Post Office Workers Grow Vegetables, Breed Chickens On Paris Rooftop "Farm"

Post Office Workers Grow Vegetables, Breed Chickens On Paris Rooftop "Farm"

Reuters Staff

Post office employees pose on a 900 square meters farm garden on the rooftop of their postal sorting center, as part of a project by Facteur Graine (Seed Postman) association to transform a city rooftop as a vegetable garden to grow fruits, vegetables, aromatic and medicinal plants, with also chickens and bees in Paris, France, September 22, 2017.

Picture taken September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

PARIS (Reuters) - An urban agriculture initiative to make Paris more environmentally sustainable, mainly through farming on the capital’s rooftops, has been such a success that the mayor is unveiling a new round of projects this week.

Rooftop farming has boomed in the past years from New York to Tokyo via London and Paris.

By 2020, the French capital will host more than 100 hectares (0.39 square mile) of rooftop gardens and planted walls, the Paris City Hall said. Of this, one third will be devoted to urban farming.

The first wave of projects will lead to the cultivation on 32 sites of 425 tonnes of fruits and vegetables, 24 tonnes of mushrooms, 30,000 flowers, the production of 8,000 litres of beer and 95 kilograms of honey.

These include a 900 square metre rooftop farming project on top of a French Post Office building housing around 500 employees in northern Paris.

Surrounded by high towers, postal workers grow fruit and vegetables including lettuces, aubergines and tomatoes, and breed chickens on 90 tonnes of earth deposited on the roof.

A box of vegetables is displayed at a 900 square meters farm garden on the rooftop of a postal sorting center, as part of a project by Facteur Graine (Seed Postman) association to transform a city rooftop as a vegetable garden to grow fruits, vegetables, aromatic and medicinal plants, with also chickens and bees in Paris, France, September 22, 2017. Picture taken September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

“We are postal workers who thought it was nice to be able to fulfil our dream, which is to work for a more edible city,” said Sophie Jankowski, head of Facteur Graine (Seed Postman), which manages the Post Office’s rooftop garden, told Reuters TV.

One of the association’s commitments is to use old vegetable varieties, such as high quality tomatoes which do not travel well over long distances, she said.

“We want to give taste to life but also to plates.”

The project also changed the way employees see their workplace.

“It helps us connect with nature. We’re in front of computers, we live in a virtual world, so doing those little things help people reconnect with each other, with the living,” Corinne Lienhart, communications officer and volunteer, said.

(The story corrects fifth paragraph to show 500 people work in building, not on project)

Reporting by Sonia Ye and Clotaire Achi, writing by Sybille de La Hamaide; editing by Louise Heavens

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm Concludes First Season

Boston Medical Center Rooftop Farm Concludes First Season

Atop its power plant facility this past summer, the hospital introduced 7,000 square feet of space dedicated to growing fresh produce.

September 25, 2017

Boston Medical Center (BMC) has transformed the once barren roof on top of its power plant building into the largest rooftop farm in that city. This past summer, the 7,000 square feet of growing space flourished with fresh produce, including arugula, bok choy, radishes, Swiss chard, and kale. The rooftop space produced approximately 15,000 pounds of food this growing season, most of which went directly to the hospital’s patients.

Rooftop farm at Boston Medical Center in Massachussetts

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Close to 1,800 pounds of crops were harvested from the rooftop farm in June 2017. BMC’s Preventive Food Pantry received more than 960 pounds of the first yield, and the hospital’s kitchens received 830 pounds, ensuring the food is widely distributed to cafeterias across campus and that it is used in patients’ meals. Programs through BMC’s Demonstration Kitchen have also given the BMC community opportunities to visit the rooftop farm and learn about cooking with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Later-season crops such as tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, summer squash, and peppers were ready for harvest in July.

“The goal with our rooftop farm is to provide fresh, local produce to as many of our patients, employees, and community members as possible,” said David Maffeo, BMC’s senior director of support services. “This initiative supports our mission to address social determinants of health by improving access to healthy fruits and vegetables, and it is a perfect example of BMC’s dedication to sustainability and green efforts.”

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The brainchild of Maffeo and Robert Biggio, senior vice president of facilities and support services, with the support of BMC’s Office of Development, the rooftop farm project was a year and a half in the making. Maffeo worked with Lindsay Allen and John Stoddard of Higher Ground Farm to find a rooftop and growing system that would work best for BMC’s needs. The farm was designed and installed by Somerville, MA-based, Recover Green Roofs, and Higher Ground Farm is managing the growing.

Allen, who is serving as BMC’s first farm manager, also completed a light study of the roof to determine the feasibility of growing crops in the space. “I think one of the other important ‘harvests’ from the farm is the knowledge exchange that will happen aroundhealth and local food in relationship to the farm,” said Allen. “We are what we eat, so the more people we can provide healthy, nutrient dense food to, the healthier our communities will be.”

According to Stoddard, founder of Higher Ground Farm, rooftop farms function similarly to ground level farms and generally can accommodate the same crops as other farms. The main constraints on a rooftop are soil depth, wind, and access.

Two urban beehives, painted by pediatric patients at BMC, were installed on the rooftop in early June. Tours, volunteer opportunities for employees, and programs through the Demonstration Kitchen for patients have allowed dozens of other individuals to get hands-on experience on the farm.

Additionally, the rooftop farm reduces BMC’s carbon footprint by increasing green space, adding carbon-breathing plants, and reducing the building’s energy use. The farm absorbs and slows the flow of rainwater, which helps address the issue of “combined sewer overflows,” a common urban problem where stormwater combines with sewage in periods of high rainfall and pollutes waterways. And, by producing food on-site, BMC is decreasing the energy required to transport food.

The rooftop farm is one of numerous sustainability initiatives at BMC. As part of a clinical campus redesign, BMC is cutting emissions by 50%, and in Fall 2016, the hospital announced a solar power purchase agreement with MIT and the Post Office Square Redevelopment Corporation. The solar purchase is equivalent to 100% of BMC’s projected electricity consumption, putting BMC on pace to become the first carbon-neutral hospital in New England upon completion of the campus redesign in 2018.

Green City Growers Honored Globally, Nationally And Locally With Five Awards

Green City Growers Honored Globally, Nationally And Locally With Five Awards

PR Newswire

 Sep. 18, 2017, 05:19 PM

BOSTON, Sept. 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Green City Growers (GCG) received five awards within one week in recognition of the company's success in its mission of transforming unused space into thriving urban farms, providing a variety of clients with immediate access to nutritious food, while revitalizing city landscapes and inspiring self-sufficiency.

"In nine years of operating, we have grown 175,000+ pounds of organic produce and engaged over 7,500 people, on less than two acres of space combined," says Jessie Banhazl, CEO and Founder of GCG. "To have this work recognized is incredibly heartening for everyone at Green City Growers."

GCG, a Certified B Corporation, has been included on B Lab's Best for the Environment and Best for the World Overall list for 2017, earning scores in the top 10 percent of more than 2,100 Certified B Corporations on the B Impact Assessment. The total 176 honoree companies come from 75 industries and 25 countries.

On September 15, GCG received the Walden Woods Project's Environmental Challenge Award in honor of Fenway Farms and the partnership with Linda Henry and the Red Sox. Sited within Fenway Park, the farm produces 6,000 pounds of organically grown produce each season. Previous award recipients include President Bill Clinton and Robert Redford. The award was presented by Don Henley of the Eagles, Walden Woods Project founder, at the Global Environmental Leadership Award Dinner.

Lastly, Scout Somerville named GCG Best Eco-Friendly Business and Best Landscaping Company in its September/October edition. GCG hosts the Urban Ag. Ambassador program for the City of Somerville, in addition to maintaining farming sites throughout the Greater Boston area.

Green City Growers, the premier urban farming company in the northeast, envisions a world where rooftops and vacant lots become common and productive places to grow food – an agricultural revolution for a healthier nation. GCG works with corporate clients, retailers, property management companies and residential properties to install and maintain attractive edible landscapes. Farming sites range from small residential and commercial locations, to in-ground production farms, to the rooftop farms at Whole Foods Lynnfield and at Fenway Park, Fenway Farms. 
www.greencitygrowers.com

Paris Embellishes Skyline With Organic Rooftop Farms

Paris Embellishes Skyline With Organic Rooftop Farms

© Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The organic farm perched on top of the RATP-building in eastern Paris is one of the first commercial rooftop cultivation grounds in Paris

Text by Louise NORDSTROM   |  Latest update : 2017-09-02

Paris has taken the farm out of the field and planted parts of it onto its rooftops to make the city greener and more sustainable. This summer, metro operator RATP became one of the first companies to host a commercial farm on one of its roofs.

A sudden breeze carrying gentle notes of basil and mint envelops pedestrians walking by the RATP building at Place Lachambeaudie in the 12th arrondissement, a middle-class district located in the east of the French capital. Some passersby quickly lift their noses to try to figure out exactly where the fresh and appetising scents are coming from, but none seem able to locate the origin.

The scents are coming from the top of the grey and arch-shaped office building where Michel Desportes and Théo Manesse have been spending the better part of the afternoon harvesting row upon row of various types of organically-grown herbs ranging from violet-coloured basil to chocolate-and-banana-flavoured mint.

Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | Michel Desportes picks zuccini flowers at the farm on top of the RATP building

“It’s growing so much at the moment that we have to harvest every day,” Desportes, one of the founders of the start-up Aéromate which runs the farm, tells FRANCE 24. Bees and ladybugs constantly buzz around the plants, seemingly oblivious to the traffic and pollution on the streets down below.

“They’re all over the place,” Desportes says.

Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The lush, green plants attract a lot of bees and ladybugs

Inca technique

The farm was started in July this year after a 2016 call by the City of Paris for a series of urban agriculture projects to make the city more environmentally sustainable. By 2020, Paris aims to have transformed 33 hectares, or 330,000 square metres, of its unused urban space into urban agriculture.

Although the commercial Lachambeaudie farm, which sprawls over a 450 square metre area and houses up to 5,000 plants, mainly focuses on growing fresh herbs, it also offers some seasonal fruits and vegetables. At the moment, this includes several different species of tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and lettuce. This winter, Aéromate plans to cultivate crops like watercress, spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and artichoke. Everything is grown hydroponically, a hydroculture method developed by the Inca and Aztec Indians and in which the plants are grown without any soil by using only mineral nutrient solutions in water solvent.

Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | Aside from herbs, Aéromat also grows seasonal fruit and vegetables like peppers and tomatoes

“The tomatoes are delicious, you really can’t compare the quality to the ones you get in the store,” says Eric Poutong, who bought a basket of the farm’s products at RATP’s weekly fruit and veg sale on Thursday.

“I get a basket almost every week.”

A greener Paris

The decision by RATP to install and invest in the farm is part of its corporate mission to contribute to a more sustainable Paris. The group, which owns several buildings in the city, has identified 1.4 hectares (14,000 square metres) that it plans to transform into cultivated grounds by 2020.

Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The Aéromat team need to harvest the fields every day

Emeline Becq, project manager for RATP’s property development arm SEDP, said the Aéromate herbal garden fits perfectly into that picture.

“We wanted to do something with our unused rooftops – up until now they haven’t really served any particular purpose - and this concept turned out to be just the right thing for us.”

Thirty-one tons

Aéromate is currently setting up a 180-square-metre farm, also on the roof of real estate group Tishman Speyer, at Place de la Bourse in central Paris, and is planning for a third commissioned by the City of Paris at the nearby Place de la République.

Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The farm occupies a 450 square metre-space that was previously unused

Aside from selling the herbs and produce to staff of the companies that own the buildings, Aéromate also offers its harvest on online platforms such as “La Ruche qui dit oui!”, which connects local producers with consumers directly. Aéromate has also begun doing business with local restaurants and bars, of which two of its current customers are Michelin-starred eateries. As the business grows, Aéromate expects to harvest up to 31 tons of herbs, fruits and vegetables each year.

“It feels good to work up here. I feel lucky to be surrounded by all these green plants while actually working in the centre of the city,” Desportes says.

Date created : 2017-09-02

Plants In The Sky

Plants In The Sky

NANETTE DUPREE 3 SEPTEMBER 2017

The urban sprawls of the world have taken over good chunks of the earth, leaving little green to be found within these cities. However, Paris has taken a measure to bring the greenery back into the city. RATP, which is a metro operator located in Place Lachambeaudie in the 12th arrondissement (a middle class district east of Paris), has become one of the first companies to place a commercial farm on top of its roof.

According to France 24, the project was crafted in 2016 when the City of Paris called for a collection of urban agricultural projects to be completed in order to make Paris more environmentally sustainable. Paris hopes to have converted 33 hectares (330,000 meters) of unused city space into agriculture by the year 2020.

The farm, dubbed Lachambeaudie farm, currently houses around 5,000 plants. It mainly focuses on growing herbs, but it also houses seasonal fruits and vegetables. Their selection includes tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and lettuce. This winter, plans are in place to plant new additions, such as watercress, spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and artichoke. All of the plants are grown hydroponically, which is a planting method developed by the Inca and Axtec Indians. It involves the plants being placed in mineral nutrient solutions mixed with water solvent instead of soil.

RATP's decision to take on this urban farm is a part of its mission to help Paris to become a more sustainable city. The company plans to convert more of its rooftops into urban farms by the projected date of 2020.

Presently, Aéromate is planning to set up more urban farms with other companies and hoping for similar success. The company has also started doing business with local restaurants and bars, and plans to harvest up to 31 tons of herbs, fruits, and vegetables per year.

Epic 25,000 Square Foot Garden Opens on Rooftop of Montreal Supermarket

Epic 25,000 Square Foot Garden Opens on Rooftop of Montreal Supermarket

By: Leeron Hoory | September 7, 2017

Photo: Courtesy of La Ligne Verte

Supermarkets across North America shelve fruits and vegetables that have been imported from thousands of miles away. Bananas from the Dominican Republic can be found next to avocados from Mexico. But last month, one supermarket in Montreal announced that it will begin importing produce from just a few feet away– from their own rooftop, in fact.

Located in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal, IGA Extra Famille Duchemin plans to sell the food it grows on the supermarket’s roof, which will include a variety of 30 different fruits and vegetables including lettuce, peppers, herbs, and tomatoes. It will also support eight Alveole bee hives with the intention of producing an estimated 600 jars of honey to the shelves. At 25,000 acres, it will be the largest organic rooftop garden in Canada in addition to being the first supermarket in the country to sell food grown on its own roof, according to the family-owned grocery.

Photo: Courtesy of IGA Extra Famille Duchemin

“A green roof garden allows us to nourish our passion for food while reducing our environmental footprint, something that is particularly important to us,” Richard Duchemin, co-owner of IGA Extra Famille Duchemin. The supermarket is part of the International Grocers Alliance (IGA), which consists of around 5,000 supermarkets around the world. “We are happy to give life to this innovative project and hope it encourages other companies to follow suit,” Duchemin said.

The rooftop garden was created over the course of more than a year in collaboration with La Ligne Verte, or The Green Line: Green Roof, a company that works on green roofs and landscaping, in addition to Sobeys Quebec, the largest food retailer in Canada.

IGA Extra Famille Duchemin is far from the first supermarket to open a rooftop garden. While growing produce in cities is not new, the growing trend of urban farming for commercial purposes started less than a decade ago. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a nonprofit organization based in Toronto that facilitates and promotes the development of urban rooftop gardens across North America, recently told Garden Collage that it first began teaching its garden rooftop training course in 2010.

Urban agriculture offers a solution to the rapid rate of population growth in urban cities. It is estimated that by 2050, sixty percent of the world will be living in cities, and more of them are turning to sustainable solutions for local food growth. For instance, one of the largest rooftop gardens across North America is the Brooklyn Grange, which is 2.5 acres (108,000 square feet) and spans across two New York City rooftops, growing over 50,000 pounds of organic produce per year. Chicago Botanic Garden turned a 20,000 square foot garden into a rooftop farm in 2013, becoming the largest rooftop farm in the Midwest. According to Green Roof for Healthy Cities’s most recent survey of its corporate members, Toronto, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Seattle are four of the leading cities with the highest square footage of green roofing.

Photo: Courtesy of La Ligne Verte

However, not everyone is convinced that urban agriculture is a solution to food security, particularly given the challenges of scale. In an article for Ag Professional, Maurice Hladik, author of Demystifying Food from Farm to Fork, argued that while there may be a rising trend in urban farming, it cannot realistically contribute a significant portion of food. “I would be surprised if the food production potential of the available urban land would amount to even one percent of that available on conventional farms utilizing open fields, pastures, and rangeland,” Hladik wrote.

Still, this doesn’t change the fact that more than two-thirds of the nation’s food comes from crops grown outside of the country, according to one 2016 study. Urban rooftop gardens, like the one on top of IGA Extra Famille Duchemin, ensure that at least some of this produce comes from around the corner.

Surbana Jurong Unveils 'Floating Ponds' that Could See Farms In Parks, Rooftops

Surbana Jurong Unveils 'Floating Ponds' that Could See Farms In Parks, Rooftops

Fish farms could soon sprout at a park or rooftop near you, if Surbana Jurong's blueprint for a new vertical farming concept catches on.

By Wendy Wong @WendyWongCNA

04 Sep 2017 07:57PM (Updated: 04 Sep 2017 11:24PM)

SINGAPORE: Fish farms could soon sprout at a park or rooftop near you, if Surbana Jurong's blueprint for a new vertical farming concept catches on.

The infrastructure consultancy unveiled on Monday (Sep 4) its design for Floating Ponds - vertical farms that can be tucked into Singapore's urban spaces, such as rooftops and underneath viaducts,  or be integrated into parks and buildings.

The system will allow farms to rear more fish while taking up less space than conventional farms, Surbana Jurong said. 

A closed-loop farming system, the Floating Ponds tap solar energy to grow algae on rooftops. The algae is then used to feed the fish, and nutrient-rich water from the tanks can be used to grow vegetables. More than 90 per cent of the water in fish tanks is recycled, reducing the need to top up fresh water.

"You can build these facilities within the city. The logistic cost and the uncertainty of whether you will find a catch if you go to the ocean are therefore eliminated," said Surbana Jurong group CEO Wong Heang Fine. 

A three-storey prototype was developed in partnership with Singapore fish farm Apollo Aquaculture Group. Since its implementation last year, the fish farm has seen its yields increase by more than three times.

"This is something we’re not (just) talking about, we’re really demonstrating it. And I think this puts us at an advantage."," said Apollo deputy CEO Lucky Phua.

The farm plans to double its capacity to six storeys, which could potentially lead to a yield of up to 5,000 tonnes of food fish annually.

Surbana Jurong said it is in discussions with government agencies to implement the new system in urban areas in the future. It also has plans to expand overseas, such as to India, China and Africa, Mr Wong said.

"A lot of these countries are looking at food resilience as an issue for them to resolve," said Mr Wong. "So this particular Floating Pond as an intensified way of doing farming - whether it’s vegetables or seafood - will come in very useful for them."

Source: CNA/am
Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/surbana-jurong-unveils-floating-ponds-that-could-see-farms-in-9184138

7 Ways Cities Are Transforming Urban Rooftops

7 Ways Cities Are Transforming Urban Rooftops

With street-level space at a premium, urban rooftops are underused spaces ripe with potential

BY MEGAN BARBER@MEGCBARBER  SEP 5, 2017, 4:00PM EDT

The Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm grows fruits and vegetables in New York City. 

Photo by Anastasia Cole Plakias

As a sweeping construction boom renders U.S. cities ever denser, there’s one type of urban space that’s still an untapped resource: rooftops.

Sure, every city lover can name a handful of rooftop patios with great views or a favorite rooftop hotel pool. But for the most part, roofs remain in the domain of the squarely utilitarian, home to chimneys, air ducts, and satellite dishes. That can change.

According to Steven Peck of the Toronto-based non-profit Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, “The roofscapes of our cities are the last urban frontier—from 15 percent to 35 percent of the total land area.” And they can offer much more than just a pretty view. For example, rooftops can provide room to grow food, build affordable housing, and green our cities, to name a few.

Below, check out seven ways urbanites are transforming roofs from empty dead spots into spaces for innovation.

Green roofs

A green roof on a 900-square-foot historic building in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn. 

Courtesy of Brooklyn Greenroof

A common way to transform an unsightly rooftop is to add greenery. But vegetation can do far more than create an urban oasis. Green roofs covered in plants can reduce stormwater run-off, lower cooling costs, and combat the urban heat island effect.

One compelling example comes from Vietnamese architect Hung Nguyen, who designed a roof pavilioncovered in plants with air-purifying properties. Other homeowners use drought tolerant, low-maintenanceboth plants like sedum to create a green roof that can withstand even harsh winter climates.

Rooftop farms

The world’s largest rooftop farm, Gotham Greens in Chicago. 

Photo by Debbie Carlos

Larger rooftop gardens can also become farms. In New York City, Brooklyn Grange runs rooftop farms in Long Island City, Queens and The Navy Yard in Brooklyn, producing tens of thousands of vegetables a year that are sold directly to urban restaurants and greengrocers. Chicago boasts the world’s largest rooftop greenhouse, a 75,000-square-foot facility set atop an old factory. Operated by Gotham Greens, the farm uses a state-of-the-art hydroponic system with a yield that rivals that of a 50-acre farm.

Beyond transforming unused space into eco-friendly agriculture, rooftop farms also reduce transport costs by growing products in close proximity to metropolitan areas. These farm create a more bio-diverse ecosystem in cities, as well, attracting birds, insects, and butterflies.

Gwen Schantz, founding partner and COO of Brooklyn Grange, told Curbed, "I feel like what we’re doing is part of the food movement," she observes. "But it’s also part of the movement to bring green space back into the city and to improve the health of the plants and the animals, but mostly the health of the people here." Head over here for more on rooftop farming.

Affordable housing

H-VAC, a London tiny home designed to look like an air duct. 

Jim Stephenson via PUP

In dense cities with high-priced real estate, rooftops could be the final frontier of affordable housing. Berlin-based architects Simon Becker and Andreas Rauch launched Cabin Spacey to help solve the urban space crunch by building tiny homes on some of Berlin’s 55,000 unused roofs. Becker and Rauch’s cabins—still in the concept stage—can house up to two people in 250 square feet, and can run fully off the grid thanks to solar panels attached to the roofs.

In London, PUP Architects created a tiny dwelling that looks like an air duct as a playful nod to the planning rules that allow rooftop mechanical equipment to be installed without permission. Called H-VAC, the design was the winning entry in the inaugural Antepavilion competition, which explores innovative and alternative ways of living in the city—especially on rooftops.

Recreation areas

A rooftop soccer stadium on the Shibuya Hikarie skyscraper amidst the skyline of Tokyo, Japan. 

Photo by Keith Tsuji/Getty Images

Another way cities are trying to take advantage of wasted roof space is to use them as recreational areas. Rooftop pools have long been a staple of high-end hotels and condos, but larger gyms, soccer stadiums, playgrounds, jogging paths, and even open-air cinemas are becoming more common. In Miami, a new apartment complex has rooftop tennis courts and a track, while the 30-acre Paramount Miami Worldcenter—set to be completed in 2019—will have a soccer field over an office building.

In Tokyo, Japan, people can play soccer on the roof of the Shibuya Hikarie skyscraper, while in Osaka, a 1000-foot astroturf track stretches across multiple roofs at Morinomiya Q’s Mall Base shopping complex.

Chicken coops and apiaries

A natural progression from gardens and farms, chicken coops and beehives are another innovative addition to city rooftops. Chickens can be raised in relatively small spaces—each hen only needs about four square feet—and can provide a whole apartment building with fresh eggs. Rooftop chicken coops have already made it onto some Seattle apartment buildings and New York City hotels.

Likewise, beehives on hotels and skyscrapers can provide businesses with honey for cocktails, food, and spa treatments.

Rainwater collection systems

BMDesign Studios design called Concave Roof, a bowl-like double-roof system to collect rainwater in arid climates. 

BMDesign Studios

As the first point of contact—known as the catchment area—for rainfall, roofs can be an optimal way to harvest rainwater. This age-old method of collecting water may not be as common in the United States as it is in developing countries, but it’s becoming more popular. Especially in drought-afflicted states, harvesting rainwater can be an excellent way to retain stormwater runoff, reduce pollution, and reuse hundreds of millions of gallons of rainfall every year. While not fit for drinking water, harvested rainwater can be used for non-potable purposes like yard watering and toilet flushing.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has incentivized rain collection by imposing “stormwater charge” on properties based on the size of impervious space on the property; homeowners can lower their stormwater charge by adding more green space.

Solar power

A peek at the first installed Tesla solar roof tiles. 

Tesla

The most obvious and common use of rooftops is still for solar power. It makes sense: Unlike many city streets, rooftops have unobstructed access to sunlight and enough space to make larger-scale solar panel installations feasible. And while the idea of solar panels on roofs may not seem innovative, the industry is going through big changes.

For one, new rooftop solar tiles from Tesla look nothing like the solar panels of yore. The Tuscan glass tile tiles and textured glass tiles look just like conventional roof tiling, which could mark a new age of rooftop aesthetics. Other startups are chasing similar concepts.

Elsewhere, the solar industry is trying to make rooftop energy a community endeavor. Around 10,000 Australian homeowners are participating in a pilot program testing the world’s first open market for monetizing rooftop renewable energy and storage. And in Brooklyn, a new energy startup links up neighbors who have solar panels with those who want to buy clean energy, creating the Brooklyn Microgrid.

Hippie Amenities With a High-End Twist

Hippie Amenities With a High-End Twist

By KIM VELSEYAUG. 18, 2017

Garden construction in progress on the eighth floor deck of 550 Vanderbilt in Brooklyn. CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

As dusk fell over Staten Island on a recent evening, about 10 people sat around a large wooden table in a communal kitchen, listening to Van Morrison and painting terra-cotta flowerpots. Houseplants were suspended from the room’s high wood-beamed ceilings, and the smell of freshly baked bread hung in the air.

A hippie house share? Not quite. It was crafts and cocktails night at Urby Staten Island, an upscale rental complex where the demographic skews more young professional than drum-circle enthusiast. Nonetheless, the complex has features that might make that crowd feel right at home: In addition to the communal kitchen, there’s a 5,000-square-foot urban farm, a 20-hive apiary — both tended by live-in farmers/beekeepers — and a kombucha workshop planned for later this summer.

“Live cultures are really something people are responding to,” said Brendan Costello, the complex’s in-residence chef, as he wiped the last of the bread crumbs and black maple butter from the countertops. He has already taught well-attended workshops on making sauerkraut and kimchi.

Just as Birkenstocks and bee pollen have come back in style, so have crunchy lifestyle concepts, from yoga and meditation to composting and home fermentation. And with veganism, Waldorf schools, doulas and healing crystals shifting from far out to very much in fashion, a growing number of New York luxury buildings have embraced the hallmarks of 1970s hippiedom with a high-end twist. Look for amenities like rooftop gardens, kitchen composters, art and meditation studios, bike shares, infrared saunas, even an adult treehouse.

“Especially in Brooklyn, the concrete jungle is not the atmosphere people are aiming for,” said Ashley Cotton, an executive vice president of Forest City New York, whose recently opened condo in Prospect Heights, 550 Vanderbilt, developed in partnership with Greenland USA, has window planters for units on lower floors and a communal garden terrace with individual plots on the eighth floor. Two of the terrace’s six large planters will be tended by a nearby farm-to-table restaurant, Olmsted, which will also offer gardening lessons to residents.

At Pierhouse, the Toll Brothers City Living condo in Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, every kitchen has an in-unit composter, a first for a Toll Brothers development.

Residents of URBY in Staten Island visit a farmstand set up by Empress Green in Urby’s communal kitchen. CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

“If we were deciding between a compost unit and a wine chiller, we’d probably go with the wine chiller since more people would be interested,” said David von Spreckelsen, the president of Toll Brothers City Living division. “But here we had large kitchens and a lot of the units have outdoor space, so we thought people could compost in their kitchen and go right out to their garden.”

While such amenities might be aspirational for some, others are yearning to get their hands dirty. Christine Blackburn, an associate broker at Compass real estate, said that for a woman to whom she recently sold a condo at 144 North Eighth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the roof garden was the most important amenity.

“She didn’t care about the gym, she didn’t care about the garage,” Ms. Blackburn said. “They live in a $2 million condo, but for her to be able to grow tomatoes with her son, that was it.

“The garden plots in that building are tiny,” she added, “but it makes some people feel like they’re not living in a high-rise.”

Public green space has always been a priority, of course, and let’s not forget that large swaths of all five boroughs were once farmland.

Green rooftops have some historical antecedents in the city: The Ansonia, on the Upper West Side, kept 500 chickens on its rooftop farm in the early 20th century, with eggs delivered daily to the tenants, according to “The Sky’s the Limit,” a book by Steven Gaines. But the roof was shut down by the Department of Health after just a few years, in 1907. And for the past century, it was accepted that living in New York meant leaving nature, and local honey, behind.

“It definitely used to be an either/or mentality,” said Rick Cook, a founder of the architecture firm CookFox and a designer of 550 Vanderbilt, who moved to New York from a small town upstate in 1983. But after studying abroad in Florence, Italy, he said, “I understand you could have both. That, in fact, the highest quality of life is to have both.”

Indeed, the explosion of the wellness industry has left many craving a different kind of New York lifestyle.

For a younger generation, practices like organic gardening and meditation may not carry any whiff of the counterculture.

“Being green is modern, being organic is modern,” said Jordan Horowitz, 26, an assistant manager of Enterprise Rent-a-Car who grew up gardening in suburban New Jersey and was excited to get a studio at Urby, where residents have an entire city block of gardens. But he is equally enthusiastic about the pool, the giant bean bags strewn across the grounds and learning to make Vietnamese cuisine from scratch in Mr. Costello’s cooking classes.

That many such offerings tend to be far more upscale than their 1970s counterparts no doubt helps to remove any lingering hippie vibe. Rather than a stable of rusty Schwinns, for example, 50 West, in the financial district, allows residents to pedal out on Porsche bikes that cost $3,700 a pop.

“Yes, it’s sharing, but in a luxury manner,” said Javier Lattanzio, the sales manager at the condo.

Javier and Irina Lattanzio, residents and brokers of 50 West in Lower Manhattan, take a spin on Porsche bikes provided by the building.CreditSasha Maslov for The New York Times

The adult treehouse at One Manhattan Square on the Lower East Side, likewise, is hardly primitive, with Wi-Fi and a staircase. As for all those rooftop herb gardens, asked if they are actually used, one broker replied that they definitely were, though not necessarily for a Moosewood recipe: On a recent trip to 338 Berry in Williamsburg, she saw people with Aperol spritzes clipping herbs to put in their cocktails.

Frank Monterisi, a senior vice president of the Related Companies, emphasized that the new generation of renters and buyers “like to see sustainability, they like to see rooftop gardens.”

At Hunter’s Point South, Related’s massive affordable housing complex in Long Island City, Queens, residents can receive deliveries of fresh vegetables from a C.S.A. — community-supported agriculture. There are also an apiary, about 2,300 square feet of rooftop gardens and a waiting list for the gardening club.

“Everyone wants to garden now. I think New Yorkers have gotten comfortable with the amount of concrete we have, but they also want to see green,” said Joyce Artis, a retired Port Authority worker who helps organize the gardening program at the complex and grows microgreens and lemon trees in her apartment.

Ms. Artis said that when she was growing up in Brooklyn, she was sent to visit relatives in North Carolina in the summer, and hated having to get up early to weed. “But then as I got older, I started missing it,” she said. “And I started growing things in my apartment. No matter how small your space I always say: ‘You can grow one thing.’”

Ms. Blackburn, the Compass broker, said that gardening, for some, is a version of meditation. “Maybe they’re not sitting there with a meditation app, but sticking their hands in the soil — it doesn’t matter if someone’s making $10 million a year — it can be very therapeutic.”

She expects the enthusiasm to continue and intensify. “I wouldn’t be surprised in a year if a luxury building had a chicken coop,” she said.

The Inner-City Apartment Revolution: Think Rooftop Vegie Patches And Beehives

Andrew Mackenzie  |  AUGUST 26 2017

The Inner-City Apartment Revolution: Think Rooftop Vegie Patches And Beehives

A quiet revolution is underway in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, where a group of uncompromising young architects, investors and residents are rewriting the rule book on inner-city apartment living.

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid-rise apartment buildings, their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east.

The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket gardens, interrupted by empty retail space.

Breathe Architecture’s Jeremy McLeod, the man behind the innovative Nightingale 1 project and The Commons, both in Brunswick, Melbourne. Photo: Kristoffer Paulsen

In the middle of all this, almost 10 years ago, architect Jeremy McLeod and a band of small-scale investors pooled their cash to buy a vacant industrial building at the cul-de-sac end of Florence Street. The whole block, now home to 24 apartments, cost them $565,000 – less than the price of a one-bedroom apartment in the area today. As the director of Brunswick-based Breathe Architecture, McLeod had a big plan: to build the greenest apartment building in Australia.

The Commons, as that building became known, has good reason to claim the green crown. Its materials were carefully selected for their eco-credentials. The floors were made from recycled timber, the light fittings from mild steel instead of more energy-intensive aluminium. The taps and door handles were forged from locally manufactured brass in place of environmentally harmful chrome. The windows were double-glazed, and exposed concrete was used on the walls and ceilings to improve heat retention in winter and cool the apartments in summer. Solar panels on the roof reduced energy bills even further.

Each apartment was allocated its own vegie patch, part of an extensive rooftop garden that's home to a productive beehive. A blackboard is used to advertise surplus produce to residents. Climbers planted just three years ago thrive along the tensioned chains that line the north elevation, filtering sunlight inside.

Everyone shares a laundry. At street level, instead of a yawning entry to parking spaces – controversially, there aren't any – there's an organic-wine shop and a cafe. Both share the building's urban industrial aesthetic, sporting polished concrete floors, exposed pipes and recycled brickwork. In summer, the cafe serves cold brew coffee with an orange wedge. You get the picture.

Residents of The Commons opted to do without car parking, directing its architects to design for less-polluting transport choices. Photo: Kristoffer Paulsen

In setting out to design the most sustainable building he could, McLeod had to say no to a lot of things: no slick surfaces, no volatile organic compounds (cheap paint, in layman's terms), no airconditioning. The little energy that The Commons buys is sourced from renewable energy suppliers.

The apartments overlook a city train line in an area with few parks and is, for the most part, a joyless streetscape. Yet 22 of the 24 units sold off the plan. The buyers were mostly under 40, predominantly singles and couples who paid from $390,000 to $590,000 by 2013 for one- and two-bedroom apartments, bigger than the norm.

The Commons went on to win multiple architecture and design awards, and was the cross-category winner ("the Best of the Best") in the national 2014 Sustainability Awards. Furthermore, the project proved to McLeod that there was a market for "deep green" design: a market the real-estate industry was largely blind to. What began as a project mushroomed into a movement, spreading first elsewhere in Melbourne, then interstate.

The innovative thinking expanded, too, with McLeod and his cohorts turning upside down not only traditional notions of apartment design, but also the way such projects are financed, bought and sold. Theirs is a David and Goliath story: a tale of how a few passionate novices took on state planners, big banks and the dead hand of the property industry, and won. The prize was something hard to come by in Australia: good quality, eco-friendly, affordable housing. The slingshot was a little matter called community.

Community is top of mind for McLeod when I meet him at Breathe Architecture, based at the back of The Commons. Tucked behind the cafe, next to a chock-a-block bike park, the offices occupy a smart, practical and simple space. Dressed in his standard uniform of jeans and sneakers, 45-year-old McLeod is, as ever, also wearing his trusty flat cap.

Vertical gardens are a feature of The Commons. Photo: Dianna Snape

Born in Albury on the Victoria-NSW border to parents who were nomadic social campaigners, McLeod relocated frequently as a child, enrolling in no fewer than nine schools. "It taught me to be adaptable and robust, but to this day I hate moving," he says. Having decamped into The Commons on its opening in 2014, he intends never to leave. He recounts how as a child he was dragged from pillar to post on one demonstration or another. "I remember my first protest, on the lawn in front of old Parliament House in Canberra. I was eight." Auspiciously, he was rallying for affordable housing.

While McLeod's parents instilled in him a sense of environmental responsibility, it was the University of Tasmania, then the only institute with an environmental design degree, that helped turn his ambitions into a practical skill set. Following graduation, McLeod was hired at Melbourne architects Fender Katsalidis.

This was the early 1990s, and Melbourne's CBD was a residential desert. Nonda Katsalidis began changing that with his 1994 Melbourne Terrace, one of the first new apartment blocks in the CBD. Located close to the bustling Queen Victoria Market, it had spacious interiors and high ceilings, good-quality fittings and fixtures, and generous balconies. Most importantly, it was surrounded by shops and cafes. It demonstrated for the first time just how great Melbourne city living could be. (Fender Katsalidis went on to design two other landmark CBD apartment blocks in the city, the Republic and Eureka towers, and gave Hobart its Museum of Old and New Art.)

Melbourne Terrace was a risky experiment: apartments were considered second-class housing at the time. It succeeded in part because Katsalidis had part-funded the project himself. Katsalidis wasn't the only architect speculating on the city's future growth by buying neglected blocks and turning himself into a developer. McLeod took a leaf out of his boss's handbook: to cut through as an architect, you needed to be able to talk spreadsheets – and if necessary, put your own money on the table.

That's exactly what McLeod did, leaving Katsalidis to found Breathe Architecture in 2001. After a few years designing restaurants, bars and modest homes, he went on the hunt for a site to put his sustainable ethics to the test. It was 2007, around the time of the federal election that put Kevin Rudd into the Lodge.

"We had just come out of heatwaves and a massive drought in 2006, and climate change was on everyone's mind in that election," says McLeod. "Brunswick had a huge Green vote, so we just thought, 'This is the place to build.' Plus, I lived in the area and loved how it represented old Brunswick. It was a melting pot where everyone felt welcomed and included." 

He and five other investors raised $1 million, which paid for the Florence Street block and funded the legwork required to get development permits. The investors included Anne-Marie Spagnolo, founder and director of Ethical Investment Services, whom McLeod describes as "a legend, a mentor and a massive champion". Needing a further $7.1 million to start construction, they found a bank to lend them the money. Then the global financial crisis hit. Overnight, the bank revoked the offer.

For an unconventional development in the back blocks of Brunswick, in the middle of a sharply contracting property market, the future looked grim. "It felt like we had hit a brick wall," says McLeod. "Without construction finance the project was going nowhere and the whole thing would have fallen over."

Not long prior, McLeod had been in discussions with a young couple, Danny Almagor and Berry Liberman, who wanted him to design an apartment block. Berry, a scion of Melbourne's wealthy Liberman family, had the resources to help and a track record of social and cultural initiatives. The couple had recently founded Small Giants, an investment vehicle designed "to nurture and support businesses with a strong social and environmental conscience". When they heard that Breathe couldn't fund The Commons, they offered to buy out the investor group while retaining Breathe as the architect. "They were knights in shining armour, coming to the rescue of our dream in distress," says McLeod.

Altogether, delays related to the financial crash cost them three years. In 2010, with Small Giants' backing, and planning approvals in hand, they finally got on with the serious business of getting the apartment block built.

Signing up buyers – some of them friends, or friends of friends – was the least of their worries. "We had spoken to real people who we knew were looking for a way into the skyrocketing Brunswick housing market," says McLeod. "They all wanted space, light, volume, sun, air. They wanted something sustainable, a place they would be proud to call home. And resoundingly, they all wanted a sense of connection and community. What they didn't want was the extra bathroom, the expensive car space, the white sterile box with 50 down lights, or a home that looked like an anonymous office tower."

The Commons overlooks a city train line, but 22 of the 24 apartments sold off the plan. Photo: Dianna Snape

While working on The Commons, McLeod met Jessie Hochberg, then a senior policy and strategy adviser with Creative Victoria. McLeod wanted to develop not just another apartment block, but a model that other architects could use for their own inner-city apartment projects. Hochberg agreed to be part of a small team exploring what could be achieved. "We came to the conclusion that the underlying mission was a complete housing systems change," says Hochberg. "We wanted to create a new development methodology that prioritised the needs of humans and home owners."

They found a block directly across the road from The Commons, which they bought with a small band of investors, some of whom had backed The Commons. They called it Nightingale 1, in the hope it would be the first of a number of Nightingale projects.

For Nightingale 1 – which is due to be completed by November – they decided to change more than just the design rules. Typically, developers share profit and loss figures with investors but not with buyers, whose pre-purchase information is usually confined to a glossy sales brochure. As architect and developer, McLeod wanted to share all his calculations with both groups – everything from construction and land costs to design fees and equity investor margins.

Nightingale 1 will have a deliberately industrial aesthetic. Photo: Kristoffer Paulsen

Disclosing specific costs had interesting consequences. Parking spots for Nightingale 1 were priced at $35,000 each. When given a choice, all 20 of those lined up to buy an apartment said they didn't need one. En suites came in at $12,000, and would mean sacrificing seven square metres from the living room. No one wanted that, either. When it was explained it would keep prices down, everyone said yes to shared laundry facilities, too.

"For every key decision that's made we ask our future residents what they want," says Hochberg. "We discuss with them all the key factors that help them make a balanced decision, which typically includes space, amenity and cost … When given the real costs, and the opportunity to choose, residents often decide they have better things to spend their money on."

Inside a unit at The Commons, whose residents decided to forgo individual laundries for a single shared one. Photo: Dianna Snape

The proposed removal of parking spaces pitted Nightingale 1 against the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Few subjects get VCAT's pulse racing as much, and the development broke the first commandment (in practice, if not in law) that all unit blocks must provide one car space for each apartment. "You can have 177 letters of support, but all it takes is one neighbour to land you in VCAT," McLeod laments. 

After an expensive delay, the project won the case in late 2014, with planning permission granted. In decoupling car and home ownership, Nightingale went on to set a new precedent in the state's planning codes.

Meantime, social media was buzzing with news of the Nightingale concept – handy because McLeod and Hochberg didn't want to spend anything on glossy brochures or advertising. Arguably the VCAT woes helped, galvanising support among sustainability campaigners.

The Commons' rooftop features vegetable patches for each resident and a communal beehive.Photo: Andrew Wuttke

With demand outstripping the number of apartments on offer in Nightingale 1, Nightingale Housing was born in November 2015 to license the model to other interested architects. Aside from assessing the suitability of would-be licencees, it would draw up a waiting list of possible residents, pair future investors with opportunities and create a set of sustainable design principles to be used by all licencees.

Those principles represent a paradigm shift from conventional property development, one that's arguably more radical than any of Nightingale's award-winning knobs and whistles. Sustainable building innovation has been underway for decades, but the development business model has remained remarkably intransigent. Among the rules those building a Nightingale project must agree to is a capping of profits from their investment at 15 per cent, which compares to industry standards of 20 per cent and above. Only people who want to live in their apartment, not rent it, are considered as buyers, the aim being to create a rich and active community life. And when owners want to sell, they must first offer their property to those on the waiting list, at a price capped to match the overall property price increases in the locality. This is not optional but is written in a covenant that all buyers must sign.

Prospective residents must pass an extensive questionnaire about their apartment preferences to join the waiting list. They are given information on projects as they arise, at which point they can choose to opt in and join the architect for discussions about the design. Once plans are drawn up, planning is approved and costs confirmed, buyers are invited to confirm their interest.

To date more than 20 licences have been issued, including in NSW, Western Australia and Queensland. Nightingale 1 is set to be the first completed project under the model, in November. Five other Nightingales are under way, four in or around Brunswick. So far every Nightingale that has passed the planning stage has had significantly more interest than availability. Nightingale 1 resolved this problem with a ballot, undertaken by the Mayor of Moreland City Council, who plucked each lucky buyer from a construction hard hat, at an event packed with excited would-be residents.

Not surprisingly, developers are circling, keen to tap the 3000 potential buyers on Nightingale's wait list. The Urban Development Institute of Australia invited McLeod to speak at its annual conference in Brisbane this week.

Winning architecture and sustainability awards, The Commons proved there was a market for 'deep green' design. Photo: Dianna Snape

For all its virtues and promise, Nightingale faces one major challenge: land. Architect Clare Cousins is licensed to deliver Nightingale 4 but has yet to find a block. Matters have moved slower than she hoped. "We've had 24 shareholders signed up for a year and have deposited working capital of 10 per cent to be able to move quickly and put a deposit on suitable land, but it's been a challenge to acquire the site." While Cousins is closing in on a deal that looks promising, buying land at a price that makes good design viable is becoming harder and harder. "Every time we've lost out so far, it's been to a foreign buyer," she says. "These buyers seem willing to pay what we would calculate as 20 or 30 per cent above market rate to have an Australian asset."

Cousins recently turned down an invitation to work on a large property development. "Working with a traditional developer, you can end up designing against your better judgment," she explains. "But it's a completely different way of working when you have control. Of course, you then have to learn to speak the language of land acquisition, construction finance and debt/equity ratios. The benefit is to be able to control the quality, ensuring your building is as good as it possibly can be."

Architect Clare Cousins. Photo: Martina Gemmola

When looking for land to develop his Nightingale licence, Andrew Maynard from Austin Maynard Architects had a stroke of luck, thanks to Brunswick resident Tony Patton, who has run the fashion retail business Kinki Gerlinki out of 209 Sydney Road for 12 years. A combination of modest profits and life challenges meant the mortgage was killing him.

"I felt backed into a corner, where I'd have to sell and move on," says Patton. From time to time he'd get an offer, with one developer offering to buy him out for $2.5 million. He resisted. "Then one day I was introduced to Jeremy and we found a way for me to stick around and keep my business." Basically, Nightingale paid off his mortgage and gave him a redeveloped shop and a three-bedroom apartment in exchange for the land. This project is being contested at VCAT.

Patton clearly relishes being debt-free, but he's also keen to be part of this new community. "I've met all the future residents when talking through the design with Andrew, and they're a great bunch. They're just like people you want to hang out with. One guy said he wanted a distillery in the basement, and we all said, 'Yay'!" Subject to council approval, of course.

Marion Christie, a GP in her 60s and living alone, didn't think she had any chance of securing a Nightingale apartment given the long queue of hopefuls. She had sold her longtime home on the Sunshine Coast to move to Melbourne to be closer to her three kids. "It was a depressing experience trying to find something I could afford," says Christie. "I was happy to downsize, but the options I was looking at were barely liveable. I was starting to think I'd have to remortgage, which at my age was not a happy prospect."

Happily for Christie, some 20 per cent of Nightingale units are set aside for "priority allocation" to groups who find it harder than most to put a roof over their head. This includes people with disabilities, Indigenous people and "key workers", a concept that first emerged in London as those who are in low-salaried but socially important jobs, such as teachers, nurses and firefighters. As a GP, Christie would not usually qualify, but did because she worked in a community health centre in Richmond and an Aboriginal health service in Broken Hill. She's part of a new and growing market for Nightingale.

"When we initially started, the large majority of our buyers were 35 and under," says McLeod. "But now we have a rapidly growing cohort of single females heading into retirement. They are downsizing and want to be part of a connected community. They want to age in place and not be stuck in an isolated home."

Christie agrees that the shared community spaces are a big part of the attraction. "When I was in my 20s I lived in a tiny village on Canberra's fringe where a bunch of us lived close. We ate together, shared what we had and felt connected," she says.

"But most of my working life I've lived in places where I have nothing to do with my neighbours. Coming to be part of Nightingale is a bit like returning to that time, when people would look after your plants if you're away or take the post in."

McLeod has made plans for the space between The Commons and Nightingale 1 to become a small community park in 2018, an idea recently approved by Moreland City Council.

"Residents are keen gardeners," he says. "So we now have guerrilla gardening nearby, and we're part of the Upfield Urban Forest project [greening a derelict public path], spreading gardening north and south. The net value to the neighbourhood means we will have an active community on the street instead of car parks and wheelie bins."

As with The Commons, Nightingale 1 has revealed an untapped interest in a new kind of home ownership. It coincided in March 2015 with the publication of a Grattan Institute book, City Limits: Why Australia's Cities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them. The book argued that the property market was missing a trick with its obsessions of suburban sprawl and super-tall towers. It made a strong case for more well-placed, medium-density housing in the middle suburbs, which now have their own name in design circles – the "missing middle".

"There are lots of people who don't want to live in the outer suburbs," says Victorian Government Architect Jill Garner, who sits on the Nightingale Housing licensing sub-committee. "They want to live close to transport. And they don't necessarily want two-and-a-half bathrooms and a two-car parking spot… Meanwhile, we're watching architects being absolutely dictated to by real-estate agents about how to design an apartment."

McLeod and Hochberg agree that the largely unregulated explosion of the investment property market, fuelled by overseas capital, has had a disastrous effect on affordability for local residents. "How else do you explain 26 years of unbroken economic growth while we have over 100,000 homeless people?" asks McLeod.

As our interview ends, McLeod calls a Uber to take him to Melbourne University, where he'll front students at his Nightingale Night School, a generation of architects hungry to retool their profession's social purpose.

Can the Nightingale concept move the dial on Australia's affordable-housing crisis? To some extent it's an absurd question, in light of the structural conditions that see rocketing land values and a doubling in the ratio of annual salary to mortgage debt in one generation. The tents that recently lined Martin Place in Sydney are a powerful symbol of a time in which the only thing separating many home owners from homelessness is an unexpected redundancy. The answer is yes, and no: Nightingale is not a panacea for unaffordable housing, but it is a test case in how to challenge the residential property Goliath.

Before leaving I ask a final, obvious question: why Nightingale? "Because the first one is on Florence Street!" says McLeod. "Florence Nightingale was the legend who totally reinvented the healthcare system. She wasn't a politician or a person of means. She was a nurse working at the coalface of unhygienic hospitals. Wouldn't it be good if we architects could do the same for housing?"

Montreal Supermarket Opens Up A Huge Rooftop Garden

Montreal Supermarket Opens Up A Huge Rooftop Garden

IGA supermarket owner Richard Duchemin took the city's request seriously to install a green roof to his building the extra green mile

ZACK PALM

• 23 AUGUST 2017

To create a sustainable environment, societies need to rethink how they handle their everyday life style and what their surroundings look like. A big concept we can’t immediately change involves our architecture. Since the roofs of our large buildings don’t do much other than protect the occupant’s heads, some cities have requested the owners of these structures turn them into green roofs for plants to thrive and help improve the immediate environment. Richard Duchemin, the owner of an IGA supermarket in Saint-Laurent in Montreal, was informed by the city he would have to add a green roof to the 25,000 square-food building he owned and he embraced the idea while taking this a step further. He decided to turn it into a garden where his employees would tend to the vegetables and sell the produce to customers.

Two employees tend to the produce grown in the garden by toiling the soil, planting and replanting the vegetables, and pulling them from the ground to bag to customers. To make tending the garden easier they created an irrigation system using the supermarket’s dehumidification system, water that would otherwise have gone to waste. The green roof grows over 30 different kinds of vegetables, such as kale, tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce, radishes, basil, garlic, and much more.

More traditional green roofs normally use a hydroponics system as the surfaces of roofs were not designed to handle soil. Because Duchemin felt it was a better option to use soil he sought out an agronomist who provided a detailed plan for this to work. By going this extra mile, the vegetables grown on the roof would get categorized as ‘organic’ by Ecocert Canada when he sold them to customers.

By creating this thriving garden, a number of insects have found their way to the roof to enjoy the wide variety of plants. When this happens, most farmers tend to use pesticides to prevent the insects from harming the produce, however, Duchemin didn’t want to go down this path even if some pesticides were still allowed in organic gardens. With a little bit of research he found a number of wildflowers whose aroma help deter the more harmful bugs and prevent them from sticking around to feast on the vegetables. Though, Duchemin saw the more positive visitors found in the garden, the bees, as another opportunity. He installed eight beehives alongside the garden to give the pollinating insects a home. The hives provide the supermarket with 600 jars of fresh honey that get sold to customers.

Though Duchemin deals with high costs to maintain the roof, these costs don’t transfer to customers. The vegetables from the roof get sold for the same amount as other organic produce they sell. Additionally, it helps keep energy costs down during the winter as the warm garden acts as an insulator.

For all of Duchemin’s hard work the supermarket was labeled a LEED Gold certified building, a high standard for green building to receive. Any customer looking to support the IGA supermarket’s green roof can purchase vegetables with the label ‘fresh from the roof’ on them.

IGA Green Roof

Lean Plate Club Blogger Sally Squires On The Rooftop Farming Trend

Lean Plate Club Blogger Sally Squires On The Rooftop Farming Trend

In D.C., there's the equivalent of about an acre of rooftop farming spread out across the city. (Thinkstock)

By Bruce Alan | @BruceAlanWTOP  |August 22, 2017

WASHINGTON — A recent trend in farming means your fresh produce may not be coming from fertile fields miles away. It could be coming by elevator from just a few floors away.

Sally Squires, who writes the Lean Plate Club™ blog, describes vertical farming as simply farming on rooftops. And though that’s a pretty modern idea, the core concept of vertical farming is not new at all.

Indigenous people in South America have long grown things this way, using tiered or terraced fields at high altitudes. The rice terraces in Asia use a similar concept.

The actual term vertical farming was coined back in 1915 by American geologist Gilbert Ellis Dailey.

In D.C., there’s the equivalent of about an acre of rooftop farming spread out across the city, overseen by an outfit called Up Top Acres. The first Up Top Acre farm was on the roof of the building where chef Jose Andres runs Oyamel in Chinatown. There’s more rooftop farming coming to The Wharf project along the Potomac.

So what plants and veggies thrive on the roof?

Lettuce and herbs are great for rooftops, as are eggplant, zucchini, carrots and even watermelon, Squires says. Grains don’t really do well in that setting, and neither does corn, she says.

Vertical farmers should be prepared for a lot of picking by hand — although there are small, mechanized farm tools available, Squires says.

If you’re going to put a garden on a rooftop, be careful not to puncture the roof and make sure it’s strong enough to take the extra weight, which can be considerable, she said. And you’ll want to be sure to use special soil that won’t retain the water during a heavy rain and turn into a muddy bog.

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Montreal Supermarket Opens Huge Organic Rooftop Garden

Montreal Supermarket Opens Huge Organic Rooftop Garden

Katherine Martinko (@feistyredhair)
Living / Green Food
August 18, 2017

© Tact Conseil (used with permission) -- Francis, Richard, and Daniel Duchemin, storeowners, sit in their new rooftop garden

Talk about slashing food miles; 'fresh from the roof' is as local as it gets.

When an IGA supermarket in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal was told by the city that it had to install a green roof on its 25,000-square-foot building, owner Richard Duchemin went an unconventional route. He built a big, beautiful organic garden on top, where 30 kinds of vegetables are grown organically in soil watered by the store’s dehumidification system. Two employees tend the produce – beets, kale, tomatoes, eggplant, lettuce, radishes, and basil, among others – and package them for sale downstairs, where “fresh from the roof” has become a fun new tagline.

What’s interesting about this garden is that the vegetables are grown using soil, rather than the hydroponic systems that are more commonly encountered on rooftops (like the amazing set-up at the Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv). Duchemin wanted to do it this way so that the produce could be certified organic by Ecocert Canada. It is difficult to keep soil fertile on a rooftop, so an agronomist was brought in to develop a proper fertilization plan.

The rooftop also features eight beehives that produce 600 jars of honey each year. These are sold in the store below. There has been some trouble with insect pests, but the gardeners are trying to offset that naturally by planting deterrent wildflowers. Eventually the store may start selling its rooftop-grown fresh-cut flowers, too.

Duchemin told the Montreal Gazette that he hopes to inspire other supermarkets with this project, said to be Canada's biggest rooftop garden:

“People are very interested in buying local. There’s nothing more local than this… Some restaurants have little boxes where they grow herbs. We pushed it further because we know we’re able to sell what we produce here.”

He has noticed a decrease in energy costs, as well, since the garden insulates the roof in wintertime. The store itself is LEED Gold-certified. As you can see in the promotional video below, the garden paths have been laid out to spell the name ‘IGA,’ apparently visible from planes landing at Montreal-Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport.

It’s wonderful to imagine a world where industrial-sized buildings transform their roofs into urban gardens. It makes so much sense to use those vast, flat, sunny spaces to grow food for the surrounding neighborhood and eliminate (or at least reduce) the need to import produce from elsewhere, especially during Canada’s brief growing season. It creates valuable, meaningful, healthy work and makes more of a profit for the store than simply planting vegetation on top. Such gardens don’t even have to be run by the store; other urban farmers could rent the space from which to start a market gardening business or CSA program.

When it comes to urban rooftop gardens, the sky’s the limit.

Canadian Retailer First Of Its Kind To Install Rooftop Garden

Organic Produce Is Sold In The Store

Canadian Retailer First Of Its Kind To Install Rooftop Garden

Green roofs aren’t necessarily new, but when a grocery store chain decides to install a rooftop garden on one of its stores, that is refreshingly unique. The IGA in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent region officially launched its rooftop garden July 19. The project is managed by Ligne Verte (The Green Line) and has a year-round fulltime staff of two and a six-month contract position to supplement busier times. “It’s the largest commercial rooftop garden in Canada,” says Tim Murphy of Ligne Verte. Moreover, it’s the first of its kind in the country. Over 30 kinds of vegetables and greens are grown and harvested on a half-acre, grown in just six inches of soil. “A green roof garden allows us to nourish our passion for food while reducing our environmental footprint, something that is particularly important to us. We are happy to give life to this innovative project and hope it encourages other companies to follow suit,” said Richard Duchemin, co-owner, IGA extra Famille Duchemin.

Innovation for Canadian retail

It’s a big step forward on many fronts since green roofs, the focus of Ligne Verte’s company, produce multiple benefits. A green roof can cool a building in the summer. It’s also the first store to use an irrigation system with water recovered from its dehumidification system. Plus, it creates habitat. “To that we get to add local food production,” he says. “And, just after one year we have some birds nesting in the garden, we have sandpiper and ducks nest in the spring.” Pollinators also play a part; there is also a rooftop apiary of eight hives, run by a separate company. The honey is also sold in the store. 

Seasonal produce; comparable pricing

Murphy says that even though in the grocery store world the rule is to never run out of stock on something, growing seasonal items obviously means they’re only available for a certain amount of time. “It’s a bit of a re-education for both the grocer and the shoppers but I think they’re enjoying it. It’s been an overwhelming success. We’re selling out,” he says. There’s a camera on the roof so shoppers can see what’s happening while they shop. “I think it’s attracting more for local organic.” Prices remain reasonable also, since there are no transportation costs, although Murphy remarks that expenses are weighted towards labor because everything is done by hand. “Our product is definitely comparable (pricewise).”

Introduction of other produce

As far as plans for other produce, Murphy says the strawberries they’ve planted will yield next year. “That’s probably the main (fruit) that we think we can succeed at. We’re going to give ground cherries a shot next year.” He has also expressed interest in growing mushrooms and definitely increase compost production so it can all be produced in house.

Hopeful for expansion

Murphy is optimistic about creating more rooftop gardens. “I’m optimistic. We have gotten a few calls from other smaller grocers that would be willing. We can also do the same thing on another roof that’s not necessarily a grocery store. If a building wants to put in a green roof and grow vegetables we can come in and rent space,” he notes. “We’re excited at how it’s turned out.”

For more information:

Tim Murphy

Ligne Verte

Tel: (514) 442-4381

www.ligneverte.net

Publication date: 8/15/2017
Author: Rebecca D Dumais
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com

Rooftop Farms In Gaza Provide Lifeline To The Community

Rooftop Farms In Gaza Provide Lifeline To The Community

August 17, 2017  |  by Greg Beach

Meeting even basic needs in Gaza can be a challenge for the nearly 2 million people that live in the territory’s 141 square miles. Under Israeli blockade, which prevents vital supplies from reaching Gaza and inhibits international trade, the Palestinians living there rely on resilience and innovation to survive with the resources they have. Squeezed out of arable land, many Gaza residents are farming upwards, on the rooftops of the dense urban Mediterranean territory.

Rooftop farming is fairly new in Gaza. Starting in 2010, an urban farming project by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization equipped over 200 female-headed households with fish tanks, equipment, and supplies to build and maintain an aquaponics growing system, in which fish provide both edible protein and fertilizer for vegetables with roots growing into water, without soil. This initial design was adapted by others to suit their available resources and needs. The current model, designed and built by Palestinians, involves recycled plastic and wood being used to create garden beds, which are then planted with seeds from local farmers.

The growing rooftop farming scene in Gaza is helping to met the needs of a population increasingly threatened by food insecurity. However, a garden is often more than simply the food that it produces. “There are many useful benefits with this project,” said Dr. Ahmad Saleh, an agricultural consultant, former professor, and community organizer who is helping to promote urban farming in Gaza. “Rooftop agriculture enables and empowers people. It allows them to find effective ways to confront environmental problems and helps create a healthier population.” Muhyeddin al-Kahlout, a former school director, sees his gardens as a social gathering spot. “We are experiencing severe power shortages and there is already a scarcity of recreational places,” he said. “Many of my friends liked the idea. Now they are starting to think about doing the same on their rooftops.”

Via Sondos Walid/Electronic Intifada

Atop a Parking Garage in a Staten Island Residential Development, an Urban Farm Builds Community and Thrives

Atop a Parking Garage in a Staten Island Residential Development, an Urban Farm Builds Community and Thrives

August 14, 2017 | Charli Engelhorn

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Empress Green Inc. co-founders Zaro Bates and Asher Landes at their farm stand. Photo courtesy of Empress Green Inc.

Sometimes, the best laid plans do not always work out, and for Zaro Bates, co-founder and proprietor of Empress Green Inc., this small deviation from her plan would come to encapsulate her life in every facet.

Empress Green Inc. is an urban farming business specializing in organic food production, education, and consulting. Bates and her husband, Asher Landes, started the company in 2016, shortly after moving into the residential development Urby, a 500+ apartment complex that sits on the north shore of Staten Island, New York. The couple built and now maintain a 4,500-square-foot urban farm on top of one of the complex’s parking garages between two of the main buildings.

“During a 3-year development consultancy, we evolved several green roof and urban farm concepts that would be attractive shared amenities for the residents,” Bates says. “We decided on an intensive green roof urban market garden with a Farmer-in-Residence to manage the farm and run workshops and events for the community.”

None of this, however, would have happened if Bates had followed through on plans to travel to South America following a brief employment on a traditional farm in Massachusetts. According to Bates, an opportunity to apprentice with Brooklyn Grange, an urban farming and green roof consulting agency that operates the largest soil-based rooftop farms in the United States, caused her to delay her intentions.

The chain of events that followed included training and mentorship regarding a rooftop urban farming operation, meeting her husband, and being introduced to the developers of Urby.

“The Brooklyn Grange was a big influence in the development of Urby Farm. Having apprenticed there, I liked the green roof intensive ag model and wanted to try it out in a residential context,” says Bates. “At the time that I met the developers behind Urby, there was an opening for me to share this residential urban farm proposal, and they were very excited about the concept.”

Bates says the developers wanted to create an environment where traditional values of community, such as relationships with neighbors and positive communal spaces, could be incorporated in an urban setting. The farm was seen as a possible way to accomplish those goals.

Not only has the farm at Urby helped create some strong community relationships, but the residents also enjoy being part of something natural and special.

“The residents are generally excited about the farm,” Bates says. “There aren’t many opportunities for urbanites to get close to food production, and having the farm in the complex lets [them] in on a very beautiful, primal dance that happens when sunshine and love turn seeds into food.”

Bates and Landes have sharpened their focus this year about what is best for the farm and community members. Beyond a management fee for keeping the farm in operation, the two generate income from farm products sold at the weekly community farmer’s market, CSA memberships, including both residents and non-residents, and a handful of accounts with local chefs. The farm mainly grows leafy greens such as arugula, baby kale, spinach, and mixed lettuces, and also offers herbs, roots, fruits, fruiting vegetables, and flowers.

Workshops and events also help support the organization by increasing the visibility of the farm and educating the community about urban farming and local foods. These workshops offer a variety of topics of instruction, including learning how to grow your own microgreens, how to tend to a farm, and the basics of beekeeping, made possible with the apiary Landes built on one of the adjacent rooftops. Events include farm-to-table dinners and first Friday happy hours on the property, where guests have an opportunity to taste some of the crops and meet each other.

“We have a better idea of what works on the farming side and also on the workshops/events side, and we are constantly seeking new ways to improve our offerings and meet the demands of the community.

“We see our number one niche as urban farmers to raise awareness of agriculture and the food system, and eventually, we would like to serve as conduits for regional producers,” Bates says.

This motivation is part of what Empress Green found advantageous about the urban farming model over the traditional model of acreage farming.

“When we consider whether to operate in the urban landscape or go rural for more acreage, the consideration for us is about the opportunity for social impact, not simply financial solvency,” says Bates.

Bates and Landes already have made an impact with Empress Green, as evidenced by the number of residents who introduce themselves and explain that the farm was the main reason they moved to Urby. The pair hope to continue encouraging strong ties between the farm and the local community, as well as between society and locally grown foods. They hope to expand their operation in the future to meet the growing demand for fresh produce.

A Nonprofit Farms Rooftops of Nation’s Capital with Triple Bottom Line in Mind

A Nonprofit Farms Rooftops of Nation’s Capital with Triple Bottom Line in Mind

August 7, 2017 | Trish Popovitch

Located in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, Rooftop Roots is a social enterprise taking the restrictive needs of a city littered with zoning laws and height restrictions as a challenge worth going vertical for. Designing, installing and maintaining custom gardens on rooftops, and creating community gardens across the city, Rooftop Roots is helping to build the conversation on how the nation’s capital utilizes its green spaces.

“We’re a nonprofit landscaping company but instead of mowing lawns we build gardens and maintain gardens for residential, commercial and community partners,” says Thomas Schneider, Executive Director of nonprofit Rooftop Roots.

After discovering their dream of office buildings with built up gardens on top was practically impossible to achieve with D.C.’s height restrictions, Rooftop Roots had to rethink its business plan. “We won’t only put gardens on roofs but we’ll put gardens in every nook and cranny and urban landscape we possibly can,” says Schneider.

Schneider wants to keep the company firmly positioned on the three legs of the sustainable business model and navigate the organization through the triple bottom line approach popular among urban agriculture startups. “We’ve always held true to the three pillars of sustainability. The idea is to a. provide jobs; b. increasing produce for communities in need and then c. increasing ecologically productive roof cities,” says Schneider.

By providing custom gardening services and using the monies earned to fund community garden projects in underserved communities, Schneider hopes to spread the cause for urban soil and educate people on the importance of and the logistics involved in growing their own food.

Rooftop Roots, which was founded in 2011, enjoys a growing client base. “We haven’t even kicked it into full gear yet and we have more work than we can handle,” says Schneider. Word of mouth has served the small company well so far, but the off season will be devoted to creating a comprehensive advertising system.

Recognizing that not every green space in the cityscape is a potential vegetable garden, Rooftop Roots also offers clients native plant installations. The hope is to encourage pollinators to populate the area and compensate for any loss of plant diversity brought upon by decades of homogenous landscaping practices, i.e. picking the same three or four plants for every professional landscape job in a given area. The native garden beds will bolster the efforts of the company’s soil remediation practices and allow the vegetable gardens to flourish.

Similar to findings on the west coast, Schneider is aware that some choose a vegetable garden installation for its trending aesthetic rather than to grow and harvest food. When this happens, food is often wasted and rots on the vine.  “It happens all over. It happens here too. It’s one of our biggest challenges,” says Schneider.  “It’s a huge educational effort to educate individuals. Like you’ve got to use it, it’s not going to get better; certainly a commonality for sure.” Aware of the issue, Rooftop Roots is taking steps to build out their harvesting contracts and get the food to those who will use it.

Rooftop Roots uses some of the money that it earns from creating rooftop gardens to initiate environmental literacy programs at local schools. By partnering with local social organizations, the company is able to provide educational programming on food growth and affordable cooking.

Future plans for Rooftop Roots include expanding the native plant and pollinator habitat promotion side of the business, hiring additional staff, building partnerships with local nurseries and continuing to keep the issue of local food firmly in D.C.’s sight.

Boston Medical Center Urban Farm Serving Up Veggies To Patients

Boston Medical Center Urban Farm Serving Up Veggies To Patients

Updated: Aug 15, 2017 - 6:59 PM

BOSTON - On top of the industrial, mammoth Boston Medical Center power plant building sits an urban oasis.

Row after row after row of fresh vegetables span the Albany Street building roof. 

For BMC, the rooftop farm not only promotes the healthy lifestyle its doctors want their patients to lead, but it helps feed patients in need. 

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Jessica Reyes ✔@jessicamreyes

You'll never guess where all these beautiful crops are growing! But I'll show you tonight at 5:15 and 6:45 on @boston25! 

"We thought it'd be a great idea to have local and healthy food," said David Maffeo, senior director of Support Srvices at BMC. He was one of the people who came up with the idea of the garden. 

The vegetables go directly to the hospital's food pantry and demonstration kitchen, as well as to the hospital's cafeterias and inpatient population. 

"Diabetes patients, cancer patients, weight management patients, renal patients. We're coming up here first and picking the food that we're using in our classes," said Tracey Burg, chief dietician at BMC. 

This past June, BMC reported that about 1,800 pounds of fresh veggies and fruits were harvested from the roof. By the end of growing season it's predicted that 15,000 pounds of food will be harvested.

It first opened last summer as the first hospital-based rooftop farm in the state. Altogether, there is 7,000 square feet of growing space, along with two urban beehives. 

Higher Ground Farm runs the garden, along with the farm on the Boston Design Center roof in the Seaport.  

"I just didn't believe that we could grow as much food as we can and we've just grown this amazing amount of food so far. It's definitely blowing my expectations of what we could do with it," said Lindsay Allen, the farm manager. 

In addition to the veggies, the garden reduces the hospital's need to transport food and also provides employees with volunteer opportunities 

BMC has been working to become greener and in recent years has been recognized as one of the greenest hospitals in the U.S.

Rooftop Farm Puts Ryerson In Good Stead

Rooftop Farm Puts Ryerson In Good Stead

The urban farm grows more than just produce for the Toronto university.

By ANQI SHEN | AUG 15 2017

Volunteers tend to kale crops at Ryerson University’s
rooftop farm. The initiative produces 4,500 kilograms of
food annually. Photo by Mark Blinch

On top of Ryerson University’s George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre, a bustle of students and staff harvest a farm field surrounded by a view of downtown Toronto. If “urban farming” once seemed like an oxymoron, it’s lately become less strange. “The reason isn’t just because we’re thinking about food security in a more serious way,” says Ryerson’s farm manager Arlene Throness, “but also I think people are enjoying being able to connect with food and how it’s grown.”

Ryerson is one of a handful of Canadian universities to have a rooftop farm. After a successful pilot project in 2013, students in the Centre for Studies in Food Security initiated the conversion of the building’s Andrew and Valerie Pringle Environmental Green Roof into a quarter-acre farm. “They worked with campus facilities to identify underutilized space that could be repurposed for food production and education,” said Ms. Throness, who gave a tour of the farm during a typical harvesting shift in late May.

The harvested produce is sold at a farmer’s market on campus and distributed among Ryerson food services and 30 Community Supported Agriculture members. “We grow 10,000 pounds [4,500 kilograms] of food annually, and we collect data to see how much food we’re actually producing. That way, we can share our techniques with other people who want to replicate the project,” said fourth-year food and nutrition student Terri-Lyn Zhou, who is one of the farm’s two data coordinators.

The farm is open to the public through short site tours, and offers a 10-week training program on food production, and workshops ranging from “probiotic dressings and dips” to “DIY mushroom cultivation.” The programs are another source of revenue for the farm, and private donors help to fill any gaps in the budget.

Recently, the farm became part of business services at Ryerson and now operates as an ancillary service. “There were a lot of options around the question of where to house it,” Ms. Throness said. “I like the idea that institutions and universities might include a farm in their ancillary services, along with parking and food services, and a bookstore.”

The farm has grossed about $20,000 annually the past two years, Ms. Throness said. The goal this year is to double that.

Indoor Farming Plus Made In USA LED Grow Lights: Profile 1.8

Indoor Farming Plus Made In USA LED Grow Lights: Profile 1.8

•   Green Science and Technology

GREENandSAVE Staff

Posted on Thursday 29th June 2017

This is one of the profiles in an ongoing series covering next generation agriculture. We are seeing an increased trend for indoor farming across the United States and around the world. This is a positive trend given that local farming reduces adverse CO2 emissions from moving food long distances. If you would like us to review and profile your company, just let us know! Contact Us. 

Company Profile: Gotham Greens

Here is a great example of an urban farm with greenhouse locations on rooftops of New York City and Chicago.

Here is some of the “About Us” content: Gotham Greens’ pesticide-free produce is grown using ecologically sustainable methods in technologically-sophisticated, 100% clean energy powered, climate-controlled urban rooftop greenhouses. Gotham Greens provides its diverse retail, restaurant, and institutional customers with reliable, year-round, local supply of produce grown under the highest standards of food safety and environmental sustainability. The company has built and operates over 170,000 square feet of technologically advanced, urban rooftop greenhouses across 4 facilities in New York City and Chicago. Gotham Greens was founded in 2009 in Brooklyn, New York and is privately held.

Our flagship greenhouse, built in 2011, was the first ever commercial scale greenhouse facility of its kind built in the United States. The rooftop greenhouse, designed, built, owned and operated by Gotham Greens, measures over 15,000 square feet and annually produces over 100,000 pounds of fresh leafy greens. The greenhouse remains one of the most high profile contemporary urban agriculture projects worldwide.

Here is the link to learn more: http://gothamgreens.com/.

To date, the cost of man made lighting has been a barrier for indoor agriculture. A new generation of LED lighting provides cost effective opportunities for farmers to deliver local produce. Warehouses and greenhouses are both viable structures for next generation agriculture. Here is one example of next generation made in USA LED grow light technology to help farmers: Commercial LED Grow Lights.