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NATUFIA Indoor Kitchen Garden For The First Time Unveiled at KBIS, Orlando
The Natufia Kitchen Garden is Natufia Labs’ technological response to today's’ overwhelming issues of food traceability, pesticide, GMOs, poor taste and unnecessary waste that have plagued the food industry and our plates all the way to the greatest chefs.
NATUFIA Indoor Kitchen Garden For The First Time Unveiled at KBIS, Orlando
The fully automated Natufia Kitchen Garden, the one that CNN, ABC, Der Spiegel, Vogue Paris, USA Today, Fox News, WIRED, PC World spoke so much about after its stint at Las Vegas CES last year and the one that has been adopted by some of the best chefs in Europe and now selling by Bulthaup Paris will be presented for the first time to the US professional Kitchen and Bath Industry at KBIS in Orlando Jan 9-11.
- Booth: S5456 at South Hall's ASID Design Pavilion
- Co-founder and team available for meetings at KBIS
The NATUFIA® Kitchen Garden, the leader in high end automated hydroponic solutions, on exceptional display at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Orlando, Jan 9-11 2018.
ORLANDO, USA, 4 JANUARY 2018 – After its widely acclaimed first introduction in the US last year during Las Vegas CES 2017 show, and after one year of successful introduction in the European market, Natufia Labs will be presenting its latest Natufia Kitchen Garden model at the Orlando 2018 Kitchen & Bath Industry Show (KBIS) at ASID Design Pavilion, South Hall, Booth S5456. The latest model of the Natufia Kitchen Garden will be on display and presented by Natufia Labs CEO Gregory Lu and his team.
The Natufia Kitchen Garden is Natufia Labs’ technological response to today's’ overwhelming issues of food traceability, pesticide, GMOs, poor taste and unnecessary waste that have plagued the food industry and our plates all the way to the greatest chefs.
The Kitchen Garden is the product of four years of intensive engineering, software, hydroponic and botanic research to provide leading chefs across the world with a solution to organically grow plants right in their kitchen, all year round, and to finally recover the true taste of things.
Recent independent lab tests revealed vitamins level over 400 % higher when grown inside the Natufia KG. "Consumers are progressively seeking out organic and healthy food options. We provide a sustainable technical solution that connects people back with nature, without efforts and without compromising on quality and nutritional values" says Gregory Lu.
“This is the future: This is for all Chefs to support technological progress and the preservation of nature,” says Emmanuel Renaut, three Michelin starred Chef in Megève, an early adopter of the Natufia Kitchen Garden, who was recently ranked 6th top chef worldwide. Among other early adopters, we count ***** Four Season George V Hotel Chef Simone Zanoni, or ***** London Sofitel St James Chef Hameed Farook.
After having the Natufia Kitchen Garden being tested in the hands of the greatest, Natufia Labs decided to start making the Natufia Kitchen Gardens available to private users; the one that also wants health, taste and convenience to reach their plate. Bulthaup Paris (3 stores), Modulonova, Varenna and others have started to sell Natufia KG to Paris and London private customers.
Now that the Natufia Kitchen Garden is developing at great speed its presence on the UK, French and Italian professional and private markets, and a very conclusive first introductory at Las Vegas CES last January, the presence at KBIS Orlando 2018 shows a more determined move by Natufia Labs to start to commercialize in the US and in Canada.
Natufia® Labs, established in 2014 is the manufacturer of Natufia Kitchen Garden. Natufia Labs has become one of the leading research labs and a specialized manufacturer of high technology content hydroponic equipment designed for people who admire original taste, traceability of food and GMO-free nutrition. Less waste, more taste, better health.
www.natufia.com Facebook.com/Natufia
Download press pictures from here.
Media contact:
marketing@natufia.com
Direct: +1 646 919 7020
Letcetra Agritech – A High-Tech Hydroponic Farm
Letcetra Agritech – A High-Tech Hydroponic Farm
December 26, 2017 Start Up Valli Sarvani
Letcetra Agritech was founded in 2016 by three engineers of different backgrounds.
The main motive which united them to establish this startup was to provide quality food with the help of hydroponics.
Letcetra Agritech is a Goa based startup. The company provides various services to their users. These include establishing customized hydroponic systems, training, research and development, sales etc.
Lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, basil etc. are their main products.
The company helps in establishing Turnkey setups which are useful for those who have land and want to use it in a productive way.
As the population of the country has been growing, the produced food is not meeting the needs. In order to solve this problem effectively, the hydroponic system is recognized as one of the best ways.
The company has a comprehensive commercial hydroponic system in which they design the ways, an operation to run it successfully and solutions to maintain it properly.
Furthermore, everyone can have their customized hydroponic system which is suitable to their needs.
According to the demographic areas, and the respective demand and supply, the company suggests the types of vegetables to be grown. If the clients need, the company even offers a buy-back guarantee.
The hydroponic system is gaining wide popularity in recent days due to its advantages. Unlike traditional agriculture, there is no need to depend on the nature for sunlight, water, and other things.
LED lights are used to compensate the sunlight, and air conditioning systems control the temperature and humidity.
Even the land required for this system is lesser compared to traditional agriculture. 85 percent less water is required as the system uses recycled water. Nutrition requirements are also less. The harvest is pesticide free. Growth cycle is shorter and year-long growth is assured.
Letcetra Agritech also provides training to grow the crops in the hydroponics system.
You can contact them on all days except Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Image Reference: Letcetraagritech
Hydroponics Startup Looking To Decentralize The Food Supply Chain
Hydroponics Startup Looking To Decentralize The Food Supply Chain
doitvoluntarily (75) in news • January 5, 2018
In 2016, it's estimated that the global hydroponic market was worth more than $230 million.
It's anticipated that the global market will surpass $395 million by 2020. Though there are some estimates that place the market value much higher, suggesting that it could reach more than $13 billion by 2025.
The hydroponics approach is expected to keep on growing because it provides farmers with more control over the growing process.
Not only that, but it also provides a host of benefits such as using less water, taking up less space, and helping to protect against pests, producing higher yields than traditional methods, and so on. However, some critics of the method suggest that the produce is inferior to traditional methods as far as quality and nutrients because of the way that it's grown.
The global hydroponics market is expected to grow over 6.4 percent over the next decade.
A number of different crops are able to be grown with hydroponic growing methods and they are things like cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, strawberries, and more.
Right now, Europe is said to have the largest hydroponics market, making up roughly 36.44 percent.
They are followed by the Asia Pacific region that makes the 2nd largest market in terms of revenue. Following in 3rd place is the North American market and although they might be 3rd right now, they've got the fastest growing market.
There are a variety of companies already in this space and a great deal of different hydroponic growing projects that are taking place around the world. You've got dozens of crops being grown with this method in greenhouses, in shipping containers, in backyards, and a variety of different growing spaces.
One entrepreneur who is interested in this growing method, Jonathan Partlow, spent about 5 years working on his design for a hydroponic growing system that would help to decentralize the food supply chain. He wanted to provide people with a growing medium and something that could easily work in a variety of different spaces both big and small.
Eventually, he came up with Aggressively Organic.
This company offers pint-sized hydroponics that makes it easy for people to have fresh and quality produce available right in the convenience of their own home. Partlow came up with the micro growth system you can see below.
The growing system consists of a glueless corrugated box that has a plastic liner, coco coir disc, and comes with some nutrient solution mix.
They've already shipped these mini growing systems to some farmers in a beta group and they are also looking to use the product to provide humanitarian relief to areas that are struggling with food insecurity.
One of their recent humanitarian efforts included working to get the Aggressively Organic mini growing systems to Puerto Rico. For that effort, they've set up a crowdfunding page to try and raise funds (trying to raise about $500k) to bring about 50,000 systems to the island.
With their mini design, the plan is for you to cut and take the produce when you need it.
You harvest whenever you are hungry, and when you've got dozens of different ones growing at one time it makes preparing a decent snack or meal fairly easy. Vegetables and herbs grown could be harvested within 21- 60 days; depending on what you're growing.
Partlow says that this growing method can produce lettuce using only an eighth to a quarter-gallon of water, compared to traditional growing methods which might use 3 gallons or more when trying to grow a head of lettuce. And the Micro Growth Systems are expected to retail for around $20 US and the only thing the user needs to provide is light and water.
At the moment their patent is still pending and the product is still in manufacturing, those interested can sign up on their site to try and become a beta grower.
Their system claims to be able to grow more lettuce in a 10 x 10 room than a traditional organic farm might be able to grow with a half acre of land.
Aggressively Organic is based in Indiana and they hope with their business that they'll be able to bring more than 200 jobs to the area by 2021.
Pics:
Pixabay
via GreenandVibrant.com
Twitter/Aggressively Organic
Sources:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171206006224/en/Global-Hydroponics-Market-Report-2017-2023-Market-expected
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hydroponics-market-2020-forecasts-168-cagr-with-hvac-holding-largest-share-569069051.html
http://www.freshplaza.com/article/186162/Aggressively-Organic-relief-packages-helping-Puerto-Rico-regrow-after-Hurricane-Maria
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160811005565/en/Global-Hydroponics-Market-2015-2020---Market-anticipated
https://aggressivelyorganic.com/
http://www.gardencentermag.com/article/pint-size-hydroponics/
https://www.scalarmarketresearch.com/market-reports/hydroponics-market
http://www.freshplaza.com/article/186162/Aggressively-Organic-relief-packages-helping-Puerto-Rico-regrow-after-Hurricane-Maria
https://humanityproject.com/projects/aggressively-organic-relief-for-puerto-rico/
http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/story/37020852/fishers-ag-startup-launches-campaign-for-puerto-rico
Local Roots: Farm-In-A-Box Coming To A Distribution Center Near You
Local Roots: Farm-In-A-Box Coming To A Distribution Center Near You
Ars checks out shipping-container farming that’s said to have price parity with farms.
Diana Gitig - 12/16/2017, 11:00 AM
The interior of a TerraFarm | Local Roots
Eric and Matt could not be more earnest in their quest to feed the world.
These two fresh-faced LA boys founded Local Roots four years ago. Their first purchases were broken-down, 40-foot shipping containers—this is apparently easy to do, since it is cheaper for shipping companies to just churn out new ones rather than fix broken ones. Local Roots then upcycles them into modular, shippable, customizable farms, each of which can grow as much produce as five acres of farmland. The idea is to supplement, not supplant, outdoor agriculture. And Ars got a look at one of these "farms" when it was set up in New York City recently.
Every aspect of the TerraFarm, as the repurposed shipping containers have been dubbed, has been designed and optimized. The gently pulsing LED lights are purplish—apparently, that’s what lettuce likes—and the solution in which the plants are grown is clean and clear. The "farm" is bright and vibrant, and it smells great in there.
This environment came about because Local Roots consulted a lot of experts. It employs horticulturalists, mechanical, electrical, and environmental engineers, software and AI developers, and data and nutrition scientists. The company does this to ensure that the growing conditions and produce are always optimal—both for the plants' growth and their nutritional content.
TerraFarms use no pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers—they don’t have to. This means they generate no toxic runoff, and the produce fits most definitions of organic food. They use 99-percent less water and obviously much less land than outdoor farms. Since the farms are indoors, they are not subject to the vagaries of weather, be it the extreme temperatures, storms, and droughts brought on by climate change or the more mundane conditions of heat, cold, or dryness that exist outside of LA.
They can be moved anywhere—desert, tundra, underground, and even Mars, as both Eric and Matt pointed out independently of each other. Wherever the TerraFarms are, their conditions will be constantly monitored by the experts back at HQ in Vernon, California, just outside of downtown LA, where Local Roots recently built a huge new facility.
The difference two weeks makes
Most of the crops that we grow today have been bred for the stability of the final product, whether a fruit or leaf or root. This way, the produce can last for the two weeks it takes to truck it from where it's grown (California, for example, which produces more food than any other state) to wherever it's headed. But TerraFarms is intended to reside and be staffed near distribution centers for major retailers, never further than 50 miles from the consumers eating the produce. So most of that same two-week period will elapse while the produce is in your fridge.
Regardless of their location, TerraFarms will provide people with fresh, local, organic produce all year long. Local Roots thus seems to have managed to attain both the benefits of small organic farms—i.e., fresh, local produce—while keeping the benefits of large, industrialized agriculture, like technical expertise and centralized distribution.
Local Roots already provides food to SpaceX, Tender Greens, and Mendocino Farms, and the United Nations World Food Programme has just purchased TerraFarms to provide produce to developing areas of the world; although the Food Programme supplies essentials like rice and beans, about two million people still suffer from micronutrient deficiencies which other produce can alleviate.
A solution like this in a developing economy doesn't seem to make much sense on the surface. But the company is now claiming that it has achieved cost parity with traditional, outdoor farming. It's the first in the indoor/urban/vertical farming model to have done so, possibly because the shipping containers allow them to generate more farmland more quickly and more cheaply than can be done in a warehouse or other indoor systems.
Thus far, Local Roots has concentrated on growing greens—lettuces and some herbs. Since these are highly perishable, they benefit the most from being grown locally and getting to consumers quickly. But in principle, each TerraFarm can be customized to grown anything, anywhere. Which might be a very good thing, as climate change is not going to be good for the coffee crop.
Futuristic Vertical Farming Helps Plants to 'Overcome Hostile Environments' in the Middle East
Futuristic Vertical Farming Helps Plants to 'Overcome Hostile Environments' in the Middle East
December 29, 2017
Source: Associated Press
A number of entrepreneurs in the Gulf are now banking on vertical indoor farming and other alternative ways to grow food in the Middle East, where traditional farming becomes a challenge due to harsh climatic conditions.
One such vertical indoor farm has just opened the business in Dubai and claims to be the first of its kind in the region.
"It's an excellent use of space, but more importantly you're overcoming that hostile environment of climate, weather and the heat as well. So you're giving the plant exactly what it needs so you can grow it 365 days per year," said Omar Al Jundi, founder, and CEO of Badia Farms.
Indoor farming isn't a new technology, but not many have been set up for commercial purposes in the Gulf.
The vertical indoor farm is just one of several private investment ventures focused on alternative agriculture in the UAE.
According to local government data, Dubai imported almost 34-million tonnes of food last year; and a figure like this is what projects like the vertical farm are trying to make a dent into.
Meanwhile, authorities have been investing in research for decades, and they're mindful of the challenges presented by vertical farming.
"This is a system which is very sensitive and needs a lot of maintenance. And needs also a lot of technical skills, so which make him a little bit, very difficult to implement.
"But actually if we have these capacities, if you have these facilities, this will be the best system and will be the technology of the future," said Dr. Abdelaziz Hirich, a horticulture scientist at the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture.
While the founders of Dubai's new vertical farm agree that setting up a business can be tricky, they're confident that the idea is scalable.
"The project is high-capex but then once you run it the operation costs are pretty minimal. So it's extremely exciting because this is the beginning of the farming revolution in this part of the world," concluded Al Jundi.
Growing The Farming Scene
Growing The Farming Scene
Mr Lionel Wong (left) and Mr Terence Tan. PHOTO: TEMASEK POLYTECHNIC
Duo improving local produce with problem-solving capacities learned in school
Jan Lee | Jan 02, 2018
Does lettuce grow from seeds?
This was one of the many questions Mr. Terence Tan and Mr. Lionel Wong, both 30, have received in the course of their work as co-founders of Upgrown Farming Company.
The answer is yes.
But the two Temasek Polytechnic (TP) alumni, who graduated in 2007, were shaken by the question.
Mr Tan said: "There is such a complacent attitude towards food here that some people do not even know how vegetables are grown."
The friends pursued their degrees at the University of Queensland in Australia, where they were made aware of food security issues and the relatively lower quality of produce here.
Mr Wong said: "During our time there, we were exposed to the local farming and fresh produce scene.
"When we returned to Singapore, we realised there was a significant disparity in the quality and value for money of vegetables here as compared with in Australia."
To improve local produce and counter Singapore's dependence on food imports - over 90 per cent of food consumed here is imported - the pair, who studied biotechnology in TP, co-founded Upgrown four years ago.
With two other co-founders, Upgrown consults on, designs and builds farms with technology that allows crops not naturally found here to thrive and be harvested.
Through mimicking natural conditions, such as sunlight via modified lights with adjusted wavelengths, the co-founders have seen non-native varieties of leafy greens and herbs introduced to local farming through their projects.
Superfood kale and more exotic species such as spicy mizuna, a Japanese vegetable with a wasabi aftertaste, are now available locally via their clients' farms.
PROBLEM-SOLVING
They credit their success to the unique problem-solving capacities cultivated at TP, where they had to approach their studies with a problem-based learning approach.
Mr Tan said: "We had to apply our skills to solve real-world problems with practical solutions."
While Upgrown has about seven projects locally, it is also active in the region, with projects in China, Japan and the Middle East.
As urban farming gains awareness in Singapore, the pair hope to inspire more people to join farming.
Upgrown has seen an increase in interest from polytechnic and university students for internship opportunities in the past two years. It has also hosted over 10 groups of secondary school and polytechnic students at its office to showcase modern farming.
Mr Tan said: "If you go out and ask around now, who actually wants to be a farmer? So, part of our job is to reinvent farming, make it cool and entice younger people to join us."
The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) Has Named The TotalGrow Pure Flowering 200 Lamp Winner of a 2018 AE50 Award.
St. Joseph, Michigan. – The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) Has Named The TotalGrow Pure Flowering 200 Lamp Winner of a 2018 AE50 Award.
AE50 awards honor the year’s most innovative designs in engineering products or systems for the food and agriculture industries. The Pure Flowering Lamp will be featured in the January/February 2018 special issue of ASABE’s magazine Resource: Engineering & Technology for a Sustainable World. For more details visit www.asabe.org/AE50
TotalGrow’s chief biologist, Jeff Mastin, shared, “We are pleased and honored to receive this award. The Pure Flowering Lamp capitalizes on the spectral precision, efficiency and longevity of LEDs and TotalGrow’s extensive experience in the horticultural industry to provide this industry-leading solution for photoperiodic lighting to control the timing of flowering of daylength-sensitive crops. Increasing the awareness of this opportunity to significantly reduce power consumption and improve growth is a very valuable opportunity for all involved.”
Companies from around the world submit entries to the annual AE50 competition and up to 50 of the best products are chosen by a panel of international engineering experts. The judges select innovative products that will best advance engineering for the food and agriculture industries.
The AE50 awards program emphasizes the role of new products and systems in bringing advanced technology to the marketplace. These engineering developments help farmers, food processors and equipment manufacturers increase efficiency, enhance quality, improve safety, and increase profits.
Resource, a magazine geared to agricultural, biological and food system engineers worldwide, is produced by ASABE. The magazine is read by thousands involved in the agricultural, food and biological industries. Read more at www.asabe.org/Resource.
ASABE is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to agricultural, food, and biological systems. Further information on the Society can be obtained by visiting www.asabe.org/.
For more information on TotalGrow horticultural lighting products visit totalgrowlight.com or contact jeffm@venntis.com.
Jacob Eisenberg Visits Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA)
Jacob Eisenberg Visits Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA)
DECEMBER 28, 2017 URBAN AG NEWS
By Jacob Eisenberg, Editor of Agri-Futures
View of JPFA and neighboring city skyline
The Mecca of all vertical farming can be found an hour outside Tokyo, a city often heralded as the world’s largest metropolitan area. The Japan Plant Factory Association (JPFA) sits on a quiet plot next to the Chiba University campus.
Across from three towering apartment buildings and a sprawling UNIQLO mall, the JPFA greenhouses sit translucently illuminated on the boundary of a dense city center and quiet suburb surrounding the agricultural campus. Large crows sit quietly in the branches of the beautifully pruned dwarf tree orchard of the university — and for a few moments, it becomes easy to forget the traumatic commute in a “sardine can” — referred to colloquially as the Tokyo subway system.
The notion of indoor agriculture often invokes feelings of food far removed from nature — confined to the inside of a dark urban building or warehouse. However, I found it fitting to see the center of indoor agriculture actually situated at the crossroads of these two natural and urban settings.
Chiba University growing facilities
From the outside, there is little to differentiate the transparent greenhouses and dark industrial sheds from any other small farm common around the periphery of Tokyo. And with the exception of a small sign, it’s easy to walk right by the entrance of the JPFA visitor center. It is truly a humble facility from the outside — but inside is a far different story.
A cornerstone of industry innovation
Since 2010 the JPFA has helped to test and research viable solutions to current problems related to food, the environment, energy, and resource use. Their work has helped to educate the development and dissemination of sustainable plant factory systems — that are both resource efficient and environmentally friendly.
With 6 different testing greenhouses and two fully enclosed plant factory facilities, the JPFA works closely as platform between the Japanese government and over 50 private companies to develop, manage and innovate the plant factory space. While their newest plant factory is under construction, their low cost, 10-layer cultivation facility produces 3000 heads of lettuce — every single day.
But what separates the JPFA from others in the plant factory space isn’t its technology per se, it is the platform it offers to help innovate the space.
The JPFA bridges the common innovation gap as an educational institution between private and public resources. In addition to working with dozens of commercial agricultural companies, the JPFA partners with the Japanese government to develop separate agricultural solutions for an aging Japanese farm workforce.
This has allowed the JPFA to become an aggregator in this highly fragmented and competitive industry. By collecting insights from technical consulting with private companies and receiving grants from the national government, the JPFA is perfectly situated to test, research and educate a market hungry for solutions. And interest is growing. The JPFA has a couple thousand visitors annually from many countries around the world — all eager to learn more for application in the public and private sectors.
Dr. Toyoki Kozai
After taking a brief tour of the facility and greenhouses, I had the pleasure to speak with arguably the father of the vertical farming industry, Dr. Toyoki Kozai.
“Plant Factories (at this point) will likely never be viable to grow large scale crops like wheat, corn and rice. But they could have a great impact on producing vegetables, medicinal herbs, cash crops and possibly fruits and nuts with dwarf tree varieties”.
Dr. Kozai was modest in our conversation, but his contributions to the industry have been immense. Since 1973, Dr. Kozai has helped pioneer the understanding of plant biology and physiology across different indoor growing systems. He has published dozens of academic studies documenting everything from the optimum light spectrum exposure to full automation with AI robotics.
While our conversation covered a dizzying array of industry topics, I wanted to briefly share his response to my question about the biggest continued issues in developing the industry. Since he is a premier thought leader, I was curious to know what challenges are anxiety provoking enough to keep him up at night and motivated to find solutions for.
- Keeping up with different farming systems. There is no definitive growing guide to using different systems with the same plants — and sensitive quality controls can change drastically with increased space/density affecting airflow and light.
- Scalability from an operations and business side is precarious since it is also based on the optimal size of a facility — and that is a factor that hasn’t been well defined either.
At the end of our conversation, I asked Dr. Kozai if he was optimistic about plant factories changing the food industry and he immediately prefaced his answer with a solemn “no”.
However he went on to explain that “Plant Factories (at this point) will never be viable to grow large scale crops like wheat, corn and rice. But they could have a great impact on producing vegetables, medicinal herbs, cash crops and possibly fruits and nuts with dwarf tree varieties”.
Test propagation of tomatoes in new harvesting system and soil medium
At the epicenter of indoor agriculture innovation, my visit to the JPFA highlighted the real shortcomings of a food industry often reimagined, rather than fully understood. Indoor agriculture faces many critical challenges before it can be truly revolutionary — let alone viable.
It is also much easier to understand why organizations like the JPFA are so critical for developing this early industry. With forefront concerns from industry leaders like Dr. Kozai on what cultivation practices even work, testing and collaboration are more necessary than ever.
By Jacob Eisenberg, Editor of Agri-Futures
Going Beyond Organic With Vertical Hydroponic Farming
Going Beyond Organic With Vertical Hydroponic Farming
Crop One Holdings (COH) farms, called FreshBox Farms, deliver fresh produce to stores within 24 hours of harvest. The company aims to address the need for a local, fresh, and sustainably produced food supply through vertical hydroponic farming in Millis, Massachusetts.
With 54 percent of the world’s population residing in urban areas—expected to increase to about 66 percent by 2050, according to the 2014 Revision of World Urbanization Prospect—vertical farming projects strive to expand production on and in buildings and vertical structures. In doing so, growers can reduce their agricultural footprint on the environment and address food security of the urban population.
COH vertical farming units grow modularly and use custom-engineered hydroponic systems to produce their leafy vegetables. They can substitute up to 19 acres of farmland with 29.72-square-meter (320-square-feet) growing units. The units use 1/2500th of the amount of water typically used by field-based growing, and due to their farms’ proximity to their urban consumers, they also have a reduced carbon footprint. The COH’s FreshBox Farms produce are available in 30 locations in the Greater Boston Area within the 100 miles radius from the farm.
Food Tank had the opportunity to speak with Crop One Holdings CEO Sonia Lo about the origins of the organization and how it hopes to solve current food system issues impacting the cities of the United States and go “Beyond Organic.”
Food Tank (FT): What was the inspiration behind establishing Crop One Holding (COH)?
Sonia Lo (SL): Crop One is the successor company to a concept stage venture founded by Jim Wilson, a great visionary who was among the first to propose that crops could be grown in modified shipping containers.
I was an early investor in the company. First, I was intrigued by the potential of using modified shipping structures—it was a ground-breaking idea, no pun intended. But not only was I drawn to Jim’s technological innovation, I had also spent some time as a personal chef, so the foodie in me was hooked as well. So, I stepped in to take the venture to the next level and we rebranded to Crop One. We’ve now built a scale-level farm and are one of only two vertical farmers in the industry running our farm at a profit.
FT: COH uses the hydroponics technology for its crop production. What are some of the advantages hydroponics has over aquaponics or aeroponics?
SL: Hydroponics is the most well proven of the three technologies and the least expensive.
FT: Could you explain the crop production procedure followed at COH?
SL: We are a seed-to-harvest company. Many hydroponic growers use third-party seedlings but we grow our own from seed because we want to be able to select the cultivars we produce for sale and because it means that we know our seedlings are free of pests/pathogens before we plant them to grow out to full height. Our production is entirely based in water, which we dose with micro-nutrient levels (the precise amount that each plant needs), and also plant our seeds in a soil-less growth medium, ensuring optimum cleanliness. We also use no pesticides, herbicides, fungicides—no ‘cides for that matter, at all. Finally, we grow in a ‘clean-room’ environment, mimicking high-tech operations. Our environment is so clean and precisely managed that our waste water comes out completely clean—cleaner than the local potable tap water!
FT: In one of your interviews, you have mentioned that COH products are “Beyond Organic.” Could you explain this label?
SL: Organic produce that is field-grown may not use pesticides but it is allowed to be grown with herbicides and can also be grown with fertilizer that is full of pathogens. Organic also generally uses soil—which may harbor pests and transmit pathogens. Our products are grown in the cleanest, most precise environment as possible and does not use soil. Many people prefer organic produce because of the perception that is clean and healthier but organic produce, for example, is often not recommended for people with compromised immune systems because it’s not as clean as conventionally grown. Our product is ‘Beyond Organic’ in that it is extremely fresh (and by implication, very healthy because phytonutrients in produce start to decay upon harvest—we offer our produce within 24 hours of harvest; most produce is served within 7 to 17 days of harvest across the U.S.) and clean, without the use of chemical controls. We are also unique in being kosher certified as a vertical farmer—this means that we are insect free—and very clean.
FT: Lack of access to food has become a central problem in some of the major cities and urban areas in the U.S. How does COH hope to address such food system problems?
SL: Our food is grown and served within what is known as a hyper-local radius (fewer than 100 miles). Food is considered local in the U.S. if it is produced (not necessarily grown, but perhaps processed), within 400 miles of the point of consumption. Our hyper-local growing allows for distribution, year-round, of produce for even the most inclement of climates. Our unit economics also allows us to be a low-cost provider of healthy greens, something most vertical farmers won’t be able to do.
FT: Vertical farming uses less land area and comparatively less water than conventional farming. What do you think are the major concern areas in this form of production (vertical hydroponic farming) that COH hopes to work on?
SL: Energy is our largest cost. Up to 70 percent of our production cost is energy and we focus on reducing our energy usage every day.
FT: How does COH hope to grow in terms of technology; variety, quantity, and quality of the product; and expansion, in future?
SL: Our scale farms will have a good deal of software and computer vision capability because what we manually inspect today will have to go over to machine based inspection. The quality of the product is always a concern and we will seek to continue to obtain kosher certification for all our farms. Our product offerings are expanding to include packaged products as well. Finally, our geographic expansion will be growing to 9 farms in our current pipeline and then ultimately to over 25 farms across the U.S. as a whole.
Ikea Creates Sustainable Indoor Garden To Help You Grow Veggies Triple Fast
Ikea Creates Sustainable Indoor Garden To Help You Grow Veggies Triple Fast
Posted by Jill Ettinger | Senior Editor, LIVEKINDLY | Featured in VegNews, The Huffington Post, MTV, Reality Sandwich, EcoSalon, and Organic Authority.
Los Angeles, CA | Contactable via jill@livekindly.co
Jan 2, 2018
Ikea may have just made your life easier. No, really. While you’ll still need to find your mini toolset and have some alcohol nearby to console you as you build away into the night, this one’s actually a game-changer, even if you never thought you could have an indoor garden.
Space10, the design lab for Swedish furniture giant Ikea, has just revolutionized the home garden. In particular, it’s targeting homes without a spoonful of soil anywhere on the property. And it’s just what you’d expect from the modern and DIY-focused home furnishings store and then some.
Earlier this year at the September London Design Festival, Ikea revealed a prototype for Lokal, its mini indoor garden that can grow herbs and fresh greens inside your home in Ikea’s uniquely compact and edgy style. No sunlight? No problem. It takes a futuristic slant on the kitchen garden–a bit of a science and a bit of sci-fi all wrapped in one delicious salad grower that can grow food pretty much anywhere there’s a power outlet.
The idea is to “explore how Ikea could develop a new, local supply chain for its own food,” Space10 spokesperson Simon Caspersen told Business Insider.
The indoor farming system relies on hydroponics (water) and LED lights in a climate-controlled box. The LED lights mimic natural sunlight but can actually increase production with crops growing three times as fast as they would outdoors, Ikea claims. And that speedy growth means the system requires 90 percent less water than required by outdoor (or soil-based indoor) gardens, making it super sustainable for growing greens and herbs.
And these gardens full of healthy food are sure to sell out, because, as anyone who’s ever put together Ikea furniture knows, you need to be healthy, strong, and energized to do it.
3D Printing Saves Time and Money in Urban Farming Product Design and Prototyping
3D printing technology has been used in the agriculture industry in various applications, to help create small-scale organic farms in developing countries, make cost-effective tools and plant crops, and set up urban gardens.
3D Printing Saves Time and Money in Urban Farming Product Design and Prototyping
by Sarah Saunders | 6 hours ago | 3D Printers, 3D Printing, Business |
3D printing technology has been used in the agriculture industry in various applications, to help create small-scale organic farms in developing countries, make cost-effective tools and plant crops, and set up urban gardens. Brooklyn-based Farmshelfwants to make it easy for anyone to grow their own food, and has developed an autonomous system, complete with custom 3D printed parts, that makes it possible for individuals, restaurants, and residential communities to do so on-site.
While the team at Farmshelf had its end goal in mind from the start, they knew it would be difficult to see it come to fruition. In order to set up autonomous processes involving growing organisms, they would need to quickly and cost-effectively manufacture, then test, plenty of customized tools, like mounting brackets and plant hangings, which would also meet the engineering requirements for the various components and subsystems.
Farmshelf plant pod designs loaded into Ultimaker Cura.
As more conventional methods of manufacturing would be too expensive, and could easily throw the whole project off schedule if there were any unforeseen issues, Farmshelf turned to 3D printing to get the job done.
Andrew Shearer, CEO and Co-Founder of Farmshelf, said, “As a company, you can now look at 3D printing as a way to involve more people in the building process, and involve more in the prototyping and dreaming process, thanks to how easy it is.”
A close-up of a Farmshelf plant pod.
In order to create custom parts for testing, as well as refine its hardware and software platform, Farmshelf integrated Ultimaker 2+ 3D printers into the design process. The 3D printers gave the team the freedom, and the budget, to develop and produce multiple design iterations for its large system, as well as the custom, modular parts that went into it.
Farmshelf was able to use Ultimaker’s 3D printing technology for every single project stage, from design and laboratory research to prototyping and production of its “functioning, plant-ready prototypes.”
“As we approached prototyping all of these parts, Ultimaker proved to be a great solution,” Shearer said. “For all the different needs we’ve had, from prototyping to small batch, short-run production parts, this technology enabled us to push forward our timelines, and keep this company on the fast track. It is always tough to build hardware, but Ultimaker makes it a lot easier.”
Andrew Shearer checking on plant pods.
If Farmshelf had been forced to outsource the work, they would have had to shell out a lot of money for supplies, services, and materials; but, since the team kept its Ultimaker 2+ 3D printers on-site, they only had to purchase filament for the prototypes. In addition, the design iteration process would have been much slower, since they would have had to wait weeks, and possibly even months, for new custom parts.
“Without access to the Ultimaker printers, we would have had to resort to using off the shelf components, and would have had to design our product around those off the shelf components. Or worse, we would have had to extensively machine parts using CNCs, which can be a time-consuming and expensive process,” said Farmshelf’s Product Designer Jaeseong Yi. “Having the Ultimaker machines really empowered us in our design process.”
Because Farmshelf used 3D printing technology to develop its autonomous system, it had the freedom to quickly, and inexpensively, customize parts. The team was also able to create 3D printed functional prototypes, in order to test their products through, as Ultimaker put it, “entire growth cycles of plant pods.”
“The Ultimaker 3D printers, in the simplest terms, made it even possible for us to build early Farmshelf prototypes. Without them, given the number of plastic parts that we use in the system that are custom, I cannot even imagine how many tens of thousands of dollars it would have cost us to make those sets of parts,” said Gabe Benton, Farmshelf’s botanist and the lead Ultimaker operator in the early stages of the business.
Custom parts printed on the Ultimaker 2+.
Thanks to 3D printing, the team had an efficient, cost-effective product expansion process as well, and was able to install, and exhibit, several beta models of its innovative product at various public sites, including a historical, iconic location in New York – Grand Central Station.
Claus Meyer, a renowned chef, and co-founder of Noma in Denmark, invited Farmshelf to install three of its functioning autonomous units as an experiment in the station, and because the team had saved time and money by 3D printing its plant pods and system parts, they were able to accept his invitation far before they had planned on introducing its system to the public. The experiment was a success, and Meyer’s Grand Central restaurant, the Great Northern Food Hall, was able to use Farmshelf’s prototypes to harvest several leafy greens and microgreens. Now, the team is working to expand beyond its initial concept, and continue harvesting a future for urban farming.
Let us know what you think about this, and other 3D printing topics, at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.
Fastidious Farming
Fastidious Farming
Lee Pitts | December 29, 2017
Farm wives will like the bit of news that farming may soon go dirtless, at least according to a company called Indoor Farms of America. There will be no more dirty clothes to wash or messes to clean up when your hubby forgets to leave his mud in the mudroom. Indoor Farms of America has just built the first 100 percent solar-powered vertical aeroponic indoor farm in the world. Talk about "no-till" farming, this news should have John Deere shaking in its shorts.
The company announced this "major milestone for indoor farming" in Las Vegas, and that's fitting because it sounds like a BIG gamble. But Indoor Farms of America has sold their indoor farms all over the world, in places like the Yukon, Dubai and West Africa where they can "grow over double the yield of anything else in the world." Indoor Farms of America insists "containerized farming will allow local people to have access to daily fresh herbs and greens that they never experienced before, all year long, no matter the weather."
It does sound like an easier way to make a hard living but personally, I'll believe it when an indoor grown pumpkin wins the biggest pumpkin prize next Halloween, or a giant zucchini grows so large they have to remove the roof of the indoor farm to get the sizable squash out.
If this way of farming takes hold there will be no more clodhoppers, punkin' pilers, stubble jumpers, pea pickers, hoe men, plow chasers, cotton backs or dirt farmers. The price of farmland in Iowa will plummet and farm dogs, who before got to ride around in a pickup and explore the world, will now just mope under the porch all day.
I shouldn't be surprised, everything else is moving indoors. Chickens and hogs have been raised inside for decades and more "hoop-houses" are being used to raise cattle inside. The marijuana growers started all this by developing the technology to grow pot indoors to hide it from the cops. But indoor farming brings with it a whole new bunch of problems, like how do you know how good your crop is compared to your neighbors if you can't see it?
Indoor farming means no more ditch banks, tractor pulling contests or rubber irrigating boots that leak. Instead of rednecks and brown faces covered with skin cancer this new breed of farmer will be pasty white from being inside all day. If they want to fit in with the old traditional farmers who meet every morning at the coffee shop two hours before sun-up they'll have to spend some serious time in a tanning booth. The farm workers will be easy to distinguish from the old clodhoppers in bib overalls and steel-toed boots … they'll be the ones wearing shorts and flip-flops. The pickers will be able to harvest tomatoes and potatoes standing up. And what's the worst that can happen, a broken beaker might fall on their toes? It will be hard, however, to tell the indoor farm managers from the suited-up, soft shoe bankers who financed this fiasco.
Because there's no dirt, farm wives won't even have to change clothes when they come home from their day job to go to work on the farm. I suppose it's possible that a grocery store cashier might go to work in the hog house with her Piggly Wiggly badge still on.
Indoor farming will bring with it another upheaval in farming. Farm shows will be entirely indoors, of course, and this new breed of cell phone farmer won't have to pray for rain ever again. He'll just dial up an inch of rain from his cell phone.
There are some things that will stay the same, of course. The indoor farmers will overproduce and the government will come up with some sort of program to give the farmers something else to complain about other than the price. Farming used to be like throwing dice in the dirt but in the future, there may be no need for dirt. Just think, if things get too bad we may read about the occasional indoor farmer who commits suicide by jumping from the tenth floor of his farm.
I just have one thing to say to this new breed of indoor farmers: "Shame on you. Turn in your cap."
Helping Small-Scale Operations Develop A Recipe For Horticultural Lighting Success
Helping Small-Scale Operations Develop A Recipe For Horticultural Lighting Success
December 19, 2017
By Jeff Mastin
Venntis Technologies LLC
During the Emerging Applications track at Strategies in Light (SIL), co-located with The LED Show and Lightspace California in Long Beach, CA, Venntis Technologies biologist Jeff Mastin will explore the landscape of modern farming on the smaller scale, with a presentation on the economics of equipping a small indoor/vertical farm and how such operations can leverage the qualities of LED-based horticultural lighting. Mastin explains the appeal of close-to-consumer growing operations, but notes that a smaller operation will naturally need a different approach than a mass commercial grower. In the presentation “Small-scale vertical farming success recipes: Horticultural lighting reports from the field,” he will address a Michigan-based grower as a case study for analyzing the horticultural lighting needs of localized vertical farms with specific crop and usage objectives. Here Mastin looks at the prospects and exciting opportunities for both the grower community and the solid-state lighting (SSL) industry in expanding this horticultural niche. — Carrie Meadows
Where does our food come from? Three generations ago, this question had much simpler and well-known answers. Most food was derived from family gardens and family farms. Organic, local, sustainable, hydroponic, aeroponic, vertical-farming, container farming, etc. — these terms were not in our vocabulary with the absence of a dozen ways to buy lettuce at the local grocery store. After recent decades of urbanization, population growth, climate care (or lack thereof), and both geographic and relational disconnect from our food sources, vertical farms are an exciting new approach to shorten these distances in fascinating new ways with the help of recent technological advancements. Most foundational to the ability to move some types of farming indoors into dense, highly productive spaces is the advancement of LED-based horticultural lighting technology to make it possible to grow without the Sun and have a chance at economic viability.
Lighting as a Platform Part I: What It Is and Why You Should Care
In the world of the smart building, smart has real meaning. Creating buildings whose performance is optimised with respect to a variety of goals and which meet the increasingly challenging demands of building and energy efficiency regulations is a tough job these days. Energy use must be minimised and operating costs kept low.
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Related: 10 Things to Love about Strategies in Light 2018
LEDs Magazine will continue its countdown to Strategies in Light with more industry insights here at ledsmagazine.com. You can find details on the conference program, speakers, exhibitors, and more at strategiesinlight.com.
Within the realm of vertical farming, besides both strong proponents and objectors, there is also a wide spectrum of approaches. Vertical farmers can grow in soil, hydroponically, or aeroponically; use pallet rack shelving or vertical towers with plants growing horizontally; invest in various levels of control of humidity, CO2, isolation from potential pests; establish operations in abandoned warehouses or new facilities; and focus on “simpler” crops like leafy greens and herbs or break metaphorical ground on potentially higher value crops. For the Feb. 14 Strategies in Light session, we will of course focus on the various options and opportunities related to the critical lighting component of vertical farms, with an emphasis on how the scale of the vertical farm may impact horticultural lighting choices.
Garden manager Christy Kaledas has established indoor vertical farming operations that utilize LED horticultural lighting for the Black Pearl restaurant in Ann Arbor, MI.
Understandably, the most press is given to the largest vertical farming entities such as Plenty, which has raised at least $260 million to date with visions of large vertical farms on the outskirts of every major city. However, your local news might also have shared a story recently about a garage, basement, classroom, or industrial space that is now growing microgreens, leafy greens, or herbs for local restaurants, groceries, and farmers’ markets. In many cases, these are self-funded and driven by conversations with local chefs regarding exactly what they’d like to be adding to their menu next. The specifics of how these grow operations are set up are dictated by budget, physical space constraints, and information sources. Many of these growers are coming out of non-horticultural career paths and are learning from blogs, books, university extension offices, equipment suppliers, and other sources.
Related: Strategies in Light tracks send strong signals about lighting prospects
For the largest-scale vertical farmers, lighting technology is often developed in-house to lower costs. Facilities are large enough to justify multiple lighting approaches where experience, curiosity, or a physical constraint makes it worthwhile. These can include lights of various intensities and spectra. However, for smaller-scale vertical farmers, developing their own horticultural lighting is not an option. Furthermore, changes in their operation as they grow, changing customers, and the completely unforeseen places a premium on versatility within their lighting source. At any scale, upfront costs and operating costs are extremely important as lighting can represent a very large proportion of both costs. Furthermore, lighting performance will have a drastic impact on growth quality and quantity.
An example to be discussed in detail at Strategies in Light will be Black Pearl Gardens. The Black Pearl restaurant recruited its garden manager, Christy Kaledas, to begin growing microgreens and other crops for the restaurant in 2014. The small vertical farm began in Christy’s basement until the restaurant basement was ready, and has since expanded to include a warehouse facility for increased production space. The aforementioned need for versatility resulted in early setups using soil-filled trays, simple and adjustable wire shelving, and TotalGrow Broad Grow Spectrum LED lamps on flexible socketed cords, which could be configured to match the various setups that fit in the basements. The modular, individual lights with an all-purpose growing spectrum also allow the ability to adjust lighting concentrations as needed for different crops and production schedules. Most of this equipment is still used in the new spaces, though not necessarily in the same configuration. Besides multiplying shelving quantities, Black Pearl Gardens has experimented with varying degrees of success with hydroponic systems, higher-powered lighting over more spacious grow ponds, and other variations on its base system.
Black Pearl Gardens’ operations have since expanded into the restaurant basement (shown) and an additional warehouse facility equipped with TotalGrow Broad Grow Spectrum LED lamps with flexible configurations for various crops and growing schedules.
The combination of entrepreneurial aptitude, a great culture for selling high-quality and high-value crops in Ann Arbor, MI, successful horticultural lighting, and other growing techniques are consistent with the stories of other successful small-scale vertical farmers who seek to bring the farm closer to the consumer.
JEFF MASTIN is chief biologist for Venntis Technologies, a specialist in custom spectra, volumetric LED lighting, and custom output pattern lighting, and a finalist in the 2017 LEDs Magazine Sapphire Awards.
Local Roots Shipping Container Farms Achieve Cost Parity With Traditional Farming
4,000 heads oflettuce every 10 days: Local Roots‘ shipping container farms achieve that while using 99 percent less water. Today the LA-based company announced that it has reached cost parity with traditional farming – and they plan to deploy over 100 farms in 2018.
Local Roots Shipping Container Farms Achieve Cost Parity With Traditional Farming
4,000 heads of lettuce every 10 days: Local Roots‘ shipping container farms achieve that while using 99 percent less water. Today the LA-based company announced that it has reached cost parity with traditional farming – and they plan to deploy over 100 farms in 2018. Inhabitat checked out their mobile TerraFarm in New York City and met with CEO Eric Ellestad and COO Matt Vail to learn more.
We visited Local Roots’ TerraFarm in Manhattan a windy, chilly December day, but inside, green butterhead, red butterhead, green leaf, and red leaf lettuce was thriving. Vail and Ellestad started the company around four years ago on a mission to boost global health and seek sustainability in farming.
A few statistics that fuel their mission? For one, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates agriculture is responsible for over 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. And then, 52 percent of the food we do grow in America doesn’t even make it to the consumer, according to Ellestad.
Related: 40-foot shipping container farm can grow 5 acres of food with 97% less water
Their indoor farms address those issues. They can deploy TerraFarms right at or near distribution centers. They design, build, deploy, and efficiently operate the vertical farms, and sell the food – which they think is even better than organic produce.
“In outdoor farming, whether it’s organic or traditional, there’s a lot of variabilities. Even across a field, there’s not going to be a uniform nutrient application or soil quality. In our environment we’re able to consistently create growing conditions that optimize for flavor and nutrient density,” Ellestad told Inhabitat. “We can select varietals that are naturally more nutritious, even ones that don’t make sense to grow outdoors or are really susceptible to weather or have a short shelf life or break down in transit. We can bring those to market at scale with price parity and do that for some of the largest buyers.”
They also see an accelerated growth rate in their TerraFarms. Ellestad said crops will grow two or three times as fast as they would in a field since they can create perfect growing conditions for a plant. They can reuse or recycle all of the water – their biggest use of water is actually for cleaning the farms. And since they can control the environment, they can grow local food year-round.
“Instead of being constrained to a growing season, you’re growing fall, winter, summer, spring; in Saudi Arabia in the summer, in New York in December,” he told Inhabitat. “We’re over 600 times more productive per square foot compared with an outdoor farm. So suddenly you can bring commercial-scale food production into urban areas and start to bring them closer to the point of consumption.”
Solar panels lined the roof of the mobile TerraFarm in Manhattan. They could generate three kilowatts, enough to operate the farm in sunny California, according to Vail. The indoor farms can go off-grid with solar or wind and batteries. Local Roots tends to evaluate the local grid before deploying a farm to see if it’s clean or if they might want to add a source of renewable energy.
Now as they’ve cracked the code for cost parity with traditional farming, Local Roots will be expanding in a big way in 2018. They’ll deploy their first projects outside of the Los Angeles area, and plan to hire around 150 people. Ellestad said they’re also launching their retail brand in a new way. They hope to be on the East Coast by the end of 2018.
But they’re already looking ahead to bringing nutrition to people around the world. Vail told Inhabitat, “We’re here with a mission to improve global health, so that means more than just LA and New York. It means developing countries around the world. It means the two billion people who today don’t have access to the micronutrients they need to be healthy.”
Local Roots is working with the World Food Program (WFP) to deploy and field test a few TerraFarms in 2018 in a developing nation to be determined. These farms will be off-grid, likely equipped with solar power, so they will be self-sustaining; locals will just need to bring in water.
Vail told Inhabitat, “We’ll educate and train the community to operate the farms, and they’ll then have ownership so they can feed their community perpetually in a really sustainable way with food that’s healthy, delicious, and local.”
Find out more about Local Roots on their website.
Images via Lacy Cooke for Inhabitat and courtesy of Local Roots
This Underground Urban Farm Also Heats The Building Above It
Underneath a 26-floor office tower in Stockholm, an underground space once used as an archive for a newspaper will soon become a farm. And because of a unique business model, the urban farmers growing greens in the new farm won’t pay rent–their farm will pay for itself in heat.
12.06.17
This Underground Urban Farm Also Heats The Building Above It
Truly local food is when it’s grown in your basement. Plantagon CityFarm wants to create a network of underground urban farms–and whole skyscrapers filled with plants.
![1/5 The DN Skrapen building, planned site of the Plantagon CityFarm. [Photo: Flickr user Storkholm]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57c8695d5016e11e71be1d83/1513357515946-ABKITJPGPMDIPIE0JFTC/Screen+shot+2017-12-15+at+10.54.11+AM.png)
1/5 The DN Skrapen building, planned site of the Plantagon CityFarm. [Photo: Flickr user Storkholm]
Underneath a 26-floor office tower in Stockholm, an underground space once used as an archive for a newspaper will soon become a farm. And because of a unique business model, the urban farmers growing greens in the new farm won’t pay rent–their farm will pay for itself in heat.
Like some other indoor farms, the Plantagon CityFarm, set to begin production in early 2018, will grow greens in vertical towers under LED lights. But by capturing the heat from the lights–heat that would normally have to be vented out of the room and require air conditioning to keep the plants from overheating–the farm operators can send it into a heat storage system for the office building, and the heat can be used to help keep the offices warm through the winter.
[Photo: Refarmers]
The system will save the office building 700,000 kilowatt-hours of energy a year, worth roughly three times as much as the previous tenant of the basement was paying in rent.
“[The building owner] agreed to give us a free lease for three years, so we don’t pay one single Swedish kroner for the room,” says Plantagon cofounder Hans Hassle. “This is the challenge, very often, for urban farmers: If you really want to grow things in the city, you have to find new business models that actually make the food not too expensive in the end.”
The company plans to sell food directly to people working in the offices above, along with two restaurants that are located in the high-rise. Roughly a third of the produce will be sold to nearby grocery stores, all close enough that the greens can be delivered without fossil fuels. Another third of the produce will be sold in an on-site store in the skyscraper.
[Image: Plantagon, Sweco (Illustration)]
“In Sweden, we have a higher demand for locally grown food than we do for organic food,” Hassle says. “People tend to want to know where the production comes from.”
If organic kale or lettuce travels hundreds or thousands of miles to a store, Hassle says, the environmental footprint could be higher than the same greens, grown without pesticides or herbicides, inside the closed-loop system of the indoor farm. Like other indoor farming, the Plantagon system also uses a tiny fraction of the water used on outdoor farms. The heat is captured in water that travels in tubes over the LED lights, and then sent into a heat pump system. Carbon dioxide from the offices will also be sent to the farm, and fresh oxygen from the plants will be sent back to office workers.
The company plans to open 10 underground farms in Stockholm over the next three years, working in buildings that already have underground heat pump systems. The team is also talking to a local power company about whether its heat could be sold into the larger district heating system that connects to other buildings throughout the city.
A two-hour drive away, in the city of Linköping, the company is planning an indoor system on a much larger scale: a 16-story “plantscraper” that will produce food throughout the building. Two-thirds of the building will include office space that can be rented to make the system financially viable, and, as in the underground farm, heat from the greenhouse will help heat the rest of the building. Conference rooms at the end of each floor will have views of the farm. The company and partners are still finalizing leases with prospective tenants, but plan for the building to be open in 2020 or 2021.
[Image: Plantagon, Sweco (Illustration)]
A similar farm is planned for a building in Singapore, where the lack of land for farming means that most produce is imported from other countries such as Malaysia. As Malaysia and other countries run out of its own arable land and their populations continue to grow–a pattern happening around the world–Singapore is increasingly interested in Plantagon’s vision of high-rise buildings focused on growing food locally. Cities in China that are already struggling to source enough food are also in talks with the company.
While the large-scale farms take more time to construct, the underground farms can be constructed quickly. The company is currently crowdfunding investment in the first farm. Hassle hopes to involve as many people as possible–not for financial reasons, but because he argues that citizens need to be active stakeholders in the burgeoning field of urban farming.
“To us, food production is not like running any business–food is like water, it’s a human right,” he says. “So it’s not only business as usual. This has lots to do with social responsibility and of course with environmental responsibility. That’s why we’re inviting people to be part of owning these facilities because they should have input.”
The company is also structured to be controlled partly by a nonprofit founded at the same time, a business model chosen to keep the company committed to larger goals than just maximizing profit. It’s a somewhat similar approach to B Corporations in the United States.
“We tried to not only speak about this–because that could be lots of corporate bullshit when you say things like this,” Hassle says. “We actually try to institutionalize this in what we’re doing through the articles of incorporation and letting people be part and actually have influence over what we do.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world's largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley.
Canon Electronics Plans Full Automation At Vegetable Factory
The Canon unit will convert empty space at a Gunma Prefecture facility into an indoor farm initially dedicated to growing lettuce and other green, leafy vegetables friendly to hydroponics.
December 28, 2017
Canon Electronics Plans Full Automation At Vegetable Factory
Robots may bring lower costs crucial to profit in growing but finicky sector
At this Gunma Prefecture plant, Canon aims to turn empty space into a roboticized indoor farm.
TOKYO -- Canon Electronics plans to open an entirely automated vegetable factory in 2019, seeking to lower costs by applying homegrown robotics technology to a burgeoning industry where stable profits remain tough to cultivate.
The Canon unit will convert empty space at a Gunma Prefecture facility into an indoor farm initially dedicated to growing lettuce and other green, leafy vegetables friendly to hydroponics. Robots will handle everything from planting seeds and transplanting seedlings to harvesting and packaging crops for shipment. Details such as annual production scale and sales targets will be settled later.
The company will partner with other businesses for know-how on managing the factory and building sales networks. Canon Electronics is also considering building a second such factory in western Japan.
The unit makes some of the manufacturing machinery on the automated production lines in Canon's domestic camera business. Its delicate automation technology from that precision machinery will be put to use developing green-thumbed robots for the company's new factory plan.
Japan had 197 plant factories using artificial light as of February, roughly triple the count in 2011, a survey by the Japan Greenhouse Horticulture Association shows. But production costs run high at such factories, driving up retail prices and making it hard to turn steady profits. In 2016, 37% of the factories operated in the red, the association reported.
Those losses recently led some companies to back out. At the end of 2016, Toshiba closed one such facility in Kanagawa Prefecture. And in 2015, an agricultural startup and plant factory manager based in Miyagi Prefecture went bankrupt under a debt burden of 1 billion yen ($8.81 million at present rates).
Canon Electronics intends to wield its automated production to make operations profitable. Some domestic plant factories automate seed-planting or other processes, but virtually none are automated start to finish. Agricultural startup Spread is building a fully automated plant factory in Kyoto Prefecture, set to begin operations in summer 2018.
(Nikkei)
Company That Led Failed Great Northern Paper Restart Pursues A New Venture In Maine
Company That Led Failed Great Northern Paper Restart Pursues A New Venture In Maine
By Darren Fishell, BDN Staff • December 29, 2017
Darren Fishell | BDN
The paper trail tells of Organic Nutrition's backstory, its key technology and more recent backing from the Portsmouth-based private equity firm Cate Street Capital, who led the failed restart of the Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket.
Cate Street Capital, the firm that leveraged $16 million in public money for its failed restart of East Millinocket’s Great Northern Paper Co. mill, has another project for Maine. This time, it is backing two entrepreneurs who want to grow farm-raised fish, fed with insects, and use the fish waste to grow produce in nutrient-rich water, a technique called hydroponics.
Their company, Organic Nutrition Inc., plans to do that with a headquarters in Florida and a hydroponics facility on the campus of St. Joseph’s College in Standish.
The Maine facility, planned for construction in 2018, is part of the college’s Institute for Local Food Systems Innovation. Organic Nutrition began construction on its Florida facility in October, according to property records.
angram 3DS
A computer rendering by the Kittery-based firm Tangram 3DS depicts a finished Florida facility of Organic Nutrition Inc., an agriculture and aquaculture business backed by the Portsmouth private equity firm Cate Street Capital. Cate Street also used the Kittery company to produce renderings of its scuttled Thermogen Industries projects in Millinocket and Eastport.
With Organic Nutrition, business partners Ernie Papadoyianis and Xavier “Sal” Cherch are seeking a comeback story after a dispute with their previous financiers ended in an adversarial 2009 bankruptcy.
Out of the bankruptcy, they retained their patented aquaculture system and other research. Now, with Cate Street’s backing, the duo wants to put their inventions to work. It could be Cate Street’s comeback in Maine, too.
The eventual bankruptcy of Great Northern Paper left behind a trail of debt that the attorney overseeing the case attributed in part to mismanagement, as managers at Cate Street inked unfavorable deals with related companies plunged the company into more debt and despite clear signs that it was out of cash.
An investigation by the Maine Sunday Telegram into Cate Street’s deal also prompted state and federal regulators to close loopholes in incentive programs that Cate Street used to deliver roughly $16 million in Maine tax dollars to out-of-state financiers, for investments that didn’t improve any part of the East Millinocket mill.
To get Organic Nutrition off the ground, Cate Street plans to use a combination of private financing, federal government support, its partnership with St. Joseph’s and a program that gives foreign investors a fast-track to citizenship.
Bill Diamond, a Democratic senator who represents Standish and who served on the Government Oversight Committee that reviewed the Great Northern deal, said he didn’t know Cate Street Capital was backing Organic Nutrition. But he toured St. Joseph’s in October to hear about its plans and sees no reason for concern.
“I think that’s a wonderful program and I think they are going to be one of the leaders in the east,” Diamond said.
The Maine plan
The facility in Maine will support a new certificate program at St. Joseph’s and provide support to other hydroponics businesses, according to the college. Organic Nutrition committed $750,000 to the effort, helping to match a $2 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
“The Organic Nutrition Hydroponic Farm will help entrepreneurs across the region scale up small greenhouse pilot programs into larger operations, preparing them for transition to stand-alone, for-profit businesses,” St. Joseph’s said in a news release.
The college anticipates the farm will sell about $120,000 worth of strawberries a year, by 2021, during a time when demand is highest for the fruit most often shipped from outside New England, according to an economic study the college commissioned.
The institute also will include the Hannaford Food Venture Center, focused on new food production technology, a commercial test kitchen where budding food manufacturers can use professional equipment and a livestock farm.
St. Joseph’s College
The site plan for the Institute for Local Food Systems Innovation at St. Joseph’s College in Standish shows three major components: at left, Organic Nutrition’s hydroponics greenhouse; at center, the Hannaford Food Venture Center; and, at right, a livestock barn.
As the hydroponic farm is just one part of St. Joseph’s plan, Organic Nutrition is just one of its founders’ ventures.
Cherch and Papadoyianis also lead North American Medical Holdings, a company that aims to build a network of health clinics providing controversial and unregulated hormone mixtures they tout as anti-aging treatments and possible treatments for conditions like erectile dysfunction.
The company wants to sell its so-called “bioidentical” hormone treatments at clinics across the country, under the name “Body & Life” and the slogan, “Your body. Your life!”
That company is still in the works. A website for the health clinic, registered to Cherch and a defunct aquaculture-related entity Closed Containment Systems Inc., asks visitors to “stay tuned while we finish preparing our interactive website to service you best.”
Organic Nutrition’s origins
Organic Nutrition emerged from Papadoyianis and Cherch’s aquaculture research started in 1996. By 2007, they had restarted an aquaculture facility in Florida City and had trademarked their circular, solid-walled fish farming pen as the “Aqua-Sphere.”
The vision, then, was largely the same: to build a better feedstock for fish farming and to use waste from the aquaculture process as fertilizer for hydroponic crops.
“We’re taking a liability of aquaculture, which is the waste, and creating an asset out of it,” Papdoyianis said in a 2007 interview with the Discovery Channel Canada show “What’s That About.”
The company’s first prototype of its circular tank cut about 30 days off the growth cycle for the fish, compared with rectangular “raceways” used at their Florida City operation.
Regulatory filings in 2008 tell of big ambitions for that year, with plans get more Aqua-Spheres into the water and to make moves on other research to breed insects to feed those fish. The planning began after a meeting on the topic in June 2006, with executives at their previous company, Neptune Industries Inc.
“In the weeks that followed, several suggestions arose as alternative sources for fish meal, including rats, insects, snails, worms and fish processing waste, and extensive research was conducted,” the filing states. “The team quickly concluded that insects appeared to offer the greatest commercial potential.”
Behind the scenes, trouble was brewing over ownership of Papadoyianis and Cherch’s aquaculture technology.
A deep recession complicated their effort to get additional loans as Neptune was staring down payments coming due, from roughly $2.5 million in debt instruments it issued to investors. On Feb. 13, 2009, three of those investors forced Neptune into bankruptcy. Papadoyianis, Cherch and various investors in Neptune fired back two weeks later, accusing financiers of foul play to enrich themselves by sabotaging Neptune.
They eventually settled the claims, the last of which they resolved in 2009 as part of the bankruptcy they left with their inventions and trademarks intact.
Enter Cate Street
By 2011, Papadoyianis and Cherch had caught the eye of Cate Street. The Portsmouth-based investment firm listed Organic Nutrition as one of its earliest portfolio companies, according to an archived webpage.
In May of 2012, as Cate Street CEO Halle told Maine officials that its East Millinocket mill restart would not go beyond making newsprint, Organic Nutrition had started the process of securing its trademark on “entoponics.”
With Cate Street’s backing, Papadoyianis and Cherch were back in business.
Last year, they won their trademark for the word “entoponics,” which they define as using insect components and waste to produce vegetables, fruits, plants and algae.
In August, the company announced it secured a $5 million loan guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to finance the first phase of its Florida operation, along with roughly $1.5 million from private investors, who received equity in the company.
In November, Cate Street CEO John Halle told the South Florida Business Journal that the company hopes to capture customers like Carnival Cruise Lines or supermarket chain Publix, which receive some greens shipped from California.
Eventually, the August statement said, Organic Nutrition plans to build that facility out to 500,000 square feet of hydroponics greenhouses and seven Aqua-Sphere fish farming systems.
That vision includes pairing its fish and hydroponics operations with breeding facilities for Black Soldier Flies, according to promotional company videos posted on YouTube. It plans to use food waste to grow the insects. The insects would provide protein meal to their tank-based fish farming systems, and it plans to use the fish waste as fertilizer for its hydroponic crops.
While the details of their plans have emerged in Florida and Maine, Organic Nutrition said in its August statement that it’s planning five facilities in four states. It has not disclosed details of those other plans.
It hopes to fuel some of its future projects with $50 million in foreign investment through the China-based Da Tang Investment Group and the EB-5 program. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program gives expedited green cards to investors who put more than $500,000 into a qualifying U.S. business.
Leaders of Cate Street, Organic Nutrition or the U.S. contact for Da Tang Investment Group did not respond to requests for comment left in mid-December and this week.
On Wednesday, a company website at organicnutritioninc.com disappeared at least two weeks after going live. Google saved portions of the page Dec. 25.
This Stylish Table Is the “Next Generation” of Automated Urban Farming
One of the more promising urban-farm concepts is not in New York, Los Angeles, or any other major city. It’s in Charlottesville, Virginia, courtesy of one University of Virginia alum and a very small team of employees.
This Stylish Table Is the “Next Generation” of Automated Urban Farming
By Jennifer Marston December 29, 2017
One of the more promising urban-farm concepts is not in New York, Los Angeles, or any other major city. It’s in Charlottesville, Virginia, courtesy of one University of Virginia alum and a very small team of employees.
Recent grad Alexander Olsen started Babylon Micro-Farms in 2016, as part of the UVA student entrepreneurial clubhouse, HackCville. An early prototype won $6,500 from Green Initiatives Funding Tomorrow, part of the UVA student council.
Now, Olsen and six other employees are working to get the hydroponic farms inside the homes of consumers, billing them as “the next generation home appliance.”
The concept is pretty straightforward. You start by selecting crops from Babylon’s online menu. Pre-seeded plant packs are then delivered to your door. Right now, pod pack choices include: wellness (kale), spicy peppers, pesto, a mini romaine crop, herbs, edible flowers, a cocktail mix, Asian greens, and arugula.
Once seed pods are set up, the farm regulates itself—you may occasionally have to top off the water or nutrients, but otherwise, the process is automated. A corresponding app provides live data about crop health, notifies users when water and nutrients are needed, and tells you when it’s time to harvest your crops. Once the latter is done, you can order another round of crops and start the process all over again. For the extra-ambitious (and restaurants), the app can control multiple farms at once.
One thing setting Babylon Mirco-Farms apart from other urban farming products is its emphasis on visual design. To that end, the system takes the form of a table with a UV light hanging overhead and is small compared to its industrial counterparts: 6 feet wide by 3 feet deep and 6 feet tall. And instead of seeing wires and buttons, everywhere, pinewood hides those operational things and makes the farm as much a stylish conversation piece as it is a food supply.
The company isn’t alone in their mission to marry urban farming with, uh, urban style. The Ava Byte also uses soil-less grow pods, which come in a slick, space-age-looking container that would blend into a lot of modern kitchen designs. Verdical calls itself “a living food appliance” and is also small enough to fit into most homes. Farmshelf is more geared at serving restaurants and retail spaces, but as of November, they were considering a move to more residential markets.
UVA has given Olsen and Co. considerable support for the project, from grants to advice about the next phase of business. Farms are also installed at university dining halls, where students are encouraged to harvest what they need. According to Olsen, the farms are “a massive hit” amongst the students.
Babylon is now focused on bringing the farms to consumers outside of universities. Currently, a the micro-farm farm goes for $1,799. Pre-order one here. East Coasters get free shipping.
The company also wants to eventually offer a smaller system for less than $1,000, which would be a hit for both cost-conscious consumers and those of us living in shoebox-sized apartments. Neither price tag is pocket change, but I suspect with the right amount of dedication, an investment in one of these would pay for itself pretty fast. Stay tuned.
Photo credit: Dan Addison, University Communications, UVA
SpaceX Buys Produce From This High-Tech Farm In A Shipping Container — Take A Look Inside
A growing movement of people believes that indoor farming could be a solution to the increasing demand for food. Instead of natural sunlight, crops grow under LED lights and in a nutrient-rich water-based solution that mimics soil.
SpaceX Buys Produce From This High-Tech Farm In A Shipping Container — Take A Look Inside
Local Roots co-founder and CEO Eric Ellestad in one of the company's indoor farms.Leanna Garfield
December 13, 2017
By 2050, the world will need to feed 9.7 billion people — 2.4 billion more than today.
A growing movement of people believes that indoor farming could be a solution to the increasing demand for food. Instead of natural sunlight, crops grow under LED lights and in a nutrient-rich water-based solution that mimics soil.
Using this technique, farmers can grow produce year-round in urban areas, monitor progress with embedded sensors, and deliver produce within hours of harvest.
A startup called Local Roots makes indoor farms, called TerraFarms, from shipping containers. The team operates the farms near its customers, which include large corporate offices (SpaceX is one of them) as well as giant distribution centers for restaurants and grocery stores.
Local Roots will deploy more than 100 new TerraFarms in 2018. The company is also moving into a new, 165,000-square-foot manufacturing and headquarters in Vernon, California.
We toured a farm in New York City in early December. Take a look inside below.
Local Roots operates 320-square-foot indoor farms made from shipping containers, which take two weeks to build.
To date, Local Roots has raised $10.5 million.
The company's Series A financing is expected to close in early 2018.
Each container can produce about 4,000 heads of lettuce every 10 days, Local Roots co-founder Eric Ellestad told Business Insider. The farms can technically grow any fruit or vegetable, but greens are the most economically viable crop.
Existing customers include healthy fast-casual chain Tender Greens, farm-to-table restaurant chain Mendocino Farms, and SpaceX, the aerospace company run by Elon Musk.
Elon Musk's brother, Kimbal Musk, co-founded a shipping container farm compound called Square Roots in Brooklyn, New York in 2016.
Instead of sunlight, they rely on a sheet of blue and pink LED lights overhead, which uses proprietary technology. Ellestad said Local Roots' LEDs use less energy than "off-the-rack" ones.
The seeds grow in proprietary pods that mimic soil. The primary material depends on the crop. Baby kale, for example, grows best in pods made from peat moss.
Compared to traditional outdoor farms, TerraFarms can run on 99% less water since it's recycled through various systems, according to Ellestad.
Farmers hired by Local Roots control the container's levels of pH, oxygen, and temperature, and set preferences automatically via an app. Sensors embedded in the growing trays track all of this data.
The company has also installed cameras above the growing trays. They use an artificial intelligence technology similar to facial-recognition and relay growing data to Local Roots headquarters.
Local Roots is one of several companies in the burgeoning indoor farming space.
AeroFarms, one of the world's largest hydroponic farming companies, launched in 2007 and operates out of a 69,000-square-foot warehouse in Newark, New Jersey. Another called Bowery Farms started delivering hydroponically grown produce to tri-state-area retailers this year.
Several other vertical farming companies have failed, however. In 2015, Google's Alphabet X abandoned its automated vertical farm project, because it couldn't figure out how to grow staple crops (like grains) hydroponically. VertiCrop, North America’s first vertical farm, was founded in 2011 and declared bankruptcy after only three years.
But unlike others that work regionally, Local Roots is focusing efforts on distribution centers that send produce to supermarkets and food retailers across the US. Ellestad said this strategy will allow the company to sell its products for the same price as regular produce to as many people as possible.
The company would not disclose what the exact retail price will be for its produce.
"In the short-term, we're going to be the first vertical farming company to truly hit commercial scale," he said. "In the long-term, our mission is to improve global health through increasing access to and the affordability of healthy, responsibly grown food."
How An Ecological Approach to Architecture Can Help Reinvent Urban Food Systems
Fish, plants, and water are combined in Aqualoop, a continuous loop of cleaning, growing and eating.
How An Ecological Approach to Architecture Can Help Reinvent Urban Food Systems
By weaving together infrastructure, urbanism, and ecology, architecture is a perfect medium to envision the sustainable food systems of the future.
By Amale Andraos, Dan Wood / The Monacelli Press
December 20, 2017
Fish, plants, and water are combined in Aqualoop, a continuous loop of cleaning, growing and eating.
Photo Credit: Monacellii Press
The following is an excerpt fromWORKac: We’ll Get There When We Cross That Bridge by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, published by The Monacelli Press, 2017. WORKac (WORK Architecture Company) is a New York-based architecture firm founded by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood, known for their re-inventions of the relationship between urban and natural environments.
Infoodstructure
Dan Wood (DX): PF1 [Public Farm 1, a completely off-grid, biodegradable, and recyclable cardboard-tube farm] started off as almost an academic exercise: let’s build Superstudio’s Continuous Monument and put a farm in it. At the beginning it was such an abstract idea. Farm was just a four-letter word on a page. It just meant green space, a pattern. . . .
Amale Andraos (AA): . . . and by the end it became a whole world. What 49 Citiesbrought forward was that while these visionary cities had been extensively analyzed from the perspective of politics, ideology, or their social context, no one had looked in detail at their shades of green: how they engaged with open space, with parks and forests but also with systems of farming and food economics.
DX:It’s not that the future of food is to grow it in cities, but that engaging food systems opened up a different and more holistic way to talk about infrastructure. Embracing systems and food was simply the catalyst that allowed us to open up our thinking.
AA: At the same time, you could say that our interests in these infrastructural systems—whether through urbanism or ecology—were increasingly woven together and brought into architecture. Architecture’s boundaries became porous, not by blurring the skin, but literally, by collecting water from the roof and drawing it into the building, for example. Architecture became a medium to organize all of these systems and ideas as part of a larger infrastructure and ecosystem, which connected it back to its context.
DX: At the time a lot of people were asking us if we were looking at the work of Dickson Despommier, who designs vertical farms that are completely interiorized in power-sucking, multistory buildings that are embedded in an urban landscape.
AA:Our network was farmers, eager to produce food in new ways. In contrast, Despommier’s propositions prioritized engineering over farming. And while our position is certainly guilty of being nostalgic for a more rustic era, reading Michael Pollan made us quite critical of that kind of technological superfluity.
DX: We made a counter-proposal, Locavore Fantasia. Going vertical can be about more than engineering food to grow indoors; you can design for in-soil growing, have every farming floor open to the sun, and rather than isolate the farm from the city, make the farm a part of it.
AA: It’s actually only doubling the ground once, that’s an achievable level of urban density. Think of community gardens or rooftops. Infoodstructure was a similar idea—what would happen if streets were turned into farms, assuming fewer driverless cars. It was about transforming what is already there rather than putting faith into a new kind of skyscraper.
DX: We were interested in how people were developing new ideas about farming, at a time when architecture seemed to have exhausted itself. That led to a fascination with aquaponics: a system where fish, plants, and water are combined in a continuous loop of cleaning, growing, and eating. You can use the same water over and over again. That loop for us had incredible formal possibilities. A lot of our inspiration was—
AA: —making the loop visible! That became our Aqualoop project—fish and plants combined with a sushi restaurant and a playground. The systems are generative of the architecture. You take the lines of the system and at some point you thicken them.
Fish, plants and water are combined in Aqualoop, a continuous loop of cleaning, growing and eating.
DX: I always say that one of the most exciting things about architecture is that someone’s floor is another person’s ceiling. There are these relationships that translate through the section, whether it’s transforming the Guggenheim into a lazy river and hydroponics tower for the Flow Show or enlarging a typical core to contain new ecological infrastructure and public spaces as we did for the Plug Out project. In embracing all of these systems it becomes so clear. A sloped roof collects water naturally, and it is collected in a cistern, which becomes a curved wall. The section becomes a system in itself.
Installed at New York's Guggenheim Museum in 2010, "Flow Show" was a water slide using rainwater filtered on the museum's roof.
AA: Soon after we won PS1 we had an interesting conversation with Winy Maas of MVRDV, who had also been looking at food systems and cities, especially with their—
DX:—Pig City—
AA: but the conversation made us feel somewhat more American, and less in tune with that kind of Dutch engineering, pragmatism, and the stacking of pigs. Maybe we’re more romantic or dangerously nostalgic.
DX: But our pigs would be much happier.
Amale Andraos is the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She has taught at numerous institutions including the Princeton University School of Architecture, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the University of Pennsylvania Design School, and the American University in Beirut.
Dan Wood leads international projects for WORKac. He holds the 2013-14 Louis I. Kahn Chair at the Yale School of Architecture and has taught at the Princeton University School of Architecture, the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Ohio State University’s Knowlton School of Architecture, and the UC Berkeley School of Environmental Design, where he was the Friedman Distinguished Chair.