexible, affordable, and easy to maintain SCAFFOLD

PNEUMATIC

VOLUME

FACADE

VOLUME

BUILDING

UNIT

SEASONAL

YEAR-LONG

NONE

FLEXIBLE

MAXIMUM

MINIMAL

DIFFICULT

MED

HIGH

MED

UNKNOWN

HIGH (?)

MED

GOOD (?)

HIGH (?)

EXCELLENT (?)

LOW

GOOD

LOW

POOR

MED

EXCELLENT

MED

GOOD

HIGH

UNKNOWN

HIGH

EXCELLENT

combine tectonic strategies

This chart is an analysis of five precedents, some of which are directly related to agriculture and others of which are currently unrelated but may have certain potentials within the field of urban agriculture. The purpose of the matrix is to try to understand these potentials through the lens of various criteria that are essential to this thesis and begin to juxtapose the precedents, especially those that have been applied to agriculture with those that have not yet. The analysis has led to 3 major takeaways regarding new potential for urban agriculture. The first is that there is the opportunity to live and grow in the same space. This is an important realization because for so long living and growing have been seperate endeavors, but there is the potential for a paradigm shift. The second potential is for the implementation of an agricultural system that is volumetric, which implies that it is occupyable in and of itself. One can occupy oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s living space as well as oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growing space, and by combining these spaces, the growing space is inherently occupied. Flexibility, affordability, and ease of maintenance are key features of this potential. Finally, this analysis shows that no one precedent achieves all the necessary criteria. Thus, it is likely that a combination of tectonic strategies, encompassing both agriculture and architecture, will be necessary to take into account the complexity of the project.

What Are They Doing?

STUYVESANT TOWN

Context Shaping EBENEZER HOWARD

Garden City The goal of the Garden City is to find for our industrial population work at wages of higher purchasing power, and to secure healthier surroundings and more regular employment. To enterprising manufacturers, co-operative societies, architects, engineers, builders, and mechanicians of all kinds, as well as to many engaged in various professions, it is intended to offer a means of securing new and better employment for their capital and talents, while to the agriculturists present on the estate as well as to those who may migrate thither, it is designed to open a new market for their produce close to their doors. Its object is, in short, to raise the standard of health and comfort of all true workers of whatever grade--the means by which these objects are to be achieved being a healthy, natural, and economic combination of town and country life, and this on land owned by the municipality. ( h t t p : / / w w w. l i b r a r y. c o r n e l l . e d u / R e p s / D O C S / h o w a r d . h t m )

RAYMOND HOOD

“Raymond Hood, “A City of Towers,” first published in 1927; diagram of suggested transformations presented as “Proposals for the Solution of New York’s problem of Overcrowding.” Against the 1916 Zoning Law...Hood wanted to “establish a constant ratio between the Volume of Building and street area....” In this way, Hood enlisted the natural greed of the developer -- who invariably wanted to build the largest possible volume, which, under the terms of Hood’s proposal, would coincide with the highest possible tower on the smallest possible site -- in the service of an aesthetic vision: a city of sheer, freestanding needles. But that vision was never realized; officially the proposal would only solve “the problems of light, air and traffic....” (Koolhaas 166)

“Architecture is the business of manufacturing adequate shelter for human activities. My favorite form is the spehere....” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up “Manhattanism is the urbanistic doctrine that suspends irreconcilable differences between mutually exclusive positions; to establish its theorems in the reality of the Grid, it needs a human representative. Only he [Hood] could conceive of the two positions quoted above at the same time without unbearable strains developing in his psyche.” (Koolhaas, 162) 30

Stuyvesant Town

LE CORBUSIER The secret formula of Le Corbusier’s Radiant City: the “City of Panic [Manhattan] ... in the jungle.”

Further tricks of a Paranoid-Critical magician. The Cartesian Rabbit multiplies itself to constitute the Radiant City: Le Corbusier’s antiManhattan unveiled.

Radiant City “Le Corbusier’s task is clear: before he can deliver the city with which he is pregnant, he has to prove that is does not yet exist. To establish the birthright of his brainchild, he has to destroy New York’s credibility, kill the glamorous sparkle of its modernity. From 1920 he fights on two fronts simultaneously: waging a systematic campaign of ridicule and defamation against the American Skyscraper and its natural habitat, Manhattan, while carrying out a parallel operation of actualy designing the anti-Skyscraper and the anti-Manhattan. For Le Corbusier New York’s Skyscrapers are “child’s play,” “an architectural accident.... Imagine a man undergoing a mysterious disturbance of his organic life; the torso remains normal, but his legs become ten or twenty times too long....” Skyscrapers are misshappen “adolescents of the machine age,” “handled nonsensically as the result of a deplorably romantic city ordinance” -- the 1916 Zoning Law.... Le Corbusier’s campaign of denigration is made possible only by the fact that its strategist has never beheld the object of his aggression.... Le Corbusier is a paranoid detective who invents the victims...forges the likeness of the perpetrator and avoids the scene of the crime.... When he finally “introduces” his anti-Skyscraper...both the Manhattan Skyscraper and the jungle become unrecoganizable.... Le Corbusier names the grouping of these Cartesian Skyscrapers implanted in their park -- the remnants of the jungle -- the Radiant City...finally Le Corbusier’s anti-Manhattan. No trace here of New York’s soul-destroying metropolitan wilderness. “You are under the shade of trees. Vast lawns spread all around you. The air is clean and pure; there is hardly any noise....” (Koolhaas 251-256)

ROBERT MOSES Stuyvesant Town “We finally persuaded the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company to undertake the greatest slum clearance project in the country, known as Stuyvesant Town in the heart of the old East Side of Manhattan.... Only the farsightedness, courage, and influence of Frederick H. Ecker, Chairman of the Board of the Metropolitan, brought about this achievement, and it is still a source of astonishment to me that the second-largest corporation in the United States, with endless opportunities for easier investments, ran the gamut of savage mudslinging to risk some sixty-five million dollars on these ventures. I have no doubt that these investments will pan out. The point is that they represent a complete departure from conventional practice.” -Robert Moses (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/01/slums-and-city-planning/306544/)

Stuyvesant Town

Spheres of Influence STUY TOWN TIMELINE

1947: First families move in. Blacks, singles and unmarried couples are excluded.

1950: First black family admitted.

Mid-1980s: Rents average $475 for a one-bedroom.

2001: Some apartments rent at market rate. Some tenants of unregulated apartments pay more than $3,000/month.

2006: Met Life sells Stuy Town-Peter Cooper to Tishman Speyer for $5.4B

}

1943: Robert Moses convinces Met Life to build a complex for veterans returning from WWII.

THE OTHER BIDDERS

? LeFrak Emir of Qatar

Safra

Rothschild

Durst

Simon Glick

Rudin

Roth Church of Eng. Singapore

THE URBAN FOOD SYSTEM

The Urban Food System. Food impacts on more than our personal well being and enjoyment. If we look at it from a sustainable and spatial perspective, we begin to understand the complex nature of its importance for the urban. ENVISIONING THE FUTURE CITY

As cities across the world seek policy guidance and further evidence on the impact of urban agriculture, it is worth noting how rapidly this subject moved from a â&#x20AC;&#x153;fringe interestâ&#x20AC;? into the centre of public attention. While a long established literature documents and advocates urban agriculture in developing countries, the rapid shift of interest in urban agriculture that has taken place in North America, Europe and Australasia, is remarkable. 32

Stuyvesant Town

http://www.field-journal.org/uploads/file/2011%20Volume%204/10%20The%20Edible%20City%20Katrin%20Bohn%20and%20Andre%20Viljoen.pdf

Knock Knock, Who’s There?

http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Stuyvesant-Town-New-York-NY.html

Understanding current demographics of Stuy Town is important in helping to determine how urban agriculture will fit into people’s lives. There are now only slightly above 25% family households in Stuy Town, of which only about 36% are married-couple families with children, who are likely to have settled down in the neighborhood and will not be moving out in the near future. This demographic of “loyal neighbors” will be key players in the development of urban agriculture in Stuy Town, as they will be able to give longterm feedback both direct (surveys, interviews) and, more importantly, indirect through their longterm participation, which will be used to gauge progress and make improvements. Educational attainment and time leaving home for work are some other influencial factors contributing to the level of design complexity and time of interaction with the agricultural systems. Stuyvesant Town

Knock Knock, Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s There?

families

students

original tenants

young professionals

original tenants

original tenants 1947 34

Stuyvesant Town

1980s

2013

potential phases of interaction

Families are most likely to be cooking every night and want a consistent source of fresh food but may be too busy to play active role in farming.

I + III

the window

The increasing new demographic of students and young professionals are most likely to be want quick and cheap and even healhy food but are also less likely to be involved in farming. Students maybe be more open to a shift in social interaction in the living environment with the introduction of urban agriculture.

the roof

I - IV

the window

the facade

the roof

Some original tenants are eager to see new change in Stuy Town and are open to the idea of agriculture. Some are active within the community with regards to evolving policy and would be key players in the implementation and logistics of the process.

the neighborhood

For this to really work as a viable endeavor, where people can actually become locavoracious , there is a very important demographic that is currently missing, but must be introduced in the future. That demographic is the farmer. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idealistic to think that all current tenants are going to become urban farmers. Some, like myself, very well might. But a certain portion of the future demographic of neighbors will have to become farmers. Stuyvesant Town

Supply

IN THE HOOD

Where can you currently buy food within Stuy Town’s perimeter? Lenz Deli

Hane Sushi

Gracefully Market

Starbucks Bruno’s Gourmet Market

Dunkin Donuts

Produce/Groceries Fast Food Restaurant

Associated Supermarket Oval Cafe

GrowNYC Weekend Farmer’s Market

INSIDE SCOOP

Many residents of Stuyvesant Town shop outside of the boundaries of the neighborhood at places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, located about a half mile away. Others shop at Gracefully Market, which lies at the Western permieter of the neighborhood, and at Associated Supermarket at the Southeastern perimeter. Yet, most of the food locales within Stuy Town are fast food places, ranging from pizza to donuts. In addition, the places you can buy food are dispersed in a way that there is no real “food cohesion”. This lack of communal food identity and diversity means that at this point in time Stuy Town is not on the food map. People go outside of the neighborhood for better produce/grocercies and dinners. Stuy Town has the potential to redefine its relationship with its inhabitants in terms of food production (currently non-existent) and consumption. 36

Stuyvesant Town

OUT & ABOUT

Where can you get fresh produce within walking distance of Stuy?

0.55 miles 1

0.25 miles 2

AGROWCULTURE

‘Our efforts are grassroots, our intentions noble and our hunger insatiable.’ Agrowculture.org is a food-tech startup that aims to change the way people grow, buy abd sell their food. Urban farmers use an online marketplace to sell food directly to their neighbors, and also produce and market small-scale growing technologies. To jump-start the neighborhood food movement, agrowculture.org is mapping urban farms and collecting ‘urban farm petitions’ from communities all over New York City. By tracking the demand for local food, they help growers understand their community and establish a connection with their buyers.

F HO YO PD E RN E L T OW CO AR L K Stuyvesant Town

Demand

STUY TOWN

Based on the research on Agrowculture.org, this map shows the density of demand for local food as a relationship of the number of urban farms and urban farm petitions in New York City. The demand for locally grown food is significant in Manhattan and Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn, and is increasing rapidly in Boroklyn. It is only a matter of time before the supply will have to meet the demand.

A similarly formatted map of population density in NYC is shown to help undertsand the correlation between population density and demand for locally grown food.

http://undertheraedar.blogspot.com/2012/01/population-density-in-new-york-city.html

Stuyvesant Town

The Grid Stuyvesant Town is unique within the urban fabric of Manhattan, which is organized predominantly by an orthagonal grid. There are some key elements that make the neighborhood an ideal location for an urban agriculture proof of concept. One of these elements is the density of the buildings. The surrounding area, which is representative of much of the city, is extremely densely packed. Stuy Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s buildings are spaced farther apart to make room for lots of parks and open space on the ground level, some of which are prime for the introduction of agriculture. This spacial organization also gives the building facades the opportunity to see more sunlight, which is a major asset and requirement for vertical farming.

density

to st

ca s

g r o u n d

open roofs with no tall buildings around

l e v e l o p e n s p a c e

buildings spaced apart-increased solar exposure on facades Another asset in Stuy Town is that it is not surrounded by any skyscrapers so the roofs also get a lot of solar exposure without the interuption of too many shadows. The roofs have the potential to be good locations for urban rooftop farming in the neighborhood.

Stuyvesant Town

Solar Exposure SOUTH & SOUTHWEST FACADES JAN 6

FEB 6

MAR 6

APR 6

MAY 6

JUN 6

JUL 6

AUG 6

SEP 6

OCT 6

NOV 6

DEC 6

JAN 6

FEB 6

MAR 6

APR 6

MAY 6

JUN 6

JUL 6

AUG 6

SEP 6

OCT 6

NOV 6

DEC 6

12PM

3PM

12PM

3PM

WEST & NORTHWEST FACADES

12PM

3PM

1PM

5PM

4PM

Stuyvesant Town

4PM

EAST & NORTHEAST FACADES JAN 6

FEB 6

MAR 6

APR 6

MAY 6

JUN 6

JUL 6

AUG 6

SEP 6

OCT 6

NOV 6

DEC 6

8AM

12PM

8AM

12PM

Composites

This analysis demonstrates the amount of sun that Stuy Town receives and how much shadow is cast by its buildings throughout the year at various times of day. The goal is to understand where the best areas--especially facade space-for growing are and the range South, July of time throughout the day that is optimal for growing. The design of the agricultural facacde system could potential modulate according to the change in solar exposure. A smart system would be beneficial in maximizing the amount of sun plants and vegetables received in any given day. The composite images on the right show the accumulated shadows cast over Stuy Town during the specified months. West, July

South, Jan

West, Jan Stuyvesant Town

LOCAVORACIOUS

Live and Grow lower middle

middle class

upper middle

current trajectory with increasing rents

design for middle and lower classes

LIVE

design for middle and lower classes

Locavoracious

GROW

Stuyvesant Town was and still is considered a middle class neighborhood. However, in the past decade the rents have been increasing and if the current trajectory continues, the neighborhood may transform into an upper middle class or even upper class area. The rents around Stuyvesant Town are significantly higher and so if Stuy succumbs to this trend, there will be a decrease in economic diversity and potentially a decrease in the demand for locally grown food. If we start to design for middle and lower classes we can maintain economic diversity, a diversity of opinions, and promote living and growing together in an affordable manner.

How Much Light? The amount of light vegetables receive is essential to their ability to grow. The chart below shows the minimum amount of light a few select vegetables require in a day. Certain vegetables are more tolerant of shade and can survive and grow with as little as two hours of sun per day. Others need at least five. This data, along with the solar exposure and shadow analysis will help determine where specific plants can be grown within Stuyvesant Town. The sketches demonstrate some ideas about how the facades could be divided to take into account shifting shadows. Vertical plots, or V-plots, would be rented to tenants to either farm themselves or lease out to farmers. These plots could potentially modulate along with the variation in sun and shadow throughout the course of the day. The plants would them be harvested by farmers or an automated system on the facade.

vegetables asian greens mesclun spinach arugula herbs lettuce mustard greens scallions chard peas + beans root veges: beats, potatoes, carrots

SUNLIGHT quantity (hrs/day) 2

3-4

4-5

quality

tolerate longer periods of shade tolerate some shade but require proper sunlight in the middle of the day

require most sunlight and do not grow well in shade

Locavoracious

Seasons Crop Radish planting pd. growing pd. harvesting pd.

Lettuce (leaf) Lettuce (head) Onions (dry) Peas Spinach Cabbage Broccoli Collards Carrots Beets/Chard Potatoes Turnips Snap beans Lima beans Sweet corn Tomato Pepper Squash Cucumber Muskmelon Winter Squash Pumpkins Watermelon 46

Locavoracious

April

May

June

Month July

August

Sept.

Oct.

Locavoracious

Process

livestock

poultry farming 1 (eggs)

covering+ brooding chick breeding rearing

poultry farming 2 (meat)

hen rearing

laying â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;spentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hen slaughter 2e

rearing feeding+ broiler breeding growing+ turkey fattening slaughter fattening slaughter 3a

horticulture

agricultural production

operation

vegetable growing 3 periods

sowing/ pricking spacing germination

flower growing 4 periods

Locavoracious

support and 5 handling

hydroponic

sowing pricking spacing finishing propagation seed injection

packaging

soil

growing cropping cleaning

feed,manure, admin water storing fertilizer production/ waste processing

plant food

4f cutting

storage

transfer

aeroponic

Aquaponics SUNLIGHT

BACTERIA FISH FEED

OXYGEN

SEEDLINGS RAINWATER

FOOD WASTE

CO2

METHANE

ANAEROBIC DIGESTER

FILTER

HEATING

COOKING

CISTERN NO2-

VEGES

NO2+

CONSUMER

GROW BED

WATER PUMP

AIR PUMP

FISH

FISH TANK

POWER SOURCE

The agricultural system that I focused on was aquaponics. Aquaponics is a combination of hydroponics, which uses water rather than soil to grow, and aquaculture to raise fish. In aquaponics, fish are raised in tanks and excrete waste. The ammonia rich waste water is used to fertilize the plants and the plants, in turn, filter the water that gets recycled back into the tanks. Since the fish waste is very ammonia rich, specific types of bacteria are inserted into the system to convert the ammonia to nitrites and the nitrites to nitrates for the plants to absorb more easily. The food outputs of the system are a nice healthy diet of fish and veges. MOST LIGHT

WARM

CHARD, PEAS + BEANS, ROOT VEGES, BEATS, POTATOES. REQUIRE MORE WATER

CATFISH (80OF, 2-4 LB EACH) LARGER FISH = MORE WATER

APRIL

LARGER TANKS IN THIS AREA (6’ DIAMETER) JULY

MODERATE LIGHT

COOL

SPINACH, ARUGULA, HERBS, LETTUCE, SCALLIONS. REQUIRE LESS WATER

TILAPIA (60O-80OF, 2.5 LB) KOI (50O-80OF, 2 LB EA.) MEDIUM FISH = LESS WATER

OCTOBER

MEDIUM TANKS IN THIS AREA (4’ DIAMETER) LEAST LIGHT

COLD

ASIAN GREENS, MESCLUN. REQUIRE LITTLE WATER

KOI (50-O80OF, 1 LB EA.) TROUT (<60OF, 1 LB EA.) SMALLER FISH = LEAST WATER

JANUARY

SMALLER TANKS IN THIS AREA (2’ DIAMETER)

Locavoracious

Phase I: The Window

Locavoracious

The Basics STUY TOWN WINDOW TYPOLOGY

Phase I will entail the design of a faรงade module or pod that will allow individuals and families to begin to participate in the idea of urban agriculture from their windows. The idea is that they do not necessarily have to interact with anyone outside of their home but modules can be connected to create a faรงade system that in fact benefits from the more people that use it; perhaps the linking of modules promotes better filtration of water or increased participation leads to incentives for residents.

Planter system detail

This series of sketches aims to integrate a hydroponic system into the window farming modules and promote ease of access, construction and maintenance. The planters would be arranged in rows along simple rotating onveyors that could detach from their track ends and collapse in toward the windows for maintenance and harvesting.

Connected modules

Window access sketches

This will get the ball rolling, effectively incepting in the minds of individual Stuy Town residents the idea of urban agriculture and the effect each person or family can have on the larger community and city. The modules will allow for the cultivation of some produce and herbs and participants will start to feel a greater connection to their homes, what they eat, and how they acquire food. The goal will be ease of use and efficiency and the notion that involvement and collaboration are in and indifference is outdated.

Locavoracious

Window Pods

Above are sketches of ideas for window pods, based partially on the Windowfarms research. The first level of interevetion would indeed be a Windowfarm, but there is the potential to create a small window environment for growing. The second level of intervention would still be at the individual window scale but would be more volumetric (not yet occupyable) and incorporate more growing â&#x20AC;&#x153;surface area,â&#x20AC;? in the form of trays for example. The third level of intervention explored in these sketches would be a form of window greenhouse that would encompass more than one window and allow for significantly more space for growing in both the x and y planes. These sketches also explore various ways to store water, transfer water through the system, allow access to sunlight, and how to organize vegetables and plants.

Locavoracious

Window Retrofit Below is an exploration of how to reconsider the windows and interior space on the Southern facades. In contrast to the window box greenhouses, a larger greenhouse could take up the length of the facade, replacing the windows with an open facade that houses a larger greenhouse. The greenhosue windows would have algae photobioreactor modules installed within them to help facilitate the composting processes in the building.

process exploded axonometric of farming floor

algae photobioreactor

(courtesy of the biogenous project)

Locavoracious

Phase II: The Facade

Locavoracious

Program EXTEND THE PERIMETER

“FARMSPACE”

“GREENBRIDGE”

SUBSIDIARY SPACE

TERRACE VS. INTERIOR VOLUME

Phase II will be based around the idea of collaborating with people on your floor. Your floor is a community in itself and you don’t necessarily have to know your neighbor personally to participate in a group effort. Here is where analyzing Stuy Town’s demographics will be critical, starting to understand how people live and work to assess how the collaboration effort will manifest itself: will people actually be working together to farm or will the efforts occur at various points throughout the day based on individual/family livelihoods and schedules? The latter seems more likely but either way the contribution will be made. The design of Phase II will revolve around outdoor terraces suspended between floors in the negative spaces between building protrusions. Access to these terraces is still an issue that needs to be resolved but the idea is to get people living on the same floor to work “together” for the sake of urban agriculture, sharing space and a broad responsibility to the whole on still a relatively small scale. It will be hard to ignore this effort because the success of the endeavor will be visible from people’s windows and will encourage new participants and foster motivation.

Locavoracious

Volume

Locavoracious

These sketches explore various volumetric facade implementations for living and growing. The top left series investigates the possibility of a larger volume within the negative space around each building envelope. A modular approach could be used to insert growing volumes into this void. The question then becomes how does this affect access to light in the apartments? This scheme is still being fleshed out. The below drawings show a more intensive redesign of part of the building wall system to accomodate permanent growing pods that would be accessable directly from oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s living room.

Combo

The diagram above relates to the takeaway from the precedent analysis. Depending on what facade strategy is employed, there is the potential to combine tectonic strategies to allow for greater flexibility of use. Below, some designs for more window pods, terraces, and a system for farmers to harvest vegetables growing on the facades, similar to a window washer. The section to the right provides some more detail and a proposal for designing water storage into the interior of the apartments.

Locavoracious

Extend

System Diagrams These system diagrams were aimed to help study the idea of system proximities and other requirements such as grow bed slope for the hydroponic nutrient film technique, in which a thin film of water/nutrient solution is used. This was contrasted with the fish tanks that need a larger volume of water to accomodate the fish.

Aquapods

This sketch highlights the potential for aquaponic tanks to be integrated into the existing building structure as the goal was that they be integrated into the building water infrastructure as well.

The idea of interconnected aquaponic tanks to facilitate seasonal fish migration was explored. Another type of connection to the building is illustrated.

Final Development

This sketch was shows the development of the final design, in which fish tanks and grow beds are integrated into the same shell and the system logic is aided by gravity.

These three dimensional studies aimed to understand the relationship between the aquaponic system and the occupant in terms of access to fish and vegetables, heights, widths and diameters of the system, and leisure space. 65

Internal Processes

dining

kitchen

living

bedroom

bedroom bedroom

bedroom

bedroom bath

These plans show some typical apartment layouts of two bedrooms, which make up the majority of the apartments (along with 3 bedrooms), and five bedroom apartments on the first floor, the layout of which presents an interesting opportunity for integrating some of the growing program into the internal processes of the building.

sowing|germination| cleaning|prep|storage waste process|compost The final design proposes to replace some of the two bedroom split floors with the five bedroom layout, but instead of keeping the two bedrooms on the South facade, which do not receive any southern light anyway, introduce an interior space to house some of the secondary program associated with the system. Those who lived in these apartments would play an active role in the food production of the building.

The Whole Package

The following images and the sketch above are some of the final ideas put on paper during this process. They demonstrate the thinking that went into the design in terms of the system sizing and placement on the facade and the relationship between the system and external environmental factors, as well as a culmination of some of the precedent studies. A scaffolding skeleton is used as the base structure for the facade system. The aquaponic x-shells both house the system and act as crossbracing for the scaffold.

rooftop rainwater collection

scaffold water pipe

system shell water cistern water pump water pipe hydropnic planter fish breeding tank air pump water pump fish tank nutrient tank

system components

water management

indoor farm

unaltered apartment

process axonometric section of scaffold

new building section

scaffold rendering

Phase III: The Roof

Locavoracious

Gateway to the Sky

Phase III indeed attempts to conquer the rooftops in an effort to bring whole building communities together for urban agriculture. The nature of this design strategy is still being developed but an adaptable strategy may be preferable so that building communities can make decisions based on their needs, schedules, and participation, which will likely be different from building to building. How this system relates to the faรงade system in Phase I will be critical to the infrastructural clarity and functionality of the whole endeavor.

Locavoracious

Future Investigation The next step for the roof phase is to figure out how to take advantage of the inherent workforce that are the residents of Stuy Town. Can an ordinary person become a farmer? I believe they can! Some questions that will need to be aswered are: How will the roof be spacially organized to accomodate growing? How will residents of each apartment participate--does everyone have to participate? In terms of closing the loop, will this occur in each building with each roof taking part in an individual loop or will the loop require multiple roofs to become a closed system? What systems and processes will be unique to the roof in the overall endeavor?

? ?

Locavoracious

Phase IV: The Neighborhood

Locavoracious

Branching Out A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CITY

Phase IV will take the leap from smaller building communities to the entirety of Stuy Town, and how it relates to the immediate and larger context of the city. Calling upon residents to play an active role in contributing on a larger scale and making an attempt to give back to the city by selling produce and generating jobs and profit, Phase IV will prove that Stuy Town is worth maintaining as a middle class oasis in NYC because of the willingness to take part in a greater social, economic, and sustainable effort that the upper class may not be as open to. Phase IV will bridge the gap between the middle class and lower class by generating jobs, education, and community involvement.

Locavoracious

Redevelopment

Phase IV initially was going to be the reprograming of the commercial zone at the perimeter of Stuy Town and redesigning a few spaces to accommodate the sale of produce grown on site. Positioning the final phase, in the context of the whole project, as a for-profit endeavor, was a way to incentivize the effort that will be undertaken to bring the proposal to fruition. In addition, as previously mentioned, it was a way to give back to the city not only in terms of food but generating jobs as well.

By revitalizing Stuy Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perimeter as a food oriented commercial zone, it also has the potential to become a new destination (like Eataly has for the Madison Square Park area or Union Square Market) as an hyper-local farmerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market. The goal of the final phase is to complete the infrastructural, architectural, and social link from the individual apartments to the rooftops to the public ground level of Stuy Town and present a new model for urban agriculture in New York City.

Locavoracious

POST SANDY

land

water

energy

In the development of Phase IV and looking at the neighborhood, I decided to take a closer look at some of the implications of climate change and the effects of Hurricane Sandy.

Under Water

flood zone 0-3 feet 3-6 feet 6-18 feet

SANDY FLOOD

SUPERSTORM X

This diagram illustrates the flooding of Stuy Town by Hurricane Sandy and the potential for future flooding.

Opportunity

+ +

There is the opportunity to use Stuy Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proximity to the East River and the Con Edison power plant as an asset. The potential to introduce new program, infrastructures, and productive systems is immense.

Assets

W E T L A N D S

F I L T R A T I O N

A Q U A P O N I C S

O Y S T E R B E D

R E C R E A T I O N

F A R M I N G

A L G A E

C O M P O S T

M E T H A N E

H Y D R O E L E C T R I C

B I O E L E C T R I C

Transitions

hydrology: tidal creek

1609

If you look back in time, it is interesting to find that the area that is now Stuy Town was a tidal creek in 1609 and became landfill in the 1800s. Why not give back some of that land to the water? If we create a softer transition between land and water, we can begin to introduce the new program and help mitigate storm surges and the effects of the next superstorm. 1865

marsh

meadow

made land

create a softer transition between stuy town and the east river 89

A New Paradigm for Stuy Town

AQUAPONICS

APARTMENTS

EGRESS CORE

FARMING

APARTMENTS

AQUAPONICS

ALGAE CULTIVATION

HY DR

AQUAPONICS OYSTER BED

WETLAND 91