Bola Sociology Design

Design+Sustentability: The Pyramid Farm

June 8th, 2009

Vertical Farming is a concept that proposes to take agriculture to urban structures. With that, the growing of vegetables could be made in buildings, integrated to the day by day of big cities. And The Pyramid Farm, is a vertical farming project in the shape of a pyramid that reinvents the concept.

According to Dickson Despommier, the creator behind the structure, new answers are a growing necessity inside the megalopolis. The main reason for that is that world’s population is increasingly faster than our food production capacity, which could make something as big as 3 billions people suffer from hunger in 2060.

The project, created through the University of Columbia, is a self-sufficient structure that has different eco-systems, capable of reusing their own residues to produce a diverse range of food. From simpler culture like leafy vegetables, until complex systems like bird farming.

Design in glass to allow for sunlight to come in, the building has several different levels to accomodate different types of culture and farming. Its pressure and heating system only yse about 10% of the water and 5% of the land used by traditional farming.