What do you think of when the word farm is spoken of? It’s most likely that a majority of you would think of a vast piece of land covered with crops and greeneries all around. But, the Farm Tower proposal for London, yes London and not a countryside, designed by Brandon Martella is nothing like the traditional farm. Overlooking the Potter’s Field on the south banks of the River Thames, it’s quite ironical that life sustains inside the farm tower.
The survival strategy of the farm tower is somewhat similar to that of a tree, which uses water from the rains and solar energy to survive. The building is also armed with vertical axis turbines, placed along the outer edges of it, which is used to harvest wind energy. The farm tower is not just about farms, it has two additional units the residential floors and the hydroponic floors. All these three units have been integrated intelligently to form the huge tower. Controlled windows and louvers provide a good cross ventilation to the programmed residential floors of the tower. And the hydroponic floors are provided with a continuous hydronic system that recycle the green house air. The process involves collection of condensed water inside pillows made of ETFE and letting the natural pull of gravity to bring the water down through the hydroponic racks.
To ensure that the agricultural levels and the residential levels remain cool, open steel grating is used on each of the farming levels. If you think there wouldn’t be much farming area in the building, you are in for a surprise as the tower has a total of one million cubic feet all for farming. So, if calculated it can produce an average of 36.6 lbs of a variety of fruits and vegetables per 100 sq ft would give you a whopping 1.5 million lbs of produce in a year. The farm tower thus, is a great design that can sustain both plant and human life and also make your wish to own a piece of farm land amidst the city come true.
Via: Evolo
