Ikea Is Bringing A Pop-Up Vertical Farm To London
Ikea Is Bringing A Pop-Up Vertical Farm To London
Lisa Bowman for Metro.co.uk | Wednesday 20 Sep 2017 5:01 pm
(Credit: SPACE10/Cover Images)
If you’re into the future of food, then everyone’s favourite Swedish furniture lords have a treat for you.
Ikea are bringing a pop-up vertical farm to Shoreditch, as part of the London Design Festival.
Researchers from the SPACE10 lab at the Lokal pop-up want to show the general public that delicious, fresh food can be grown right in your home, using a hydroponics farming system.
It’s basically soil-less farming – crops are grown indoors using artificial lights and computerised automation that grows food optimised for freshness, nutrients, and taste.
They say it makes food production smarter and more efficient as their system can grow vegetables three times faster than traditional methods, with 90% less water, less waste, and without the need for soil and sunlight in a much more space-efficient footprint.
The indoor system has computerised automation (Credit: SPACE10/Cover Images)
So how does it work?
Modified LED lights allow for year-round indoor growing and smart sensors allow for machine learning so that healthier food can be grown faster while the data is fed into Google Home.
Essentially, you can ask your plants how they’re doing, and they can let you know.
The creators hope it will help kids and adults learn more about sustainable food, and they also promise that the system will be run solely on renewable energy in the future.
The vertical farming system (Credit: SPACE10/Cover Images)
What is vertical farming?
According to Wikipedia: ‘Vertical farming is the practice of producing food and medicine in vertically stacked layers, vertically inclined surfaces and/or integrated in other structures (such as in a skyscraper, used warehouse, or shipping container).
‘The modern ideas of vertical farming use indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology, where all environmental factors can be controlled.
‘These facilities utilise artificial control of light, environmental control (humidity, temperature, gases…) and fertigation.
‘Some vertical farms use techniques similar to greenhouses, where natural sunlight can be augmented with artificial lighting and metal reflectors.’
The pop-up features a futuristic salad bar that provides meals of hydroponic microgreens, topped with delicious locally sourced ingredients.
There will also be ‘Grow Your Greens’ workshops for kids to learn how to grow their own take-away plant hydroponically, until it turns into a delicious green.
‘Food Preservation’ workshops will teach visitors how to use fermentation to preserve food and minimise waste.
Growing food at the vertical farm (Credit: SPACE10/Cover Images)
The farm is located at 31 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EY.
It’s open between 10am – 9.30pm until September 23.
Find out more here.
Go eat some futuristic food, people!