VERTICAL FARM: PERSPECTIVE OF DEVELOPMENT

Introduction: One concept for different realities

PREMISE

What are vertical farm? 13

1. Vertical farms according to Despommier

1.1. The structure of industrial vertical farms 14

1.2. Soilless culture systems: hydroponics and aeroponics 15
1.3. Illumination 22
1.4. Fertilizers 26

2. The different types of vertical farms

2.1. The vertical farm designed 27

2.2. Realized vertical farm 46

3. Analysis of advantages and disadvantages of vertical farm

agriculture system: an open discussion

3.1. Advantages and disadvantages compared 57

3.2. Cost analysis 61

1
 4. The integration between architecture and urban agriculture
in the vertical dimension

4. 1. Towards an architecture always greener 71

4. 2. New green urban space 75

Conclusions 83

APPENDICE 1: Interviews 88
APPENDICE 2: Vertical and Urban Farming Events 101

Bibliography 103

Sitography 108

Lorenzo Franchini
2
INTRODUCTION

A unique concept for different realities

Strictly speaking, the concept of "vertical farm" refers to the practice of producing food
in vertical, integrated or not in other facilities specially built or preexisting. In this
perspective the vertical farm is therefore predominantly urban agricultural company,
or placed in urban areas, which develops vertically and uses specific cultural,
organizational and commercial techniques.
Recent trends, however, tend to extend the concept to many and different production
methods, which share the choice of using the space vertically, to four fundamental and
incontrovertible evidences:
 the deterioration of agricultural soils, linked to intensive production techniques;
 the growing demand for food due to the steady growth of the world population,
which increases at the rate of 80 million people a year;
 the continuing growth of the urban population: it is estimated that in 2050 nearly
80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers, resulting in
exponential expansion of soil artificialisation;
 the rapid climate change, which causes the increase of desertification and the
rising of sea levels, which could decrease the arable land.

Therefore fall into the category of vertical farm also all those cultivation methods based
on the exploitation of the vertical dimension, as the vegetable gardens on the rooftop,
green wall and vegetable gardens implemented on balconies or terraces of varying
width.

Said that, each of them requires owns techniques and organizations, responding to
different needs and a different historical and operational development, in the present
3
work we take into consideration their specific problems, with particular attention,
however, to the industrial vertical farms, trying to put light on whether and to what
extent they can be a real sustainable response to the growing need for food, as their
most important theoretical, the American Dickson Despommier, states. The illustrious
professor of microbiology and Public Health at Columbia University in New York,
with his book The Vertical Farm (2010), laid the theoretical foundations of the
innovative urban vertical farming methods designed to «feeding the world in the 21st
Century».
The question is whether the enthusiastic optimism Despommier can find concrete and
advantageous embodiment and if the vertical farm can actually become «the next big
thing for food and tech», as defining the business television channel CNBC, capable of
representing a possible solution of the problems highlighted, or remain a fascinating,
but not sustainable idea.

PREMISE

The "philosophical" presuppositions of vertical farm

1. The soil consumption

While the world's population could reach 8.5 billion people in the year 2030 (UN
estimates) and 11 billion at the end of this century, the availability and fertility of the
soil for agricultural production will be alarmingly reduced. As the vice president
CONAF Rosanna Zari has shown opening the World Day of the Soil held in Rome on
5 December 20151, the fertile soil area available for global agricultural productivity is
just 11%, a percentage that is rapidly decreasing because of climate change,

1
Event organized by the Consiglio dell’Ordine dei dottori agronomi e dei dottori forestali (CNAF), AISSA, ISPRA,
European Commission (JRC), Slow Food e Legambiente.
4
desertification, erosion, salinization (of soils and irrigation water) and artificialisation.
These aspects affect agriculture in a way that it loses 10 million hectares of arable land
each year, to which are added 20 million hectares abandoned because the quality of the
soil is too degraded, largely because of intensive agricultural techniques and the
consequent loss of organic substances necessary for physical, chemical and biological
soil fertility2.
Great part in the erosion of agricultural land is also the urban sprawl, the exponential
growth of urbanization. A report3 of UN estimates that in 2014 metropolitan areas lived
54% of the world population (compared to 30% in 1950), with a growing trend. The
dynamic that induce more and more people prefer to live in urban areas is also found
in Italy, as evidenced by the data provided by ISTAT, confirming the gradual decrease
of the population living in rural areas in our country4.
To get an idea of soil consumption trends, just consider that while between 1950 and
1981 the total cultivable area increased from 587 million hectares to 732 million
hectares, in 2000 the acreage has dropped to 656 million hectares, against a constant
increase of the population (2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.1 billion today).
Soil consumption is accompanied by the reduction of fertility, the deterioration of
biological, chemical and physical properties of agricultural land, which is manifested
by reduced availability of nutrients and decreasing soil water retention capacity,
resulting from the destruction of its structure, determined mainly by intensive

2
For organic substance, considered a key component of a healthy soil, means all living organisms in the soil and the
remains of their ashes in different stages of decomposition, rich of organic carbon. The sources for organic matter are
crop residues, animal and plant compounds and fertilizers. The decline in organic matter, the main cause of land
degradation, is generated by the reduced presence of decaying organisms, or by the increase in decomposition rate
determined by the alteration of natural or anthropogenic factors.
3
Consultable in:
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/trends/Concise%20Report%20on%20the%20Worl
d%20Population%20Situation%202014/en.pdf. In it we read also: «More than half of the world’s population now lives
in urban areas. While the number of large urban agglomerations is increasing, approximately half of all urban dwellers
reside in smaller cities and towns. The number of young people has grown rapidly in recent decades and is expected to
remain relatively stable over the next 35 years. In contrast, the number and proportion of older persons are expected to
continue rising well into the foreseeable future».
4
See: http://www.istat.it/it/files/2012/01/Allegato-statistico-DEF.pdf?title=Consumo+del+suolo+-
+23%2Fgen%2F2012+-+Allegato+statistico.pdf; http://www.camera.it/temiap/temi17/suolo13_istat.pdf.Usefull also
data provided by ISPRA: http://www.isprambiente.gov.it/files/pubblicazioni/rapporti/Rapporto_218_15.pdf.
5
processing. It is evident that land degradation affects the growth of plants and hence
agricultural production in quantity, quality and biodiversity.

2. The "natural capital"

The analysis of the Vertical Farm first theorist, Dickson Despommier; is included in
the observation that currently the nature has become "natural capital", as well as the
man became "human capital", resulting in the monetization of both5. Even ecology, he
stresses, has assumed considerable economic value: «... it is estimated that all the
ecological service on earth may be worth as much as 560 trillion». 6
However, there are many financial analysts and management complaining
insufficient financial and economic attention to the "natural capital", as is clear, for
example, from the report Accounting for Natural Capital (2014) of the British
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA): «While accountants have
developed ever more sophisticated ways of accounting for financial capital, and the
efficiency with which a business is able to transform this into commercial value, natural
capital is still largely hidden from view and absent from the corporate narrative. This
situation is no longer acceptable if organizations are to become truly sustainable. […]
We lack the frameworks and systems needed to account for the relationship between
natural capital and business strategy and performance».7

Beyond the ethical aspects linke to the monetization of nature, the hoarding the last
meter of land and the last drop of available water, Despommier points out that today,

5
The British Ecological Society define the Natural Capital in this way: «Natural capital refers to both the living (e.g.
fish stocks, forests) and non-living (e.g. minerals, energy resources) aspects of nature which produce value to people,
both directly and indirectly. It is this capital that underpins all other capital in our economy and society. Natural capital
can often be confused with ecosystem services. However, whilst similar concepts, they are fundamentally different.
Natural capital refers to the actual stock (living and non-living parts) that provides value whereas ecosystem services
refer to the flow of benefits that this stock provides. Essentially, natural capital is about nature’s assets, whilst
ecosystem services relate to the goods and services derived from those assets» In
http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/public-policy/policy-priorities/ecosystem-services-and-valuing-natural-capital/
6
D. Despommiers, The Vertical Farm, Feading the World in the 21 st Century, Picador, New York 2010, p. 140.
7
In http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Accounting-for-natural-capital/$File/EY-Accounting-for-natural-
capital.pdf.
6
to the point we have arrived, it is crucial to invest in the preservation of the environment
and in reduction of the exploitation of the nature: «Some who feel the need to put a
dollar figure on the very processes that keep us alive».8
The need for action to restrain the exploitation of ecological resources appears
confirmed by the calculations of the Global Footprint Network, which give an idea of
its size and its growth rate introducing the concept of Ecological Debt Day (EDD), also
called Earth overshoot Day, the day on which humanity exhaust global nature's budget
for the year, set for the 15th of August 2015 ( it was the 17th of August in 2014, the
20th of August in 2013 and so on until the 23rd of December in 1970).9
Even putting a grade of incertitude on the calculations, it remains clear that humanity's
consumption of earth's natural resources has reached alarming levels, such as to
endanger the earth's capacity to regenerate them.
Among the most significant factors in the overexploitation of land resources is
undoubtedly that of soils, previously put in evidence, that fits between the causes of
what Desmonnier defines as a true "suicide" of civilization. Hence the need to increase
«the capacity of adavanced reasoning and creativity, ad use these two intellectual
attributes to invent farming, and eventualy the rest of tecnology-driven world».10

3. The verticality as a solution: a piece of history

It has been estimated that in order to meet the food needs of the growing population,
the arable land should raise by about 10 billion hectares.
To this basic critical points are added those of an ecological nature, that have stimulated
the search for sustainable agricultural strategies - such as biology and bio-dynamic
farming, permaculture and “kilometer 0” - oriented to the preservation of the soil and
the organic value of the products, but also to a rationalization of the distribution with

8
D. Despommier, cit. p. 140.
9
For further details, please refer to:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/ (web site of Global Footprint Network)
http://www.overshootday.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/ (web site illustrating the calculation methodology of EDD)
10
D. Despommiers, cit. p. 139-140.
7
the reduction of transport costs (environmental and economic) from rural production
areas to urban centers.
Trying reacting to this requirement, since the Sixties-Seventies the architecture began
to design urban multi-storey buildings equipped with roof gardens, in which it became
possible to grow vegetables, as well as ornamental plants, in order to increase the urban
verse with undoubted positive effects on the quality of urban air. All projects that
inevitably recall the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Figure1), one of the seven wonders
of the ancient world, the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia (4th millennium BC-600
BC), the Villa dei Misteri in Pompei, which had an elevated terrace where plants were
grown, and the Renaissance roof gardens, which had both decorative and functional
purposes, refreshing and perfuming air with medicinal and aromatic plants.

Figure 1: Reconstructions of Hanging Gardens of Babylon

To go back to a more recent epoch, among the first and most significant multi
accomplishments provided with roof gardens, we can remember Habitat 67 (Figure 2),
a housing complex built in Montreal (Canada), designed by architect Moshe Safdie and
built for the Expo 1967, and Les Etoiles (figure 3), designed by architect Jean Renaudie

8
in Ivry (France) between 1969 and 1982, in which the large terraces allowed even
limited food self-production together with ornamental plants.

Figure 2: Figure 2: Habitat 67 di Moshe Safdie a Montréal (Canada)

Figure 3: Les Etoiles di Jean Renaudie a Ivry (France)

Goes in this direction also the installation of vertical gardens, whose originator is
considered the Parisian botanist Patrick Blanc. After his first speech that dates back to
1994, when he introduced the green wall at the Festival International des Jardins de
Chaumont-sur-Loire, and the subsequent green walls for the Parc Floral in the Bois
de Vincennes, his operations in the urban space have multiplied, decorating also public
buildings of Paris, the Orangerie of the Palais du Luxembourg, the Musée du Quai
Branly (Figure 4) and the latest Living Wall in the oasis of rue d’Aboukir.

9
Figure 4: The vertical wall of the Musée du quai Branly, Patrick Blank (Paris)

Figure 5: Dezeen oasis of Rue de Aboukir

Born into the Blank’s intentions as a decorative and ecological element, the idea of
vertical gardens has been transferred in the realization of vertical cultivation, thanks to
which you can grow some vegetables in the urban space. We will see later in this
specific production the specific characteristics of this "artisan" system, which is
catching on in many Italian cities as well.

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Falls into the vertical space utilization strategy also the rooftop garden, methodology
that can finds origins in the Fustat palaces, a city that was the capital of Egypt after
the Muslim conquest in 641, and that, according to the descriptions of the traveler
philosopher Nasir Khusraw of the early 11th century, was equipped with many high-
rise buildings up to 14 stories, with roof gardens on the top, accompanied by ox-drawn
water wheels for the irrigation.

4. The evolution of the idea of vertical farming

The first antecedent of a tall building in which food is cultivated is considered an article
published in Life Magazine in 1909, in which appears a drawing depicting vertically
stacked homesteads set amidst a farming landscape. The idea is taken up by Rem
Koolhaas in his utopian book Delirious New York A Retroactive Manifesto for
Manhattan of 197811, in which he considers the skyscraper «as utopian device for the
production of unlimited numbers of virgin sites on a metropolitan location».
The first architectural designs that enroll in this vision of "green architecture" can be
the Immeuble villas of Le Courbousier (1922), which provide “unité d'habitation”
multilevel with garden terraces destined also to domestic crops, those of the School of
Gardeners in Langenlois (Austria) and the present glass tower in the Vienna
International Horticulture Exhibition 1964.
More specific is the idea developed by John Hix in his book The Glass House of 197412,
which paved the way for "greenhouses", structures covered with a transparent or
translucid material, in which cultivate plants with environmental conditions that can be
modified or controlled.
The birth of the real vertical faming is still traced back to the towers for the hydroponic
cultivation realized in Armenia in 195113. In the same year was published by J. Sholto

11
Italian pubblication: R. Koolhaas, Delirious New York, Mondadori Electa, Milano 2013.
12
John Hix, The Glass House, Phai-don, London 1974.

11
Douglas Hydroponics: The Bengal System, considered the seminal text for the
development of this methodology14. And it is precisely in the Fifties which opened the
debate on hydroponics culture practiced in vertical structures, demonstrating that the
discussion and the first achievements of vertical farms existed more than 40 years prior
to contemporary discourse on the subject.
From the beginning the debate has seen two opposing positions. Supporters of vertical
farm saw it as a means to meet the demand of reducing the energy costs needed to
transport foods to consumers and minimize climate change produced by excess
atmospheric carbon. His detractors instead emphasized the excessive burden, due to
the high costs of the additional energy needed for artificial lighting, heating and other
vertical farming operations, which would outweigh the benefits of the building's close
proximity to the areas of consumption.
Moving to a time closer to us, the Malaysian architect Ken Yeang is considered the
first to have designed and built the "bioclimatic skyscrapers", multi-storey buildings
based on low-energy and passive-mode on a wide presence of green spaces and crops
(including rooftop gardens), as the Roof-Roof'House of 1985 and the Menara
Mesiniaga of 1992, both edified in Kuala Lumpur. From this idea it develops the
mixed-use integrated architecture, combining areas for cultivation to those destined to
housing.
However, as mentioned, Dickson Despommier is the one who gave the greatest
contribution to the idea of vertical farming, when already in 1999 began to work on the
subject, stimulating the interest of scientists, architects, and investors worldwide
turning the concept of vertical farming into a reality. The development of architectural
designs and inspired multidisciplinary team approach, systematized in his book, The
vertical farm in 2010, has then allowed to give concrete realization of his purposes,
providing technical solutions regarding energy, illumination and water balances. The

13
Mentionated in James Sholto Douglas, Hydroponics: the Bengal system : with notes on other methods of soilless
cultivation, Oxford University Press Delhi 1951.
14
James Sholto Douglas, Hydroponics: the Bengal system : with notes on other methods of soilless cultivation, cit.
12
growing interest of the mass media on the subject, already documented in 2007 15,
shows how the always considered utopian system is watched today with curiosity and
favor by the public.

WHAT ARE VERTICAL FARMS?

1. Vertical farms according to Despommier

«By applying state-of-art controlled environmental agricultural technologies as an

integrated system contained within a multistoried building – vertical faming – the
world could rapidly became a much better place to welcome the next generation of
humans».16 With this optimistic hope Dickson Despommier deals with the concept of
Vertical farm, with which reference is made to the practice of producing food in
vertically dimension in a closed stacked system – in stacked layers, in vertically
inclined surfaces and/or integrated in other structures – as a component of urban
agriculture and on the basis of Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) technology.
The author is sure about the usefulness of this innovative practice at various
levels:«Implementation of the vertical farm employing large-scale hidroponics and
aeroponics inside the cityscape is a potential solution for two problems: production of
food crops to feed a growing urban population without further damaging environment,
and feeding up farmland and allowing it to return to its ecological setting»17.

15
In 2007 articles have appeared in numerous more or less specialized publications, such as, among others, The New
York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Popular Science, Scientific American and Maxim, as well as radio and television
features.
16
D. Despommier, cit, p. 142-143.
17
D. Despommier, cit, p. 145.
13
In this statement of Despommier emerge four main aspects of Vertical farms:
 their ability to produce food in the urban area for a growing population;
 their ability to reduce the environmental impact and resulting in their placement
within the green economy;
 the opportunities they offer to re-enter within cities that productive activity
which has gradually been expelled;
 the two main cultivation techniques which can be implemented, the hydroponic
and aeroponic.
At these aspects he adds another implicit one, the fact that the traditional farming
practices are not sufficient to meet the growing demand for food, as well as are
insufficient the common agricultural strategic choices more adopted until now. In this
regard it was found that 15% of the land suitable for raising crops has been laid waste
by poor management practices18. Hence the need to innovate the methods of cultivation
by activating the «capacity of adavanced reasoning and creativity», to avoid the
impending disaster. Now let's see in more detail the analysis of the points highlighted
by Despommier, starting from the strictly tecnica ones.

1.1. The structure of industrial vertical farm

The industrial vertical farm may show different types of structure and can be made
with special buildings or in any type of building that has sufficient space to hold the
racks in which the plants are placed.
As shown in Despommier, those specially constructed are made by a complex of
building costructed in close proximity to one another. In addition to the space for the
crops, which must be separated from the other structures, it is expected:
« - offices for management;

18
Sources FAO and NASA.
14
- a separate control center for monitoring il funzionamento della struttura;
- a nursery for selecting and germinating seeds;
- a quality control laboratory to monitor food safety, document the nutritional status of
each crop, and monitor for plante disease;
- a building for the vertical farm workforce;
- an eco-education/tourist center for the general public;
- a green market;
- and eventually a restaurant.
Aquaculture and poultry will be housed in adjacent but separate building with no
physical connection to vertical farm building to ensure safety of the plants».19
In the Despommier’s idea, the vertical farm are real urban farms, conceived as places
of vegetables and poultry production, but also as centers of education and social
integration, able to create a spirit of community, as well as poly research aimed at
safeguarding the quality of food and its ecological sustainability production.
The vertical farm so conceived is thus a radical innovation compared to companies
who practice hydro-stacker vertical hydroponic growing systems, characterized by the
stacking hydrostackers. Even agreeing with the hydroponic companies the premises of
soilless cultivation and some specific production techniques, the vertical farm differs
in the vision of the different functions it intends to integrate, and in the assumption of
operating within a complex urban buildings specially designed and built to meet these
functions.

1. 2. Soilless culture systems: hydroponics and aeroponics

The hydroponic growing system produces plants without soil, by feeding directly into
all the nutrients necessary for their growth. Hydroponics is easy and simpIe way to
grow plants, considered by many more advantageous than the cultivation in soil

19
D. Despommier, cit., p. 179.
15
because it make possible to give plants maximum levels of the exact nutrients they
need. Precise control of nutrient uptake allows reap higher yields faster.
The first hydroponics applications in the modern sense 20 dates back to 1929 when the
Californian William F. Gericke of the University of California at Berkeley began to
promote this solution for agricultural crop production21. After have created a sensation
by growing tomato vines twenty-five feet high in his back yard in mineral nutrient
solutions rather than soil, Gericke had to face the skepticism of administrators of his
University, who denied him use of the university’s greenhouses for his experiments.
The publication of his book, Complete Guide to Soil less Gardening 22 in 1940, go hand
in hand with the growing interest in the technique proposed by him, so that his system
was used by the US Army to supply fresh vegetables troops during the Second World
War.
Since the 80s, the use of plastic and peat in the receptacles substrate gave new impetus
to the technology of hydroponics, thanks to the ongoing scientific research conducted
in the Netherlands, England and Japan, countries where the reduced availability of
arable land has stimulated a greater interest in this farming methodology. Later, also
East Asia, Spain and Israel have increased the implementation of hydroponic farm,
while NASA has developed a research program for a system hydroponic food
production to be used in space missions. 23

20
The word "hydroponics", introduced by Gericke in 1937, is a neologism that refers to the term "Geoponica" (literally
"worked the land"), formed by the replacement of the root -geo (earth) with the root -hydro (water).
21
It is believed that the first hydroponics systems have been made in the hanging gardens of Babylon and the floating
gardens of the Aztecs of America, who grow vegetables in wooden rafts called Chinampas, described by William
Prescott in the eighteenth century«Wondering Islands of Verdure, teeming with flowers and vegetables and moving like
rafts over the water». Floating Chinese gardens are also described by Marco Polo in his famous journal. We must get to
the seventeenth century to find the first recorded scientific approach to hydroponic crops, when Belgian Jan van
Helmont showed in his experiments that plants obtain substances from water.
A prestigious written reference to the growing terrestrial plants without soil technique appears instead in the Francis
Bacon's book Sylva Sylvarum, published in 1627, which aroused considerable interest in this technique. In 1699 John
Woodward, a fellow of the Royal Society of England, published his water culture experiments with spearmint, through
which he found that plants in less-pure water sources grew better than plants in distilled water. The compilation, in
1842, of a list of nine elements believed essential for plant growth, and the discoveries in the years 1859-1875 of
German botanists Julius von Sachs and Wilhelm Knop (considered the "father of water cultures") favored the
development of the cultivation of terrestrial plants without soil.
22
William F. Gericke, Complete Guide to Soil less Gardening, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1940.
23
NASA has already designed food supply systems for the astronauts, during eventual missions to Mars.

16
The installation of vertical structures has given a further impetus to hydroponics, for
the possibilities they offer to provide a solution to increased environmental pollution
and land degradation caused by intensive farming.
Hydroponic cultivation is considered an effective tool for controlling the growth and
production of plants especially for the several advantages that produces:
- the reduction of the time of development: in a hydroponic system the plants grow
faster than in the traditional system on earth as there is greater control of the supply of
nutrients and a richer supply of oxygen to the root system. Breathing more easily, the
plants speed up their metabolism and take less time to grow. Furthermore, with the
shortening of the growth cycle, the chances that the plants develop diseases decrease;
- better working conditions from the plant to the collection, even with strict control of
the effective cultivation needs;
- higher productivity per meter, thanks to the highest density of seedlings and the
elimination of the attack by the soil-borne pathogens;
- increasing product quality in post-harvest: vegetables produced hydroponically does
not contain the remains of chemicals used for geo-sterilization24, are cleaner, and do
not differ with products grown in soil from the nutritional point of view;
- reduction of the amount of water for irrigation compared with a traditional crop (about
90% less thank to recycle too);
- environmental compatibility, since the hydroponic crops do not provide sterilization
and it is reduced the use of water and fertilizers.

Currently, however, are still many people who believe that hydroponics cultivation is
an unsustainable systems, for several reasons:
- it requires large investments of capital;
- it requires a large quantity of water and fertilizers, especially in the case of the open
system;

24
“Geo-sterilization” means the soil disinfection against harmful organisms (nematodes, soil insects, weeds)
implemented by physical (water vapor) or chemical means(fumigants).
17
- still has high operating costs.
In Italy the plant species mainly dedicated to this type of cultivation are some types of
flowers (such as the rose and the gerbera), tomato and strawberry.

The other technique reported by Despommier for crops in vertical farms is that
aeroponics, which consists in process of growing plants in in a closed or semi-closed
environment without the use of soil or an aggregate medium, by spraying the
plant’s dangling roots and lower stem with an atomized or sprayed nutrient-rich water
solution.
In nature there are many species that grow in an areoponic mode, mainly in tropical
climates as different quality of orchids and tillandsie and many epiphytic plants.
Techniques for growing plants in the air and in absence of substrate first developed
in twenties by botanists who used primitive aeroponics to study plant root structure.
In 1966, Bruce Briggs, considered the aeroponic cultivation pioneer, succeeded in
inducing roots on hardwood cuttings by air-rooting. In fact he discovered that air-
rooted cuttings were tougher than those formed in soil and concluded that the basic
principle of air-rooting is sound. He discovered then that air-rooted plants could be
transplanted to soil without suffering or setback to normal growth, differently by
how it was observed in hydroponic transplants, in which is normally observed
transplant shock. But it was in the seventies that the research and use of aeroponic
systems developed in a large scale. In 1976 the British researcher John Prewer
carried out a series of aeroponic experiments near Newport, Isle of Wight (U.K.), in
which he made grown in 22 days lettuces from seed to maturity in polyethylene film
tubes made rigid by pressurized air supplied by ventilating fans.
carried out a series of aeroponic experiments near Newport, Isle of Wight (U.K.), in
which he made grown in 22 days lettuces from seed to maturity in polyethylene film
tubes made rigid by pressurized air supplied by ventilating fans. It was then the Mee
Industries of California to supply the equipment used to convert the water/nutrient into
fog droplets. After remaining part of the experiment, the aeroponic system had its big
18
public debut in 1892, when was opened “The Land”, pavilion at Disney's Epcot Center.
In the same year in Israel L. Nir began to evaluate the commercial value of the aerofoni
system, with which he obtained a succeful production of tomato, eggplant, cocumber,
lattuce and pepper. Nir registered a patent for an aeroponic apparatus, “Apparatus and
Method for Plant Growth in Aeroponic Conditions”, in which «plants are supported by
a support member above the root portions thereof and the root portions are subjected
to a nutrient mist directed thereto, with control and timing means for controlling the
time and sequence of application of the mist. Nir utilizes a high pressure pump or
pneumatic pressure to deliver a nutrient solution to suspended plants, held by
styrofoam, inside large metal containers. Alternatively, Nir provides for the spraying
of tap water from a water tap. However, such tap water spray does not include
nutrient»25. In 1983 also Richard Stoner filed a patent for the first microprocessor
interface to deliver tap water and nutrients into an enclosed aeroponic chamber made
of plastic. Stoner developed different companies for aeroponic hardware, interfaces,
biocontrols and components research, for commercial aeroponic crop production. After
had used, in 1984, a different design of aeroponics system to grow strawberry plants in
association with John Prewer, a commercial grower on the Isle of Wight, nel 1985,
Stoner's company, GTi, has been the first company to manufacture, market and apply
large scale closed-loop aeroponic systems into greenhouses for commercial crop
production, specially of strawberries. The system perfectionated by Stone was
particularly appreciated by customers, especially for the cleanliness, quality and flavor
of the fruits. It was very appreciated also by NASA, which in 1990 funded a project
related to a small aeroponics operation: Stone’s great effort lead to developments of
numerous advanced materials for aeroponic cultivations26.

25
In Method and apparatus for aeroponic propagation of plants, in http://www.google.fr/patents/US4514930

26
Demonstrating the efficiency of aeroponic system characteristics that make it an efficient means of growing plants,
especially in future scenarios in earth and space, NASA has activated plans related to Mars missions, providing for the
construction of structures in which the aeronauts should spend 60% of their time on the red planet farming to sustain
themselves.

19
To stay in the technical aspects of this method, the elements that qualify are:
- the closed environment (aeroponic chamber or grow room or grow box), constituted
by a suitable structure and as isolated as possible from the outside so that the necessary
parameters are monitored and controlled to the growth of the plant, which are:
• the lighting, which is substantially the same for all indoor crops;
• the temperature, whose optimum range is between 21 and 28 degrees centigrade,
which is monitored through simple measuring instruments such as thermometers or
thermo hygrometer; there are several ways to reduce it (like vacuum cleaners or
extractors ari) or improve it (electric heating preferably powered by renewable
energy sources);
• aeration, ventilation and carbon dioxide
• moisture, which must always be around 50 - 60%, and should never be excessive;

- the radical apparatus in the air suspension and of the leaves, which is supported by
suitable perforated panels for different type and shape according to the cultivation
choice;
- the lack of land, which allows you to cancel the exposure of plants to pests and
pathogens, thereby facilitating their development;
- the radical apparatus nebulization, which is periodically sprayed with nutrients diluted
in water using nebulizers matched to a high pressure pump and a timer splashing at
regular intervals the solution directly onto the roots, obtaining an air / nutrient solution
by remarkable effect that benefits to the plant;
- the recovery of nutrients and water from the bottom of the structure.

Among the most products in aeroponic methods vegetables, which supporters consider
more advantageous than hydroponics for the greater savings of substances and water,
there are various types of radicchio and lettuce, chicory, spinach and potatoes. The
industrial aeroponics is considered one of the most recent and promising research
20
frontiers in the field of vegetable and flower crops sector, which, as hydroponics, has
supporters and detractors.
Among the advantages that are reported by its supporters, there are:
- the possibility of significant quantitative and qualitative increases in production,
without depending on seasonal changes;
- cost reduction, guaranteed by the significant reduction in the use of manpower and
energy consumption;
- saving substances and water, which are retrieved from the bottom of the structure and
recirculated;
- lesser possibility of formation of a suitable environment for the growth of molds,
viruses or bacteria such as salmonella;
- drastic reduction in pesticide treatments;
- 90% reduction of fertilizers, with the total elimination of those most responsible for
air pollution (such as methyl bromide);
- reduction of pollution of environment and groundwater, guaranteed by the recovery
of substances used;
- greater culture exchange rate and elimination of transplant stress;
- independence from water not suitable for cultivation;
- elimination of waste material to dispose of, except the organic residues due to the
change of cultivation;
- nitrate reduction in the leaves;
- long life of the materials used for the cultivation;
- reduction of maintenance time;
- possibility of producing organic and certifiable vegetables;
- possibility to produce vegetables throughout the year (you can make 20 cuttings per
year against 5-6 of the cultivation ground).

21
Despite all these benefits, those who have a more skeptical position and who think
aeroponics is «a great system for small premises»27 highlight those disadvantages:
- the difficulties in the utilization of this technique for the traditionally extensive crops
(wheat, maize, etc) and of crops of plants which require a large vegetative
development;
- the need for a substantial expenditure of system to activate the cultivation;
- lack of certainty about the possibility of reduction of pathogens;
- the dependence on the system, as in aeroponics system is made up of high pressure
pumps, sprinklers and timers: if any of these break down, your plants can be easily
damaged or killed;
- the need for greater technical knowledge amounts of nutrients required for the growth
and health of the plants;
- the need for regular cleaning of the root chamber, that must not be contaminated or
else diseases may strike the roots;
- lower quality of products grown with indoor systems.

1.3 Illumination
«The sunlight –Despommier writes – is the main source of energy to grow the crop,
then the vertical farm should be made as transparent as possible. The designer/architect
has many choices of transparent material to chose from. Glass is cheap to manufacture
and durable, albeit a bit on the fragile side and heavy.[ …] A current trend in modern
building design advocates for total transparency. […] It is now even possible to create
an all-glass structure without any metal at hall in the building by using special
adhesives. The caveat here is that, as of this writing, he new glues used to attach sheet
of glass together have only been tested for a year’s worth of wear. Insulating an all-
glass building is a big problem, and employing double-glazing to provide energy-

27
In http://www.gardeningsite.com/aeroponics/aeroponics-benefits-and-disadvantages/ are presented all the advantages
and disadvantages of aeroponic cultivation.
22
saving adds huge amount of weight and expense to the equation. One solution is to
abandon glass altogether in favor of high-tech plastics that are much lighter in weight
and more durable. Recycling transparent plastic (bottle, etc.) into clear panels used for
windows and modular construction of eco-friendly structures has spawned a new
industry for building materials».28 Thus we can say that the vision of Despommier of
the vertical farms starts from that of the traditional glass houses.
In addition to the transparency of the surface, Despommier also thinks of his form,
which should preferably be curved to take full advantage of natural sunlight and to
follow the progression of the sun across the horizon. In this way the indoor cultivation
can reduce the lighting gap with respect to the outdoor one.
Good sun exposure is important but not essential for plant growth, as in the vertical
farm natural lighting is complemented by various artificial systems, which increase the
natural sunlight with metal reflectors or integrating that with artificial lighting.
In fact, the growing systems in the indoor environment require the application of
additional, at least supplementary, light sources to ensure the photosynthesis and so the
plant growth.
One of the most efficient illumination system is the one of light-emitting diodes
(LEDs), considered the new artificial illumination border because they never overheat,
requiring very low energy consumption and offer a great choice of colors. About their
efficiency it’s very useful to read the article published in 2014 in the journal "Royal
Society", which underlines: «the photosynthetic processes are often modified in plants
grown under artificial lighting, because lamps do not usually mimic the spectrum and
energy of sunlight. Agronomically, new lighting technologies such as LEDs have the
potential to cover fluence and wavelength requirements of plants, while allowing
specific wavelengths to be enriched, thus supplying the light quantity and quality

28
R. Despommier, cit. pp.188-189.
23
essential for different phases of growth. The biomass and metabolic products of
cultivated plants can therefore be modified» 29.
The same article claims that this illumination technique can sustain normal plant
growth: «Among artificial lighting systems, LEDs present the maximum PAR
efficiency (80–100%; see the electronic supplementary material, table S1). LEDs
emitting blue, green, yellow, orange, red and far red are available and can be combined
to provide either high fluence (over full sunlight, if desired), or special light wavelength
characteristics, thanks to their narrow-bandwidth light spectrum. The high efficiency,
low operating temperature and small size enable LEDs to be used in pulsed lighting
and be placed close to the leaves in interlighting and intracanopy30 irradiation. Their
long life expectancy and ease of control make them ideal for greenhouses in use all
year round. The LED technology is predicted to replace fluorescent and HID lamps in
horticultural systems and to revolutionize controlled growth environments» 31.
The article ends with these considerations about the LED application in the vertical
farm too: «The lighting industry needs to offer energy-efficient, ecologically
sustainable lamps adapted to the changing requirements of consumers. LEDs equipped
with driver chips could provide the additional benefits of operational flexibility,
efficiency, reliability, controllability and intelligence for greenhouse lighting systems.
However, the acceptance of solid-state LED lighting in niche applications in
horticultural lighting will depend on improvements in conversion efficiency and light
output per package of LED light and the cost of lumens per package. It is predicted that
horticultural cultivation under controlled environmental conditions (horticulture
industry) will expand in the near future, as was presented in the workshop on
Challenges in Vertical Farming32. The new technologies provide possibilities for

29
Eva Darko, Parisa Heydarizadeh, Benoît Schoefs, Mohammad R. Sabzalian, Photosynthesis under artificial light: the
shift in primary and secondary metabolism, 3 March 2014, in the Royal society web site,
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1640/20130243
30
The canpoy is the aboveground portion of a plant community or crop, formed by the collection of individual plant
crowns.
31
Ibidem.
32
Reference to the workshop of the University of Maryland the 26 of seprember of 2012. See:
http://challengesinverticalfarming.org/
24
economically efficient consumption of light energy for horticultural cultivation of
crops both on Earth and in space in the near future, and may contribute to feeding the
growing human population and maintaining outdoor (principally forest) ecosystems
and thus to the protection of the Earth»33. For artificial lighting of indoor cultivation,
in addition to LED lamps there are other types of media, such as fluorescent neon
lamps, which have the advantage of being intense and constant, and the resumption of
lights very similar to the natural ones, achieving the revival of extremes of red and blue
of the solar spectrum. However they present certain problems, for the intensity of
brightness, which is not suitable for all types of plant.
Also the CFL energy saving lamps, very similar to fluorescent lamps and capable of
guaranteeing energy savings without emitting heat, are very appreciated by farmers,
especially "craft" ones.
The HID (High Intensity Discharge), widely used in hydroponic crops, provide
excellent light intensity but tend to consume to much and to emit heat.
Among other lamps there are the MH (Metal Halide), which produce a predominantly
blue light, ideal for the vegetative growth stage, and HPS (High Pressure Sodium),
which provide light predominantly red, great to illuminate during the flowering/fruiting
stage.
The choice of material to be used for the artificial lighting depends of course on the
type of crop and on the type of plant, since each one has its own needs and
characteristics.
Very important in the lighting of an indoor cultivation is also the positioning and the
height of the light sources. Are then necessary sliding systems to follow the growth of
the plants always maintaining an optimum distance.
Since the plant growth cycle includes an alternation of day and night, different times
of exposure are provided to light both the different plants and the different stages of
growth. It is necessary the use of timers to prevent irregularities in lighting, which can

33
Eva Darko, Parisa Heydarizadeh, Benoît Schoefs, Mohammad R. Sabzalian, Photosynthesis under artificial light: the
shift in primary and secondary metabolism, cit.
25
cause serious damage to the life cycle of plants.
Decisive for a sustainability perspective is also the manner in which the artificial
lighting system is fed, for which Despommier indicates the geotherm, tidal34 and wind
energy, choosed in base of the vertical farm geographical position. To these he adds
the energy of fire, that is obtainable from the burning of farm waste materials: «It is
good to keep in mind that the fact that the word “waste” does not appear anywhere in
the ecosystem’s dictionary. It’s all a part of the same natural loop of energy recovery
aiding in the regeneration of life. If the vertical farm is to behave like an ecosystem,
then the roots, stems, and leaves of crops, and the entrails of flow and fish, all need to
find their way back onto energy grid. Incineration is the most practical way to
proceed». 35
So the Despommier’s indications go in the direction of an energy self-sufficient vertical
farm, able to use photovoltaic, biogas made from waste, geothermal or other renewable
sources to derive heat and power energy.
It is right underline that there are some open discussions about the real energy savings
that can be achieved in vertical farms, as there are many doubting it.

1.4. Fertilizers
Given the sustainable vocation of vertical farm, fertilizers used must to be organic.
As for hydroponics, growing interest is having for the use of fish scrap to provide the
plants organic nutrition necessary for their development. The water from the tank of
the fish is pumped into the plants one, which filter and clean that, so it can be
reintroduced again in the fish tank. This makes it very advantageous combination of
hydroponics and fish breeding.
Another innovative fertilization system is that of "liquid earth", called "biponia" and
brevetted by William Texier, who registered the brand "BioSevia™, Grow & Bloom"

34
Tidal energy is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of the tides into electricity or other useful forms of
power. Tidal energy is therefore an entirely predictable form of renewable energy.
35
R. Despommier, cit., p. 196.
26
as 100% organic fertilizer. To be bioponic a fertilizer should be liquid or soluble in
water, it should not contain too large particles and must be rapidly available and
degradable. Combined with other products, such as the “Trichoderma harzianum” and
the silicate powder, biponia can recreate a nutrient solution with all the relevant
elements for the plant, making even the function of humus contained in the soil and
thus reproducing the natural fertility of the ground conditions.
It must be stressed that, while the US products from hydroponics are certified as
organic (USDA Certified Organic), in Italy they cannot be certified as such, since the
recognition of "organic" does not extend to soilless cultures.
In this regard William Texier, in a recent interview to mark the Italian publication of
his book, Hydroponics for Everybody - All about Home Horticulture, he replied to the
question: «You have also invented bioponics (hydroponic and organic farming). Do
you believe that this may be the future of farming?
Probably not, especially because the impossibility to obtain an organic certification for
a product that is not grown in soil. When we do bioponics, we respect all the rules of
organic farming, with the added advantages of hydroponics, but still there is a
widespread mentality which considers “bio” only what is “ground-in dirt”. We have
some clients that use this technology on a commercial scale in the world, but I can not
say that it is spreading in massive way, for now remains essentially a niche crop. The
thing that makes me optimistic is that all of these trading operations are highly
successful, so I think that, over time, slowly but surely this technology is destined to
occupy a more prominent place»36.
As regards in general the fertilizer for hydroponics, it should be recalled that all have
generally bio-mineral origin and that they must have a balanced ratio between the
primary elements - nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) -, secondary
elements - calcium (Ca), sulfur (S) and magnesium (Mg) - and trace elements - boron
(Bo), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), chlorine (Cl), cobalt (Co), manganese (Mn), molybdenum

36
In http://www.dolcevitaonline.it/intervista-a-william-texier-autore-di-idroponica-per-tutti/

27
(Mo), silicon (Si) and zinc (Zn), equally necessary for the crops in soil. In addition to
containing all the necessary salts, fertilizer must be adapted to the used water, hard or
soft, perfectly soluble and free of heavy metals and pollutants.
Because in the US products from soil-less cultivation can be certified as organic, in
this country it is possible to use organic fertilizers even in an aeroponic systems,
provided that they are readily soluble and have a particulate that does not occlude the
tiny holes in the spray heads of high pressure aeroponic systems.

Chapter 2 The different types of vertical farms

2.1. The vertical farm designed

Dickson Despommier’s researches about vertical farm, in which all environmental and
productive factors can be controlled (humidity, temperature, gases, fertilization…), has
been inserted in an increasing interest by architects, engineers, garden designers,
agronomists and researchers environmentalists, who have created operational teams
that combine their knowledge to design and build structures directly or indirectly
inspired by this innovative farming methods. It is so open a phase of design fervor
favored also by the ten-day workshop organized in May 2008 by Despommier, at which
were invited also several European students aimed at producing visualizations of his
theoretical work on vertical farms.
We will see in Chapter 3 how the project activity necessarily implies the estimate of
the costs as a fundamental element in a position to attract the investment needed to turn
ideas into reality.

28
It is probably because of the uncertainty about their feasibility and cost-effectiveness
that many of the projects have remained on paper for now.
There is no doubt that the many research done for plan implementation contributes
significantly to compose a "science" of vertical farm that could favor their creation in
an environmental sustainability, productive and economic perspective, or to convince
the stakeholders (public administrators, investors etc.) to abandon it. As we’ll see in
Chapter 3, there are environmental and geographic conditions that may make it more
advantageous the construction of vertical farms, as demonstrated in the case of Japan,
in which the presence of radioactivity in soils, especially in some zones, makes this
methodology a rational and efficient response to the demand for uncontaminated
products.
Among the most significant projects we list some, that stand out for their futuristic
design, by their originality and in many cases for their exact level of feasibility analysis.

1. La tour vivante - The Living Tower (Rennes, 2005)

Project hold by SOA architects (Augustin Rosenstiehl and Pierre Sartoux), the Tour
Vivante, conceived as an “ecologic autonomous machine”, is a vertical farm of 30
floors mixed with housing and offices programs. Two large wind machines, directed
towards the dominant winds, are located at the top of the building, produce electricity
facilitated by the height of the tower: their electric power production is estimated about
200 to 600 kWh per year. These wind machines are also used as station of pumping in
order to ensure the circulation and the recycling of rainwater recovered in roof and for
the urban development of the complex. «The concept of the Tour Vivante aim is to
associate the agricultural production, dwelling and activities in a single and vertical
system. This system would allow to make the city denser meanwhile a greater
autonomy could be gained reliance in agricultural plains, reducing the need of
transportation between urban and extra-urban territories. The yet unusual
superimposition of these programs finally makes it possible to consider new practical
29
and energetic relations between agricultural culture, tertiary spaces, housing and trade
inducing a very strong energy saving»37.

Figure 6: The tour vivante by SOA

2. Vertical Farm by Chris Jacob (New York)

Converted to the concept of vertical farm from the encounter with Depommier,
architect Chris Jacob conceived for New York a cylindrical building thirty floors,
topped by a huge satellite dish, for the production of vegetables, also generating
clean energy and purifying wastewater. «Primarily, an agricultural shift towards
vertical farming, away from traditional horizontal field farming, would have a
twofold affect: controlled crop production and reforestation. Food production
would fall completely under human control as all farming would be relocated
indoors within controlled environments, preventing crop failure, eliminating
pesticide and fertilizer usage, allowing for direct distribution of harvests, and
permitting year-round production. And with farmlands no longer needed for crop

37
In http://www.ateliersoa.fr/verticalfarm_fr/pages/images/press_urban_farm.pdf
30
production, countless acres could be reforested, restoring untold amounts of
hardwood forestry to temperate and tropical area»38.

Figure 7: Vertical farm by Chris Jacob

3. Sky Farm by Gordon Graff (Toronto, 2007)

Designed by Gordon Graff, a student in the Master of Architecture program at
the University of Waterloo and considered one of the pioneer of vertical farms,
this project, proposed for downtown Toronto's theatre district, is a tower of 58
floors and 2.7 million square feet of floor area and 8 million square feet of growing
area, that can produce as much as a thousand acre farm, feeding 35 thousand
people. «A vertical farm – Graff writes – must be able to produce enough food to
cover the cost of its day to day operations and, ultimately, the capital cost of the
building's construction (or renovation). While this is clearly dependent on some
factors outside the realm of architectonics, such as the market price of food and
current state of grow-lighting technology, the physical arrangement of the

38
In
http://www.greenandsave.com/green_news/green_building/towers_of_imagination_chris_jacobs_and_vertical_farming
_in_theory
31
building can have a profound impact» 39. In the project Graff calculated also the
operation cost, which was supposed to amount to about $110 million, against a
hypothetical sale of 25 million heads of lettuce per year into the local market.

Figure 8: Sky Farm by Gordon Graff

4. Urban Epicenter/NYC (New York, 2009)

Project at Graduate School of Design, Harvard University Project Advisor by the

architect Jungmin Nam. The prototype provides a high building, whose twist is
aimed at maximizing the solar light, which «is not only for the food production
but also for the productive urban living, as it works as a tool for social change; a
sustainable way of consuming, food distribution, job creation, healthy food source
and civic space for local community. It will reshape urban life style as being
manifestation on how the urban life can be in the future from a day-to-day impact
on our cities» 40.

39
In http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/gordon-graff-demonstrates-that-vertical-farms-can-actually-work.html
40
See the offical web site: http://www.worldarchitecture.org/architecture-projects/mzme/urban-epicenter-nyc-building-
page.html

32
Figure 9: Urban Epicenter, NYC

5. The Living Skyscraper (Chicago, 2009)

Prototype designed to be placed on the surface of the sea, created by Blake
Kurasek – today Project Architect at Dattner Architects of New York – while he
was a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The
concept places urban farms on the outer fringes of residential apartments. Some
floors are enclosed for year-round production of greenhouse crops, while others
include terraces for seasonal items such as orchards. The ground floor would
contain a farmers’ market where residents could sell to one another and the
general public. Interessante, nel suo progetto, il disegno assonometrico della
struttura dell’edificio, che presenta una precisa descrizioni degli elementi
funzionali di una vertical farm.

33
 Figure 10: The living Skyscraper, by Blake Kurasek

6. Dragonfly (New York, 2009)

Designed by the Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut on model of the wings of a
dragonfly for the Roosevelt Island of New York City, this visionary urban farm
of 600 meter high comprehends 132 floors and 600 vertical meters, and can
accommodate 28 different agricultural fields for the production of fruit,
vegetables, grains, meat, to facilitate the solution of food mileage and shortage
problems. A combination of solar and wind power makes the building 100% self-
sufficient.

34
Figure 11: Dragonfly project, by Vincent Callebaut

7. Seewater Vertical (Dubai, 2009)

The project of the Seawater Vertical of the Italian architects Studiomobile
provides for five cocoon-greenhouses fixed to five branches that also transport
and nebulize the seawater creating a humid and cool flow, ideal for the plants, like
the environment of the equatorial forest. In these conditions crops need very little
water as they are not stressed by excessive transpiration. Besides this suggestive
design, this vertical farm utilizes the seawater, purified with special evaporators,
to cool and humidify greenhouses, and to irrigate the crops.

35
Figure 12: Seawater Vertical, Dubay

8. EVF Experimental Vertical Farm (Santiago del Cile, 2011)

EVF Prototype Building, designed by Claudio Palavecino Llanos, professor at the
Universidad de Chile, School of Architecture and Urbanism, it provides 4 high
cylindrical tower with a sloping roof, conceived as an artificial ecosystem food-
producer with minimum energy and resources consumption, which comprises full
agricultural production process, from plantation, harvest, process, packing until
dispatch for public consumption. «The main design fact – is written in the project
– is about how to concentrate the traditional agricultural framework in a very
simple process into only high-performance building; and how this is integrated to
urban flows (energy, matters, transportation) and landscape. These actions have
sense into an integral sustainable development framework (social, economic and
environmental), based on a management plan what put in context this project as a
possible action in current urban and market requirements, in this case, based on
Chilean current situation»41.

41
See the official web site: http://www.archiprix.org/2015/index.php?project=2926
36
Figure 13: The Experimental vertical farm, by Claudio Palavecino Llanos

9. Vertical Farm Design (Paris 2009)

Architect Charlotte Avignon project, this prototype of vertical farm is thought
to be located in a park-like environment and would Provide fresh, local food for
Parisians. The sail-shaped building intends to give to Paris a seductive historical
iconic infrastructure that represents the new eco-friendly vocation of the city.

Figure 14: Vertical farm project, by Charlotte Avignon

37
10. The Harvest Tower (Vancouver, 2009)
This prototype, designed by Canadian study Romses, won the "Vancouver's
Challenge 2030", competition dedicated to the best projects to address climate
change and reduce carbon emissions.«The urban design strategies for the proposal
are predicated on the view that urban food and energy harvesting needs to be
“fore-grounded’ into strategic and highly visible locations in the city, such as
transit hubs along arterials. The “Harvest Tower” will act as a landmark vertical
marker for the development and surrounding neighborhood, while the
commercial/office podium roots the development to the surrounding arterial
street-wall context.
The concept of “harvest” is explored in the project through the vertical farming of
vegetables, herbs, fruits, fish, egg laying chickens, and a boutique goat and sheep
dairy facility. In addition, renewable energy will be harvested via green building
design elements harnessing geothermal, wind and solar power. The buildings have
photovoltaic glazing and incorporate small and large-scale wind turbines to turn
the structure into solar and wind-farm infrastructure. In addition, vertical farming
potentially adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting
non-edible parts of plants and animals. Furthermore, a large rainwater cistern
terminates the top of the “Harvest Tower” providing on-site irrigation for the
numerous indoor and outdoor crops and roof gardens»42.

42
In http://www.evolo.us/architecture/the-harvest-tower-is-a-sustainable-vertical-farm-romses-architects/
38
Figure 15:The Harvest Tower realized by Romses Architects

11. Pyramid Farm (USA, 2009)

The iconic pyramid shape was chosen by architect Eric Ellingsen of the Illinois
Institute of Technology and by the same Dikson Despommier to address the needs
of a swelling population on a planet with finite farmland. It’s conceived as «a self-
sufficient ecosystem that does what other vertical farms are intended to do, but
the difference here is that apart from raising vegetables and fruits indoors, the
ecosystem utilizes waste to produce fish and poultry as well. The design is so
efficient that it would just use 10% of the water and five percent of the land needed
by farm fields»43.

43
In http://www.ecofriend.com/eco-agriculture-pyramid-farm-vertical-farming-reinvented.html
39
Figure 16: The Pyramid Farm by Eric Ellingsen and D. Depommier

12. Vertical Farm Type O2 (Australia, 2010)

The vertical farm of Olivier Foster consists of a broken cylinder, as if to show the
"natural" soul of the building, composed by the access ramp and by structures that
recall a tangle of twisted branches. The architect's goal is to «make maximum use
of a small amount of space by filling glass houses, with plant beds stocked high
one above other»44.

44
In http://verticalfarmingaustralia.blogspot.it/
40
Figure 17: Vertical Farm Type O2 by Olivier Foster

13. Oasis Tower for Zabeel Park Vertical Farm (Dubai, 2010)
The Oasis Tower for Zabeel Park a Dubai, designed by Rahul Surin, is a self-
sufficient tower, composed by three twisted spiral cylindrical buildings,
assembled in the form of a hexagram, which is seen as the combination of the
negative and positive pushes nullifying each other and thus claiming equilibrium.
Its facade’s renewable energy systems will be optimized for maximum energy
generation. It is conceived to provide a solution for urban farming and sustainable
housing in arid conditions. «Architect Rahul Surin believes that the Oasis Tower
will be able to provide enough food to feed 40,000 people and use renewable
energy technologies to meet the whole building’s energy demands. The exterior
of the building would be lined with air-filled pockets made from
ethylenetetrafluoroethylene, which help protect it from the environment by
providing optimized shade to minimize heat absorption. The tower would also be

41
powered by vertical axis wind turbines placed in between the floors of the central
tower»45.

Figure 18: Oasisi Tower by Rahul Surin

14 Skyland, ENEA (Milano, 2009-2015)

The project was presented at the Expo 2015 in Milan, from a collaboration
between ENEA, who developed the project structure, Agrimercati, who provided
advice on agro-side, and the Department of Health of Milan. It was first edited by
dr. Mauro Basili and architects Gabriella Funaro and Julius Mizzoni. This
prototype of a green skyscraper energetically self-sustainable, and designed to
grow organic agricultural products for 25 thousand people, is imagined as «a place
where it can be produced healthy food, where it’s made research to ensure food
safety, where you can learn and taste. A place thought to hold quality, for the care
of the person, that does not pollute and does not waste, not far from our homes»46.
In the intentions of the designers, Skyland should integrate in one location the
entire food chain, from indoor soilless production (hydroponic and aeroponic),
through the marketing of products with installation within the area of services
sectors to sell the products, both to large distribution level and to retail level. It

45
In http://www.futuresparks.org.au/media/34559/bright_ideas.pdf
46
In http://webtv.sede.enea.it/index.php?page=listafilmcat2&idfilm=277&idcat=22
42
should also comply with the parameters "five zeros": zero emissions, zero waste,
zero distance, zero power, zero pesticides. Implicit is the reduction of soil
consumption, since Skyland exploits the height, with which one hectare is
equivalent to 4-5 hectares of traditional crop fields.
The structure is composed by the building, 150 meters high, and consists of a 30-
storey main body designed to contain the greenhouses on a total productive area
of 4.2 hectares. It provides a side tower in which are placed the connecting carriers
(lifts and elevators), the service of production facilities, the shopping area and
catering and it is composed by smaller bodies in which they develop service
activities, research, wholesale and retail trade. Are then foreseen terraced bodies,
arranged along the height, destined to catering and recreation/cultural
functions.At the top there is a terraced body with a sailing coverage with
auditorium functions.
There will also be two underground floors for parking and utility rooms, and an
outdoor covered parking for the public.
For the energy supply of the building is expected the use of photovoltaic panels
and GHP (Geothermal Heat Pump), thermodynamic energy conversion plants
inverse and extraction of biogas from waste.

2.2. Realized vertical farm

From projects that have been talked, emerges a vision of vertical farm in which
predominates the architectural aspect. The imagined buildings are often mixed-use
skyscrapers that require great investments and challenging urban interventions. Most
of the realized vertical farm are greenhouse multi or single floor (even called PFALs,
Plant Factories with Artificial Lighting) used exclusively for the cultivation of
plants.
43
Their implementation depends on many factors. We list a few:
- agro-climatic factors for food production: for example the desert region of Middle
East and North African countries have not enough soil resources to produce food;
comparable situation in the Taiga and in the mountain regions, or Nordic countries,
which do not have suitable conditions for agriculture;
- elevate urban population: the mega-cities have environmental problems linked to
the production, logistic and quality of food;
- the eco-friendly attitude of the public administration: their policies can both
facilitate and hind the vertical farm construction;
- the available investments: to activate a VF it’s necessary an initial capital, which
entity depends by the dimension of the system implementing. The technological
systems used in VF often imply high initial and functioning costs;
- the potential market of products destination: if the purchasing power of local
consumers is not high enough and if there are not the facilities able to activate a large
scale market, it’s impossible to implement a VF;

It is these factors that determine the transition from design to implementation, and
that have moved towards the construction of small scale VF, such as, for example,
that of the Paignton Zoo (United Kingdom), activated to produce food to feed the
animals of the bio-park, reducing personal spending and avoiding CO2 emissions
due to the movement of goods. Solutions such as this could have a large following,
requiring low investment and optimizing resources.

44
Figure 19: Paington Zoo food production system

Many VF were activated in Asia and in USA, in addition to that of Newark, about
which we will give a more detailed description, where have arisen high-tech
facilities for indoor cultivation in Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo (NY) and New Buffalo
(Michigan), and many more are being born.

Figure 20: the Green Spirit VF of New Buffalo, Michigan

We think that among the Vertical Farms realized, a mention must be done for that
presented by ENEA within the "Future Food District" at the Expo 2015 in Milan, a
small prototype that was meant to give visibility to this type of indoor cultivation. It
was a metallic structure of 3x3 meters base and 4.5 meters high, covered with
transparent glass panels (extra-clear tempered glazing) on the east and west sides,
45
and insulation panels (glazing reflective matt) on the north and south sides. On the
north side it was inserted a LED screen, while on the south side there was the back
door. The flat roof of the structure also served as a support structure for air
conditioning of the greenhouse plants, inside which there were shelving consisting
of 6 levels with the function of supporting tanks at ebb and flows of water containing
nutrients and crops (multilayer cultivation system).
Also among the VF that have seen the light, we choose some that may be emblematic
of the various existing and different geographical are types.

Figure 21: ENEA's VF, (EXPO 2015)

2.2. Realized vertical farm

2.2.1 The Sky Greens vertical farm
The Sky Greens vertical farm, realized in 2012 in Singapore to help the city grow
more food locally and reducing dependence on imported produce, is considered the
first commercial vertical farm. With a population of five million crammed on a
landmass of just 715 square kilometers and only seven percent of food grown locally,
the tiny republic of Singapore has been forced to find a system to feed its many

46
inhabitants and to make some areas of the mega-city self-sufficient from the
productive point of view.
The solution has been found in the form of a public-private partnership, with the
creation of what has been hailed as the “world’s first low-carbon, water-driven,
rotating, vertical farm” for growing vegetables in an urban environment, result of a
collaborative agreement between the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of
Singapore (AVA) and a local firm, Sky Greens.
The vertical farming system was ultimate and tested by the engineer Jack Ng and by
“Go-Gro”, a professional potting mix manufacturer, which created a series of
aluminum towers – some up to nine meters high – each containing 38 tiers equipped
with troughs for the vegetables production. To ensure the Sky Greens’s
environmental sustainability, the water used to power the rotating towers and to
grow the vegetables is recycled within the system. Each tower consumes only 60
watts of power daily, about the same amount as a single light bulb, thanks to the
consistent sunlight that reaches the plants through the transparent facades, reinforced
also by the slow rotation of the vertical structure: «The multi-layered vegetable
tower rotates very slowly, taking some eight hours to complete a full circle. As the
plant travels to the top it absorbs ample sunlight and when it comes back down it is
watered from a tray that is fed by the hydraulic system that drives the rotation of the
tower. The closed cycle system of the farm is easy to maintain and doesn’t release
any exhaust»47. La farm is able to produce two tons of fresh veggies every day, which
are sold in local supermarkets.
Sky Green is therefore a system of production modules inside which are placed
vertical structures used for the cultivation. This model have inspired many farms in
various countries, who have developed the arable land in the vertical dimension.

47
In http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/farming-in-the-sky-in-singapore/

47
Figure 22: the Sky Greens farm of Singapore

2.2.2 Vertical farm di Newark, New York

A Newark (New Jersey) it is being built what is considered the largest vertical farm
in the world, obtained from the renovation of a former disused factory of 69,000
square foot, thanks to the investments of RBH Group, Goldman Sachs Urban
Investment Group and Prudential Financial Inc.
AeroFarms is the foundator, an urban agricultural company, which have foreseen a
39 million $ cost. According to the builders, the production should be of about
900.000 kg of vegetables per year, destinated to local New York and New Jersey
communities and partially cultivated with the aeroponic system. In the structure will
be installed plants of photovoltaic panels for energy production, which will fuel
efficient LED lights.
The AeroFarms CEO David Rosenberg how this project, which is scheduled for
completion in 2016, is insert in a global vision: «We set out to build AeroFarms not
to build one farm, not to build a farm for just the rich, but to really change the way
we source of food for humanity»48.

48
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/05/429345848/green-pie-in-the-sky-vertical-farming-is-on-the-rise-
in-newark
48
The urban farm has been greeted with fervor, but not without some criticism. Some
worry that don’t make sense to build this kind of farm in areas with high real estate
prices or high labor costs. Others state that the vertical farm is not suited to growing
many types of vegetables, such as tubers or fruit.

Figure 23: Newark VF project

2.2.3. Vertical farm of Suwon, South Korea

Korea attempted its first vertical farm in the city of Namyangju in Gyeonggi
Province in 2009, but the plan was stopped when it was not considered cost
convenient, as the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs official Lee
Young-sik said in a report on the farms: «Normal vinyl houses cost 200,000 won
($182) to 300,000 won ($273) per pyeong (3.3058 square meters) to build. Glass
greenhouses, meanwhile, cost one million won ($911), whereas a vertical farm costs
10 million won ($9,110). Despite the differences in the costs of building the farms,
the crops’ prices were all similar, so cost-effectiveness wasn’t good for the vertical
farm»49.

49
In http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/04/116_177084.html
49
In the Asian country, since 2012 was activated in Suwon, a city 30-kilometers south
of the capital Seoul, a “smart vertical farm” prototype built by the Rural
Development Administration, constituted by a three floors plant.
Journalists Fabian Kretschmer and Malte E. Kollenberg, after have visited the farm
described that in Spiegel Online: «Inside the building, heads of lettuce covering 450
square meters (4,800 square feet) are being painstakingly cultivated. Light and
temperature levels are precisely regulated. Meanwhile, in the surrounding city, some
20 million people are hustling among the high-rises and apartment complexes, going
about their daily lives.
Every person who steps foot in the Suwon vertical farm must first pass through an
“air shower” to keep outside germs and bacteria from influencing the scientific
experiment. Other than this oddity, though, the indoor agricultural center closely
resembles a traditional rural farm. There are a few more technological bells and
whistles (not to mention bright pink lighting) which remind visitors this is no normal
farm. But the damp air, with its scent of fresh flowers, recalls that of a greenhouse.
Heads of lettuce are lined up in stacked layers. At the very bottom, small seedlings
are thriving while, further up, there are riper plants almost ready to be picked. Unlike
in conventional greenhouses, the one in Suwon uses no pesticides between the
sowing and harvest periods, and all water is recycled. This makes the facility
completely organic. It is also far more productive than a conventional greenhouse.
Choi [Choi Kyu-hong, agrarian scientist] meticulously checks the room temperature.
He carefully checks the wavelengths of the red, white and blue LED lights aimed at
the tender plants. Nothing is left to chance when it comes to the laboratory conditions
of this young agricultural experiment. The goal is to develop optimal cultivation
methods - and ones that can compete on the open market. Indeed, Korea wants to
bring vertical farming to the free market»50.

50
In http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/vertical-farming-can-urban-agriculture-feed-a-hungry-world-a-
775754.html

50
Korea intetests to this kind of production has grown always more, based on the hope
that in the near future the technology will expand and be capable of feeding the entire
nation. In 2015 the Seoul government says the reason for the vertical farms is not
commercial gain, but to develop new technology and expertise in this method of
agriculture.

Figure 24: VF of Suwon, South Korea

2.2.4. PlantLab, Netherland

Located in Den Bosch, Netherlands, PlantLab51 is currently under construction and
is based on a smaller prototype that has been running for several years.
The plants are grown by red and blue LED lighting in a closed environment, quite
sealed.
The plant has a control software that monitors parameters 163 830 per second in
order to create the ideal environment for each type of crop. With the software are
adjusted the temperature and the brightness to achieve the desired product in a
shorter time and to have a lower waste of resources compared to the traditional
greenhouses, and also is controlled the water cycle, which is recycled in the

51 PlanLab is a consortium of Dutch engineers, who have developed the technology to optimize plant growth.
51
evaporation, with a consumption equal to 10% of water used by a traditional
greenhouse.
Loyal to its eco-friendly vocation, PlantLab does not use pesticides, no genetically
modified plants and tries to limit human intervention as much as possible.
According Gertjan Meeuws, spokesperson of the firm, PlanLab will get a harvest
three times higher than that of a traditional crop, with less consumption of the same
output power.
His belief is that the advanced technology implemented - which saves 90% water,
triples the crop and can grow any type of plant - can be effectively used in every part
of the world.

Figure 25: PlantLab (Netherland)

2.2.5 Vertical farm Nuvege in Japan

Vertical farming has been booming in Japan after 2011, when Fukushima nuclear
disaster irradiated a significant portion of the nation’s arable land. Born to face this
huge problem, Nuvege (also called “Green Green Earth”) is a hydroponic vertical
farming company based out of Kyoto, currently producing lettuces in a hydroponic
system innovative, unlike any other conventional hydroponic system that exists
today, as its creators say: «Nuvege’s proprietary lighting network (NLN) uniquely
increases the yield rate of vegetable growth by equalizing light emissions that also

52
advance photosynthesis through increased levels of carbon dioxide. Our lettuce
products, grown in our protected “Vertical Farming Environments” with our
patented technology, are unaffected by erratic weather, climatic events, bacterial
disease, and remain unthreatened by contaminants of any kind.
The result is a form of extraordinarily healthy, organic produce that is unmatched
anywhere in the world for its quality and content.
Nuvege - is the healthy, sustainable business model for the future of the world’s food
supply. 52
The farm is housed in a 4 story quanset hut-like building, the size of a 747 hangar
(2851 square meters) 30.000 horizontal square feet, and utilizes more than 57.000 of
vertical square feet of growth environment in the same space. Naoki Matsumoto, of
the SPREAD company, is the one that activate the plant, convinced that Nuvega is
going to improve: «We produce only lettuce, but the variety of produce grown in
plant factories is increasing»53.
The company intent is that their innovative vertical farming techniques will provide
a universal model for the rest of the world. Nuvege’s corporate goals actually include
efforts to establish branch operations throughout Asia and United States.
Always in Japan, precisely at Aizuwakamatsu, city of the Fukushima district, a only
113 miles from the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Fujistu, a Japanese
multinational company began to experiment a fresh cultivation system using
advanced artificial lighting in a factory that could produce 3,500 heads of lettuce per
day.

52
In http://agritecture.com/post/27440882258/nuvege
53
In http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.4002
53
2.2.7 Plantagon Greenhouse (Svezia)
In the Sweden city Linköping is being build an industrial-scale multifunctional
vertical farm projected by Plantagon, an international company leader in the
sector of urban agriculture.
Hans Hassle, CEO of Plantagon, explains so his happiness about the start of the
project: «We are excited that the Plantagon Greenhouse has been given the green
light by Linköping’s Administrative Board, and we are of course very eager to get
started. The vertical greenhouse in Linköping will be a landmark in several ways. It
is the first building of its kind in the world. It is also the result of combined efforts
from several actors, like SWECO, Tekniska Verken and The City of Linköping,
working together with us to realize this project»54.
In the greenhouse of 60 meters high will be space reserved for urban agriculture and
in the inner part of the construction will be a 16-story office building that can be
used for many different functions (hotel, office or school). Plantagon’s head office
will host on one floor, while in the others floors there will find the offices of other
companies, institutions and start-ups.
The entire building is thought to minimize the use of water and the demand for
artificial lighting, and to gain the most possible homogeneous light levels.

54
In http://www.mynewsdesk.com/plantagon-international/pressreleases/plantagon-to-build-unique-vertical-
greenhouse-for-urban-agriculture-in-linkoeping-sweden-1100765
54
Plantagon Greenhouse should so become a mixed-use skyscrapers, and not a vertical
farm only used to cultivate.

2.2.8. Vertical Harvest, Jackson, Wyoming (USA)

Under construction from November of 2014 in the heart of the city of Jackson,
Wyoming, this greenhouse is built by Show Construction with a public/private
partnership to fill an increasing market demand for locally fresh agricultural
products. It is a 3-storey building built on a surface of 13,500 sq. ft., within which
they will be implanted hydroponic systems.
«The greenhouse – we ca read in the web site of the farm – will utilize a 1/10 of an
acre infill lot to grow an annual amount of produce equivalent to 5 acres of traditional
agriculture.
With 95% of its product already under pre-purchase agreements, Vertical Harvest
will grow and sell vegetables year-round to the Jackson area via restaurants, local
grocery stores and directly to consumers through on-site sales. Vertical Harvest will
also donate fresh produce to anchor institutions such as St. John’s Medical Hospital
to go towards nutritional programs, like the Diabetes Program. Vertical Harvest will
provide these businesses and programs with a stable, consistent source of produce at
competitive prices year round.
In addition to fresh lettuce and tomatoes, Vertical Harvest produces jobs. Vertical
Harvest will establish an innovative model to employ an under-served Wyoming
55
population: adults with developmental disabilities. Current statewide statistics show
an unemployment rate of 78% among Wyoming’s employable developmentally
disabled residents»55.
With an estimated cost of $ 3,700.000, the farm should provide up to 100,000 lbs of
produce each year, without using pesticide and a water consume about 90% less than
conventional farming.

Figure 26: Project & construction of Vertical Harvest in Jackson, Wyoming

55
In http://verticalharvestjackson.com/the-greenhouse/
56
Chapter 3
Analysis of advantages and disadvantages of vertical farm agricolture system:
an open discussion

3.1. Advantages and disadvantages compared

Strong supporter of vertical farms, Dickson Despommier has been spreading the
seeds of his radical idea through conferences, lectures and his web site. However
this idea has been questioned by many critics, who have pointed out that «dreams
need to be brought down to earth».
To answer the skeptics in his book The Vertical Farm Despommier analyses 11
advantages of vertical farm:
« 1. Year-round crop production
2. No weather-related crop failures
3. Eliminates agricultural runoff
4. No agricultural runoff
5. No us of pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers
6. Use of 70-95 percent less water
7. Greatly reduced food miles
8. More control of food safety and security
9. New employment opportunities
10. Purification of gray water to drinking water
11. Animal food from postharvest plant material»56.

To those brought to light by Despommier you can add other more general benefits:
1. Great reduction of use of fossil fuels (farm machines and transport of crops)
2. Possibility to use abandoned or unused properties
3. Mayor sustainability for urban centers thanks to transport reductio

56
D. Despommier, cit., pp. 154-146.
57
4. Energy saving allowed by the use of methane generate from the combustion of
inedible parts of crop plants
5. Risk reduction of infection caused by agents transmitted at
the agricultural interface
6. Returns farmland to nature and restore of ecosystem functions and services
7. Less use of agricultural soil

Despite these positive aspects, however, are many who highlight the negative ones:
- Use of a lot of electricity: excluding the vertical farm implemented fully equipped
with walls of glass structures (as greenhouses), there’s few sunlight that can
reliably capture with a vertical farm, so it’s necessary to rely a lot on artificial light,
and this is expensive in term of money and of resources use, if the farm does not
have an efficient and advanced renewable energy systems;
- pollination problem: if the vertical farms is an insect-free environment,
pollination will have to be done by hand, and this will ask more cost;
- problem of the cost of urban surfaces, that is greater than that of rural areas, and
the problem of the renovation of existing buildings costs to be converted back into
vertical farm;
- problem of the overall cost required by the creation of such complex systems,
which, in addition to the construction costs, include those for lighting, for the
control of environmental temperature, to the apparatuses for the nutrient delivery
system, for the platforms for plant growth along with artificial growing medium
and interior elevators (for people, various products and materials).
To examine the weaknesses of a vertical farm very usefull is the report of Germans
Chirantan Banerjee e Lucie Adenaeuer, Up, Up and Away! The Economics of
Vertical Farming, publicized on “Journal of Agricultural Studies” of Macrothink
Institute, a private organization dedicated to scientific research and publication di
Las Vegas. The purpose of the report was to investigate the economic feasibility of
a vertical farm of 37 floors high, designed and simulated in Berlin by the
58
Engineering Study initiated by DLR Bremen, and to estimate the cost of production
and market potential of this technology. This is the resume of the weaknesses
highlighted:
«Crops require space, light, carbon dioxide and water, which is available freely in
nature. In case of Vertical Farming all these need to be supplied at a cost. Structures
need to be built for the nutrient delivery system and platforms for plant growth
along with artificial growing medium, generating additional costs. This could be a
weakness compared to conventional agriculture; greenhouse agriculture on the
other hand has similar requirements. Taking this into consideration, Vertical
Farming is logically viable only in places where agriculture is necessary but agro-
climatologically difficult to be practiced in the open, like in desert nations or
mountainous nations lacking flat arable land. This might also be justified as a space
saving approach in Mega-cities where real estate demands hinder setting up of
parks and botanical gardens.
Light in Vertical Farming towers has to be supplied artificially. Although it opens
up the opportunity to regulate the wavelengths, intensity and photo-period to
optimal levels, and can be held comparable to greenhouse agriculture, it still
remains a cost that needs to be taken into consideration. The justification of
incurring this extra cost lies in areas where light intensity is too low or the photo-
period incompatible for crop cultivation, as in case of higher latitudes or where the
intensity is too high for cultivating sensitive salads, fruits and vegetables, as in
sub-tropical deserts»57.
The importance of the location of vertical farms to assess the favorability is also
underlined by Augustin Rosenstiehl – a french architect who worked with D.
Despommier, associated with the group SOA in Paris. He is strongly convinced
that every vertical farm project needs to be adapted to a specific place. In 2008 he
said so: «We cannot do a project without knowing where and why and what we are

57
Chirantan Banerjee, Lucie Adenaeuer, Up, Up and Away! The Economics of Vertical Farming, Journal of
Agricultural Studies of Macrothink Institute, Vol 2, No 1, 2014. Available in
http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/view/4526.
59
going to cultivate. For example, in Paris, if you grow some wheat, it’s stupid
because we have big fields all around the city and lots of wheat, good wheat.
There’s no reason to build towers that are very expensive»58. In realtà nel 2012 la
stessa SOA ha progettato Urbanana, a banana plantation just in the heart of the
French capital59.
An important aspect of this innovative farming type is the exploitation of
verticality, connected with the increase of urban density. As shown by the eastern
megacities, vertical building is considered the only solution to keep the city within
acceptable territorial dimensions, to reduce the time and transportation costs, and
increase the value of urban land. The idea of vertical farming is so into this trend
to carry out more and more self-sufficient city of towers because they are able to
enclose within them all the functions necessary to the life of their inhabitants.
To complete the discussion on the advantages and disadvantages analysis, is worth
recalling that, in the vision of Despommier, the vertical farms are not only facilities
for the production of food, but activators of energy at various levels, the importance
of which must be counted of their overall economies:
«Indeed, the Vertical Farm is not merely about food, but about the unseen circuits
of energy and materials, labor and resources, capital and infrastructure, technology
and politics upon which our cities depend; food is only a single component of the
Vertical Farm, the most visible part, the market and marketable part […]; food, the
only part of farming which consumers see while the rest of the industrial process
remaining invisible, unquestioned, absolved by sheer ignorance»60.
There is another important benefit highlighted by Despommier: the social one. He
believes that vertical farms could become «important learning centers for future
generations of city-dwellers, demonstrating our intimate connectedness to the rest

58
Cited in The New York Times, 15 june 2008, in http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15farm.html?_r=0
59
See the projectin: inhabitat.com/urbanana-is-an-urban-renovation-concept-that-would-bring-banana-farming-to-
paris/
60
D. Despommier and Eric Ellingsen, The vertical Farm – The origin of 21st century Architectural Typology,
CTBUH Journal, 2008, in http://global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/449-the-vertical-farm-the-origin-of-
a-21st-century-architectural-typology.pdf
60
of the world by mimicking the nutrient cycles that once again can take place in the
natural world. These traits re-emerged as the result of returning land
61
Back to the natural landscape» . Hence the vision of vertical farm as poles of
ecological education and social gathering, so necessary especially in megacities,
but also desirable in smaller urban centers. The question arises to what extent this
social aspect can arouse the interest of public authorities and investors.

3.2. Cost analysis

Vertical farming is steadily becoming a subject discussed in industrial and
scientific communities of many countries. There are a lot of centers (more than 150
for Christine Zimmermann-Loessl of the Association for Vertical Farming62)
working on realization, realization and on their physical, economic and structural
feasibility: ThanetEarth (UK); NewYork-Sunworks (USA); Omega-Garden
(Canada); Levenston (Canada); PlantLab (Italy); VertiCrop (Canada); Plantagon
International AB (Swedish), ENEA (Italy); Sky Greens (Singapore); The Plant
(USA), Mirai Co. (Japan), Aerofarms INRA-AgroParisTech (French), German
Aerospace Centre (Germany), Urban Pastoral Collective (USA), EcoGeek (USA),
SOA (France); ODA architecture (USA), to name just a few. There are also
numerous universities that foster research in this area: in addition to Columbia
University (USA) in which D. Despommier, we mention a few other: Clemson
University Institute of Applied Ecology (USA); Faculty of the Architecture
Department in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of
Architecture Savannah College of Art and Design (USA), Politecnico di Torino
(Italia), School of Architecture, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia (Canada),
Università La Sapienza di Roma (Italy) and the Università di Perugia (Italy).
The construction of a vertical farm requires a prior and detailed cost analysis of start-
up costs and operation costs, based on accurate quantification of all items of

61
Ibidem.
62
The Association for Vertical Farming is an internationally active nonprofit organization focusing on advancing
Urban and Vertical Farming technologies, designs and businesses. Site: https://vertical-farming.net/
61
expenditure and revenue, to check if it holds the promise of enabling more food
produced with less resources use, but especially if the capital expenditure for
construction and the annual variable costs can have a yield as to encourage investment
in this sector.
Obviously, the quantification of costs depends on different scenarios of each specific
realization, which can present significant changes in relation to the type of structure
(height and width, technologies used, type of cultivation, energy used and produced
etc.) and to the geographic area in which it is implemented.
Interesting detail is the cost analysis performed for a "tesina de especialitat" by
Marc Prades Villanova of the Escola de Camins (Universitat Politècnica de
Catalunya, BarcelonaTech) on the project to change the west façade of the Mies
Van der Rohe's Seagram Building, in New York, with the substitution of the
existent façade with a Double Skin Façade where, between the two glass surfaces,
many plants could grow with hydroponic system. The accurate quantification of all
items of expenditure of this original system leads to the following conclusion:
«This first approximation offers some valuable results. Even with suboptimal
circumstances (using default window glass), the energy savings from implantation
would still be substantial»63. That confirms that the use of glass walls is a decisive
variable for the economy in terms of energy saving.

3.2.1 Cost analysis of Singapore vertical farm

Regarding the importance of the geographical area in which is implemented a
vertical farm, it is interesting to the analysis made by Luckily JJ Reidy, CEO of the
Urban Pastoral Collective, which highlights the basic conditions that have made
the construction advantageous the vertical farm in Singapore:

63
Marc Prades Villanova, Vertical Farm Façade First approach to the energetic savings applied to the Seagram
Building in New
York.http://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099.1/23367/Vertical%20Farm%20Fa%C3%A7ade%20%28M
arc%20Prades%29.pdf
62
« - Dense and urban population (Singapore is an island a little more than 3 times
the size of Washington, DC with a population of 5.6 million people. Their
population is 100% urbanized).
- Production proximity to market (New, government-sponsored industrial parks
allow companies to build their businesses on the island)
- Existing infrastructure (Singapore is a developed, high-tech country whose
purchasing power parity ranks 41st in the world)
- Cheap energy (Energy is reliable and affordable, especially when supplemented
with renewable resources)
- Legislative Support (Singapore’s government not only has the laudable
sustainability goals of 20% self-sufficiency in the coming years, but also
established a 20 million dollar fund to boost domestic food production. This helps
enormously in the face of insane vertical farming start-up costs.)
- Local Demand (Expensive imports from China and Japan currently fill
Singapore’s supermarkets. Singapore only produces 7% of the produce it
consumes)»64.
Luckily JJ Reidy notes that «doing this analysis in Singapore was important for
two reasons: first, because Singapore’s government is so dedicated to increasing
their self-sufficiency, they aren’t going to put unnecessary legislative blocks on
vertical farm projects and instead will let market forces decide what succeeds; and
second, there were two vertical farms competing with very different models for the
same concentrated market»65. An important factor highlighted by Luckily JJ Reidy
is the legislative one, which can weigh significantly on the feasibility of vertical
farms.

64
In https://urbanverticalproject.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/the-first-vertical-farm-showdown-why-you-need-to-
know-whats-happening-in-singapore/
65
Ibidem.
63
3.2.2. Case: total cost analysis of a vertical farm simulation, in Berlin
In the mentioned report Up, Up and Away! The Economics of Vertical Farming of
Chirantan Banerjee e Lucie Adenaeuer we find an accurate costs analysis based,
as we say, on the simulation of a vertical farm in Berlin, considered a megacity
with a sufficient market potential for implementing such a structure. This is the
designed vertical farm:
«In order to support 15,000 people with enough food the tower is planned to have
the following configuration: A Vertical Farm of 0.93 ha (roughly the size of a city
block) with a total of 37 floors, 25 of them solely for the purpose of crop production
and 3 for aquaculture. Further, uniformly distributed floors are for environmental
regulation and 2 in the basement for waste management. In addition there is one
floor for cleaning of the growth trays, sowing and germination, one for packing and
processing the plants and fish and one for sales and delivery at the basement. This
configuration results to a total building height of 167.5 meters, with a length (and
width) of 44 meters, giving an aspect ratio of 3.81. A freight elevator big enough
to allow a forklift truck was planned in the center of the building, allowing for
harvest and waste to be transported down to the respective floors. [….] It yields
about 3,500 tons of fruits and vegetables and ca. 140 tons of tilapia fillets, 516
times more than expected from a footprint area of 0.25 ha due to stacking and
multiple harvests»66 .
The costs analysis simulation brings us to conclude that the investment costs add
up to € 200 million di euro, and it requires 80 million liters of water and 3.5 GWh
of power per year, with the produced food costs around between € 3.50 and €
4.00 per kilogram.
The 200 million euros computation has been so obtained:

66
Chirantan Banerjee, Lucie Adenaeuer, Up, Up and Away! The Economics of Vertical Farming, cit..
64
 Production Costs

Fixed Costs (€)

Building (incl. Site) 111 581 994 €
Equipment 90 382 192 €
Total Costs 201 964 186 €
Variable Costs
Personnel l 2 050 000 €
Power Demand 5 390 941 €
Plant Seeds 44 406 €
Water (recycled) 0€
Nutrients 424 919 €
Fish Food 127 020 €
Total Costs 8 037 286 €

The study ends to the conclusion that «to tap the economic, environmental and
social benefits of this technology, extensive research is required to optimize the
production process»67, also because if the produced food costs are between 3.50 €
and 4.00 € per kilogram, we can establish that from this analysis emerges a
substantial economic unsustainability of the considered vertical farm. So the
conclusion is that «to tap the economic, environmental and social benefits of this
technology, extensive research is required to optimize the production process. […]
This work started with reasonable doubts that food grown in Vertical Farms might
be exorbitantly expensive to ever become a practicable solution. This work has
shown, however, that it is a possibility which needs to be further investigated»68.

67
Ibidem.
68
Ibidem.
65
3.2.3 Cost analysis of Skyland project, Milano
The cost of energy is considered the most specific of a vertical farm, as it differs
that from the one in traditional soil culture, which does not need to expenses for
lighting, heating and cooling, and the operation of the production apparatus (lifts
and hoists). It is therefore a crucial voice in determining the sustainability of this
type of agricultural buildings (see the interview of the architect Gabriella Funaro,
ENEA, in the appendix).
For the quantification of the energy costs of a vertical farm is very useful the thesis
Bilancio energetico di una vertical farm presented at the Turin Polytechnic, Faculty
of Engineering, Degree in Civil Engineering from David Wüthrich in October
2010.
In this work, the graduate has performed a thorough analysis of Skyland costs, the
vertical farm designed by ENEA, which has been discussed in Chapter 3, for the
cultivation of leafy plants, fruit plants and tuber plants.
The verification work was requested by the ENEA, in order to check the facilities
of the structure and assess its energy self-sufficiency.
To do this analysis of consumption expected during operation for Skyland, David
Wüthrich has used Design Builder69, a software Energetics of Buildings
Simulation, applied to a virtual model of the structure, observing as much as
possible the constructive provisions.
The results were then compared with those developed by ENEA.
« When considering Skyland as a whole, in order to verify consumption - writes
Wüthrich – we prefer to divide the skyscraper in different environments depending
on their intended use. Each room has a distinct behavior, resulting in consumption
and energy balances different from area to area and in order to simulate as closely

69
The software Design Builder used in the calculation of the energetic balances is a commercial interface which
utilizes Energy Plus, whole building energy simulation program that engineers, architects, and researchers use to
model both energy consumption - for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, and plug and process loads -and water
use in buildings. Its development is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Office.
66
as possible the service life of the building in question, to all parts of the structure
were assigned very specific characteristics, typical for that destination user.
Simulations have been made both for total energy balance, related to the whole
structure, and for the partial of each zone identified in the skyscraper. It was also
possible to plot an hourly trend of temperatures and relative humidity in various
environments; this last graph is indispensable in the area turned into a greenhouse
for hydroponic cultivation of plants, which must be kept constant temperature and
humidity.
For each environment we are then derived the consumption on an annual scale and
the expenses required under the least favorable conditions, so for the hottest day of
the year (July 15) and the coldest day of the year (January 15). The financial
statements in the less favorable conditions are used to size the systems that need to
be able to guarantee a maximum of comfort even under poor working conditions.
The experience aim was to obtain an energy balance of the whole structure under
examination, Skyland, to verify the installations»70.
The calculation was made by dividing the area of the greenhouses consumption and
the services area, which present extremely heterogeneous technical characteristics
and therefore a different energetic grade.
According to data provided by the agronomist ENEA, it is expected that the density
of plants per cubic meter reached within Skyland is the following:

PRDUCTIVE LEAF FRUIT TUBER

PARAMETERS PLANTS PLANTS PLANTS
Plant density
70 4 12
[plants/m3]

70
Davide Wüthrich, Bilancio energetico di una vertical farm, final tesis preseted to the Politecnico of Tourin,
Facoltà di Ingegneria, Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Civile, octuber 2010, p. 37.
67
To grow and mature plants under optimal conditions, the greenhouses should be
monitored according to various parameters - temperature, relative humidity,
circulation and exchange of air, lighting, day and night cycles of light - each of
which has consumption characteristics energy specifications.
The calculation made by David Wüthrich in his thesis were summarized in a series
of graphs. The following example shows the different incidence of total electrical
consumption values divided into different uses. From them it is clear that the higher
consumption is related to the illumination system.

SKYLAND - CONSUMI ELETTRICI TOTALI

13%

6%

Room Electricity
7% Equipment
Heating
C ooling

74%

The following graphs instead shows the total electricity consumption set,
divided by areas, and for months.

68
 SKYLAND - CONSUMI ELETTRICI TOTALI

25000

20000

15000
MWh

Zona Servizi
Zona Serra
10000

5000

0
Room
Equipment Heating Cooling
Consumption
Zona Servizi 4720 1480 300 1174
Zona Serra 15310 400 1454 2508

CONSUMI ELETTRICI TOTALI

3500

3000

2500

2000 Zona Serra

MWh

Zona Servizi
1500 Skyland

1000

500

0
Gen Feb Mar Apr Mag Giu Lug Ago Sett Ott Nov Dic
Zona Serra 1727 1479 1482 1457 1567 1755 1911 1930 1697 1485 1466 1673
Zona Servizi 997 901 963 987 1057 1060 1144 1124 1049 1010 947 989
Skyland 2723 2380 2445 2444 2624 2815 3055 3054 2746 2495 2413 2662

In the thesis emerges that the producible energy in the building is insufficient to
meet the total energy needs, estimated at 27.35 GWh per year, and that the self-

69
reliance of the structure remains a critical point of the project. The values provided
directly by ENEA are in fact the following:
- photovoltaic energy: the total energy that can be produced by photovoltaics is 3.6
GWh/year
- biogas energy: the producible electrical energy from municipal solid waste is 5
GWh/year
- from geothermal energy: the electricity produced by geothermal heat pumps is
approximately 7 GWh/year.
Concluding his scrupulous studies, David Wüthrich comes to the following
conclusion:
«The fact that as a result of this simulation, and through the use of these systems
currently envisaged we are not able to achieve energy self-sufficiency of the
complex does not imply that the project is not feasible, indeed we must take this
simulation as a point of start and a cue for further research and find a solution to
this problem that makes the entire building self-sustainable from an energy point
of view. So this is a very interesting and very challenging technological challenge
that, thanks to the most innovative systems, will be surely able to win»71.

71
Ibidem, p. 82.
70
Chapter 4 The integration between architecture and urban agriculture in the
vertical dimension

4. 1. Towards an architecture always greener

At the EXPO 2015 in Milan it was organized the traveling exhibition A.A.A.
Agriculture Alimentation Architecture, dedicated to new trends in green
architecture, in order to stimulate architects, engineers and agronomists to share
their knowledge and leave the precincts of the interests of the category to turn the
design into a new and great opportunity for urban development. «Today – the
PromoVerde72 president Gianluca Cristoni says – we have a unique opportunity to
ensure that the culture of the project makes a step forward. Architects and engineers
have to learn about plants, worth the loss of commissions and money. And the
agronomists, growers and the whole of the green supply chain must understand the
world of architecture and see it for what it has become for them: a new and great
opportunity for professional development».73
This initiative forms part of the growing awareness of green architecture, seen as
the future of environmental sustainability and able to create (or recreate) a fruitful
symbiosis with the Food and Agriculture also part of the urban dimension. Expelled
from the city by the process of industrialization, agricultural production appears to
have now the opportunity to reconnect to the housing centers in order to overcome
the problems posed by their growing food needs and also the necessity to reduce
costs (economic and environmental) transport.
As we have seen (see the Premise) since the Sixties and Seventies we have made
buildings that have combined housing solutions with the expansion of green spaces
located in the buildings. In the eighties, instead, the intent of integrating green and
architecture it is decidedly moved in the direction of urban verticality. Among the

72
PromoVerde, Associazione per la Qualità del Paesaggio e del Florovivaismo, based in Rome, aimed to
coordinate non-profit network of professionals, companies, associations, institutional bodies, higher education and
research institutions, individual citizens to promote a new relationship with Green, Agriculture, Architecture, Food
and the landscape in all its forms.
73
In Press release: http://www.assoarchitetti.it/doc/aaa.pdf
71
precursors of this design choice is reckoned the Korean architect Ken Yeang, who,
with his Bioclimatic skyscraper and its eco-architecture, has placed ecological
sustainability and aesthetics at the center of its vertical urban design.
With buildings as the National Library of Singapore, thought as a “vertical linear
park” with an ecologically-linked vegetated pedestrian walkway ramp punctuated
by sky garden terraces located at each of the building’s corners, and further linked
to the uppermost-level roof gardens. Also with the successive, the Solaris in Hong
Kong, conceived as “ecocell” (a green integrative device), Ken Yeang has paved
the way to an eco-architecture designed to meet a growing interest, especially for
the possibility of integrating the agricultural function in that housing.
Have so grown up the projects of mixed-use skyscrapers, in which the plant should
be cultivated in open air or in indoor system.
The orientation towards ecologically sustainable architecture cannot be separated
from speculative aspects related to real estate transactions, which can be seen in
the increase in green urban strategies inspired by the new frontier for increasing the
real estate market taking advantage of the growing awareness (and demand) to
homes with space-garden in the urban dimension. Because to build houses is
required capital injections, the financial aspect is essential to the evolution of the
"green friendly". The question is whether the inclusion of space-garden in the cities,
in big cities or in megacities can be considered only a trend, a profitable business
or a particular need for environmental reasons. The same question is asked by some
for vertical farms.

4.1.1. Green architecture projects

Interest in green farming has infected famous architects, who explore the
possibility to experiment with a new idea of the urban dimension. The SPARK
study, based in London, Singapore and Shanghai, has carried out numerous projects
aimed at systematic integration between residential areas and spaces for the growth
72
and care of vegetation, such as Homefarm in Singapore, «a conceptual proposal for
the next generation of urban retirement housing. It presents a living and farming
typology for Singapore (or elsewhere) that combines apartments and facilities for
seniors with vertical urban farming. Seniors live in a high-density garden
environment created by a vegetable farm, where they may find employment.
SPARK’s aim is to generate discussion about the many potentials that can emerge
from the mixing of two typically separate realms. The research-based design
addresses two pressing challenges faced by Singapore: how the city state might
support a rapidly ageing society, and how it might enhance its food security (90%
of which is currently imported) »74 . The project includes balconies with tanks for
fish farming, which waste can be used as fertilizer for vegetables grown with
hydroponic system. On the upper floors are designed earth filled containers in
which to grow various kinds of plants and herbs, while in the center of the building
is drawn a collective vegetable garden, which could produce up to six tons of
vegetables per month.
Inspired by the same principles are also the SPARK Orchid road projects, always
designed to Singapore, and the Nanchang Vanke Haishang Chuanq.
Another green project of particular interest is the residential tower East 44th Street
in Manhattan, designed by ODA study, whose intention is to give the opportunity
to enjoy all the advantages of a house in the suburbs in the city center. The project
provides for real gardens suspended between one floor and the other and open plant
levels accessible directly from the apartments, which offer a scenic and relaxing
space to the inhabitants of the structure.
To demonstrate the attention towards these architectural perspective, the New
York-based magazine Metropolis has launched a competition for urban
architecture, which in 2015 was won by two English architects, Sean Cassidy and
Joe Wilson, with Organic Grid +. The project provides for the inclusion on the

74
In http://www.sparkarchitects.com/work/homefarm#1
73
outer facade of a office tower, 50 meters above the ground, a greenhouse high 3
floors. «The Organic Grid+ – says Sean Cassidy – sets out to create a completely
unique approach to creating a healthier workplace which embraces technology and
the current urban environment. The scheme seeks to reuse existing office spaces
and them fully adaptable to any business using a flexible grid system. Through the
use of augmented reality delivered via a contact lens, employees can manipulate
any surface or space to be a usable working environment, forming both private and
collaborative areas»75.
One of the most spectacular realization of green architecture is the Parkroyal Hotel
on Pickering di Singapore, a tower complex cut through by a wild patch of tropical
forest, designed by WOHA, a Singapore-based architecture practice founded in
1994 by Wong Mun Summ e Richard Hassell. With this complex the designers
have materialized their intention to demonstrate «how they were able to not only
conserve greenery in a built-up high-rise city center, but multiply it vertically in a
manner that is architecturally striking, integrated and sustainable»76. The complex
is constituted by a group of towers suspended above a green zone of flora and palm
trees that grows in the tropical climate. The vegetation runs long some curved
terraces that are fixed to the towers’ glass facades.
The "vegetalization" of urban spaces has established itself in Italy and found one
of the most significant achievements in the Bosco Verticale made by Boeri in
Milan, recognized in 2015 as the most beautiful building in the world.
A recent real estate transaction of green footprint is also the 25 verde, project
realized in Turin by Luciano Pia and Ubaldo Bossolono, with a rich and complex
system of terraces, overhangs, tubs and window boxes that give the building the
image of a pleasant suspended garden.

75
In http://cassidy-wilson.com/organic-grid/
76
In http://www.archdaily.com/217121/parkroyal-on-pickering-woha

74
4. 2. New green urban space
The green architecture and vertical farm are part of the more general concept of
urban agriculture, within which there are very different realities, even with more
modest dimensions, such as greenhouses and urban gardens, green roofs with also
food use and gardens and vertical allotments intended for domestic cultivation of
ornamental plants or vegetables, united by the exploitation of arable areas within
cities.
«Urban agriculture - explains Francesco Ferrini - seems to overcome some
limitations of the industrial food system, being an industry highly adaptable to
different contexts, able to free themselves from dependence on fossil fuels, taking
efficiently advantage of the high density of human and material resources in the
present in the urban environments. These areas without a precise destination
could provide productive uses, compatible with these ambits. If in certain cases of
land close to road infrastructure and of contaminated soils is not desirable to the
cultivation of edible plants, it is nevertheless possible, for example, use these
areas for arboreal plants for CO2 emissions offsets. The impact of the suburban
part of the green areas on the seizure of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric
greenhouse gases appears also to be considered on the basis of the wide surface
which, as said, these areas occupy in the territory, and in order to identify
economic and technology strategies needed to reduce the negative effects of
global change on the welfare and human health as well as on biodiversity
structure in general»77.

4.2.1. The green roofs: sky garden

The possibility of exploit the buildings’ roofs for the cultivation of the plants has
received a great success. The green-roof fans sustain the numerous advantages, in

77
Francesco Ferrini, Vertical farming”: un’idea affascinante ma troppo poco sostenibile, in Georgofiliinfo,
http://www.georgofili.info/detail.aspx?id=594
75
fact this method can be very useful, by absorbing rainwater, providing insulation,
reduce heating, combating the urban heat island effect (UHI)78, creating a habitat
for wildlife, helping to lower urban temperatures, to provide a more aesthetically
pleasing landscape and, obviously, recovering surface to produce food.
Despite these positive aspects, we must also mention the problems linked to their
implementation, which depends very much on the kind of roof garden. Despite the
initial cost of installing a green roof completely recovered by vegetation, which
demands a really efficient waterproofing system to isolate the roof and a constant
attention, considering also that the additional mass of the soil substrate and retained
water can weigh in problematically on the structural support of a building. That
because a lot of buildings have not been designed to support such a large amount
of added weight. Different is the concept of a building designed from the beginning
to be able to support such weight.
Another problem can be represented by the insects which could infiltrate a
residential building through the windows.
Green roofs can be only partially covered by vegetation (roof garden), or entirely
covered: this is the case of the green roof made for the purpose of insulation,
traditionally found in certain geographical aere.
The green roofs – also called eco-roofs, oikosteges or vegetated roofs –
Are divided into intensive, which are thicker, with a minimum depth of soil of
12.8 cm and can support a wider variety of plants but are heavier and require more
maintenance, and extensive, which are shallow, ranging in depth from 2 cm to
12.7 cm, that require minimal maintenance. Advances in green roof technology
have favored the development of new systems that bring the most advantageous
qualities of both extensive and intensive green roofs.

78
The urban heat island (UHI), a phenomenon already described in 1810 da Luke Howard, makes reference to all
metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities.
76
Another distinction is between the flat green roofs and the pitched green roofs,
which reduces the risk of water penetrating through the roof: this distinction is
linked to the living typology of the different geographic areas.
Currently in urban areas has increasingly been developed the roof garden, often
with real greenhouses for hydroponic or pot, although there are numerous studies
for re-enacting the traditional principles of green roof in buildings covered with
tiles of various materials.
Since the seventies have been made several studies on green roof and on roof
gardens, especially in Germany, where Berlin is considered as one of the most
important centers of research, togheter with the more recent ones of USA and of
other countries, as Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, UK, Greece, Israel,
Switzerland, Sweden and Egypt.
Between the greatest realization of roof gardens in multi-floor buildings we can
mention the Centro Congressi Library Square di Vancouver, placed in the city
center; the Roof garden of the Rockfeller Center in Manhattan (NY); the Chicago
City Hall Green Roof in Chicago; the Sky garden from the 34 to the 37 floor of the
20 Fenchurch Street, a commercial skyscraper in London; the roof of the Palais de
Tokyo in Paris; the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Brooklyn (NY), real farm that
produces organic crop on a roof of more than 500 square meters.
Since you can activate a roof garden even in small portions of the roofs of buildings,
there is a growing number of buildings in which they are created small gardens on
the roofs in which you can recreate the natural growth process of plants and
vegetables.
It is worth mentioning also the innovative eco-friendly handicraft practice, spread
mainly in Canada, Japan and France, to launch or shoot handfuls of seeds of certain
plants with appropriate tools on small tiled roofs portions, to make grow small
flowery spots only with the rainwater intake.

77
4. 2.2. The green walls
Starting from the intuition of Patrick Blanc, many architects and garden designers
have begun to design vertical gardens (or vegetable walls) in urban areas and
suburban, with aesthetic and ecological purposes.
It is necessary first of all to clarify the difference between green walls, that have
growing media supported on the face of the wall, and the green facades, that have
soil in a container or in ground only at the base of the wall.
There are various system to realize the green walls, which can be indoor or outdoor,
of differenet measures and with freestanding supports or attached to an existing
wall. They are generally built with modular panels hold by growing media, which
can be of different type: shelves, bottles, containers, bags, sacks, or supports as coir
fiber, felt mats, semi-open cell polyurethane sheet that are easily handled for
maintenance and replacement. From the artisanal point of view are made creative
green wall with various media fantasy, giving the green an original tone.
In addition to their high decorative value, the green walls offer several
environmental benefits, as they improve the thermal insulation of the building to
which they are combined, help to capture the fine dust, reduce noise pollution and
glare, as they absorb the sound and light waves.
Species of ornamental plants suitable to be used for green walls change depending
on climate and environmental factors in which they are: the most usual are the
microthermal (fescue, perennial lolium, poa pratensis etc…) and macrotherm,
indicated for warmer climates (such as couch grass), but many others can be chosen
according to their color rendering. Suffice to say that Patrick Blanc for Oasis
d'Aboukir Paris has used 7,600 plants of 250 different varieties on an area of 25
meters.
Typically they prefer varieties with low maintenance, needing little care and
sporadic interventions during the year.
Recently in the major cities it has spread the interest in domestic vertical gardens,
which give the possibility to produce vegetables even when you do not have land
78
available. A vertical garden makes it possible to grow plants in quite small places
using the height of the outdoor spaces. There are many plants that we can grow, to
be chosen according to the weather conditions: herbs, lettuce, radicchio, arugula,
berries, but also kale, cabbage, broccoli, beans, peas, tomatoes, and even melons.
At the Expo 2015 in Milan the United States have realized in their pavilion a
vertical garden of the length of a football field and designed by a team of architects
led by James Biber.

4.2.3. Green roofs and the Bosco Verticale

The growing tendency to put the green in architecture, not as an appendix but as an
important element of environmental sustainability, has increased the design of the
green roof, placed on building terraces. The real estate market rewards this trend,
for the greater appreciation for the units equipped with areas dedicated to the
cultivation of ornamental plants, but also eatable.
It is especially in large cities that are designed and built buildings with terraces
"vegetalized" ever wider, some of which create a "green" impact of great charm.
It is part of this trend the project Forwarding Dallas, winner pin May 2009 of a
competition in which the designers were call to design the most sustainable city
block possible at the most low prize, that was the chance to see that design come
to life. Designed by the Atelier Data and MOOV, the building include vegetation-
covered hillsides, apartments, a cafe, a gym and many other public spaces.
Currently pending construction, but not yet started to be built, is the EDITT Tower
in Singapore, thought to become a paragon of “Ecological Design In The Tropics”.
The building of 26 floors, doted by numerous hanging garden (quite half of his
surface area will be wrapped in organic local vegetation), was designed by TR
Hamzah & Yeang and sponsored by the National University of Singapore. It will
boast photovoltaic panels, natural ventilation and plants for the biogas generation
and for collect rainwater and integrate a grey-water system for both plant irrigation
79
and toilet flushing, with an estimated 55% self-sufficiency. Publicly accessible
ramps will connect upper floors to the street level, in which will find place shops
and restaurants.
Already achieved is the spectacular ACROS, building with hanging gardens raised
in Fukuoka (Japan), the structure of which reaches a height of about 60 meters and
contains 35,000 trees of 76 different species.
Designed by Argentine architect Emilio Ambasz and opened in April 1995 after
more than three years of construction, the building houses inside a concert hall,
conference rooms, a cultural information center aimed at tourists, public and
private offices, and an art gallery. The south-facing facade is characterized by a
series of terraced gardens covered by dense vegetation, which makes this building
one of the most significant ecological architecture models.
Also in Singapore was recently built Pinnacle, a large complex of towers jointed
each other on the 26th and the 50th floor balcony of a bridge, with hanging gardens
and rooftop garden at altitude.
One of the most successful examples of buildings with real hanging gardens is the
Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest), built in the historic center of Milan and designed
by the architect Stefano Boeri, whose idea it was to build a «Tower for trees wich
incidentally haused human beings»79.
The Vertical Forest is made up of two buildings housing 400 residential units: the
E Tower is 26 floors and 111 meters high, the D Tower is 18 floors and is high 78
meters. A kilometer and 700 meters of vessels go along the steel-reinforced
concrete baconies - designed to be 28 cm thick, with 1.30 meter parapets - were
placed 730 trees (480 large, 250 small), 5,000 shrubs and 15,000 between vines
and perennials; groundcover was placed on the facades of buildings.
«It took months of research and experiments – writes Boeri – conducted with a
group of outstanding experts in botany and sustainability to solve problems that

79
Stefano Boeri, A vertical forest – un bosco verticale, Corraini edizioni, Bologna 2015.
80
architecture had never before had to deal with: how to prevent a tree being broken
by the wind and falling from a height of 100 meters, how to ensure continuous and
precise watering of trees planted at heights where conditions of humidity and
exposure to sun are very different; how to prevent the life of the trees being
jeopardized by the personal choices of the owners of the apartments»80.
Whit this greening of the two skyscrapers Boeri has set out to change the
relationship between trees and men, promote a new idea of the city and «reduce
energy consumption thanks to the filter that a façade of leaves exerts on the sunlight
plus the microclimate that is created on the balconies»81. But not only. The leaves
of the trees can absorb, in addition to carbon dioxide, fine particles of urban traffic,
helping to clean the air of Milan.
According to Boeri himself says, the Vertical Forest Project refers to Garden city
mouvement, a method of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer
Howard in the United Kingdom, in the period in which there were growing the big
European metropolis. Howard’s idea, systemized in A Peaceful Path to Real
Reform, was to create self-contained communities surrounded by “greenbelts”,
containing areas for residences, industry and agriculture. From here the proposal to
create garden cities that would house 32,000 people on a site of 2,400 ha.
«A century later – writes Boeri – the proposal for the creation of a worldwide
system of “Urban forest” consisting of buildings that are homes to nature within
their own structures is facing a different scenario, yet the part of the world where
the urbanization of large number of peasants will for many years yet be an
unstoppable process. This scenario sees agriculture – agriculture that is versatile
and full of variety, finally able to produce food for the different urban social groups
– again becoming a key resource for large metropolitan areas»82.
For its spectacular "green" impact in the heart of the city, the Vertical forest,
defined by Boeri «a project for the environmental survival of contemporary cities»

80
Ibidem, p. 12.
81
Ibidem, p. 8.
82
Ibidem, p. 18
81
83
, received two prestigious rewards: on November 2014 won the International
Highrise Award, international competition bestowed every two years, honoring
excellence in recently constructed buildings that stand a minimum of 100 meters
(328 feet) tall; on November 2015 the Bosco Verticale was chosen by the Council
on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) Awards Jury as the overall “2015
Best Tall Building Worldwide” at the 14th Annual CTBUH International Best
Tall Building Awards Symposium, celebrated at the Illinois Institute of Technology
of Chicago.

83
Ibidem, p. 110.
82
Conclusions
In the name of progress, man is turning the world into a fetid and
poisonous place (and this is "anything but" a symbolic picture). It
is polluting the air, water, soil, animals ... and himself, to the point
that it is legitimate to ask whether, in a hundred years, you can still
live on earth

(Erich Fromm)

We already have the statistics for the future: the growth in

percentages of pollution, overpopulation, desertification. The
future is already in place

(Gunter Grass)

Mi sono simpatici gli ecologisti. Ma hanno programmi costosi. Non

si può essere più “verdi” delle proprie tasche

(Gianni Agnelli)

The population growth rate of world forces us to rethink how we eat and where it
comes from what we need to live: it is estimated that in 2050 there will be need for
an area of approximately two planets to feed the world population.
The future of nutrition and agriculture is becoming a central issue at the international
level, focused on the search for sustainable production systems with low
"environmental costs".
Among them there are surely the vertical farms, whose mission is to move the crops
in buildings specially constructed, realizing a farming intensive "soft" version. In
this way, vertical farms, and more generally the urban farms, present a solution to a
number of unavoidable environmental issues - such as desertification and depletion
of soil, water scarcity, pollution and urban overpopulation - by transferring
agriculture in the urban space and taking advantage of the vertical dimension,
considered the figure of the contemporary metropolis. So is back in the city that
agriculture expelled progressively during the centuries, with the process of
industrialization and urbanization, to respond now to the needs of eco-sustainability.
83
Do we expect so a future in which the heart of big cities will grow farms similar to
skyscrapers to feed their inhabitants?
The answer seems to be negative, at least in the short term and in certain
geographical areas. For sure we don’t miss pharaonic projects of mega vertical
buildings for cultivation or mixed use (greenhouses, homes, offices), but it can be
assumed that their achievement is not at hand, because for now they are too
expensive, also in terms of energy, and they have not found political and financial
support to be translated into reality.
All cost analysis of vertical farms considered in this paper, which explore large-scale
projects (vertical farm in Singapore, simulation of a vertical farm in Berlin and
Skyland project of Milan), confirm their excessive economic burden, but at the same
time indicate the need for further research and wish a technological development
that can improve their energy performance and therefore their feasibility.
Emblematic is the fact that large investors have not given credence to these great
projects, which for now remain as fascinating as unfulfilled.
More practicable has been instead the construction of vertical farms of small scale,
greenhouses of more or less large size intended exclusively for agricultural
production with hydroponics and aeroponics systems, and also breeding. Many of
them have been implemented and many are under construction in various parts of
the world, being particularly attractive in certain habitats: desert areas or very cold,
mountainous regions without arable land, areas with highly contaminated soils (ex.
by nuclear radiation as in Japan) or megacities, in which the high density of the
population poses considerable problems of production, marketing and transport of
food.
The key to success of these vertical farms is mainly due to their ability to save energy
by using renewable sources (photovoltaic, wind, geothermal, biogas etc.) Or by
recycling water and waste. To facilitate their implementation are however also other
factors, such as the type and the amplitude of the structure (for example the glass
facades allow greater use of the solar light), the possibility of having profitable
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markets in which to place the products and the existence of favorable policies by the
government.
In other words: the idea is good, but under certain conditions.
A growing interest is having the choice to adapt urban spaces in disuse (abandoned
factories, abandoned warehouses crafts etc…) into plant structures for air culture
and hydroponic vegetables. It is a convenient solution, because it allows you to
recover urban land and to provide food at kilometer zero or with a short chain, with
lower installation costs.
The existence of more than 150 companies worldwide specializing in the
implementation of vertical farms and many universities engaged in research in this
area suggests a productive segment in expansion and attest a growing interest in this
new (and for some revolutionary) agricultural technique, which is viewed with great
attention also by the media.
About the Italian situation, it should be emphasized that the lack of recognition of
organic certification to the soilless cultivation (hydroponic or aeroponic) arises for
now as a serious obstacle to the realization of these structures, which are
characterized precisely for organic food production. Another huge hindrance is
represented by our extraordinarily expensive cost of electricity.

The theoretical vision of vertical farm Dickson Despommier to bring the green in
the city is part of a general trend line oriented to give an ever greater value to urban
vegetation, which after being sacrificed in the name of overbuilding now returns to
take on an increasing importance also in the real estate market. Asserting a
sensitivity towards environmental sustainability, which goes hand in hand with
urban pollution worsening, stimulates demand for homes with green areas: roof
gardens, green walls and hanging gardens thus become the new frontier of desire to
have a campaign flap in the heart of the city and help lessen the environmental
degradation of the metropolis. Given the high value of urban land, which helps to
erode the green areas to the ground (parks, gardens) in favor of cementing, the
85
solution to create spaces for the plants inside buildings may seem a small
consolation, but it could be the only feasible in front of the propensity of the public
sector and real estate speculators to build.
Reconciling the cement with vegetation and relocate agriculture in the urban space
today is not a chimera. According to FAO, there are currently 800 million people in
the world who cultivate small portions of urban spaces (like vegetable gardens,
flower beds etc.), helping to meet the food needs of the cities, to aesthetically
improve the space and to decrease environmental pollution.
To address the need for grow vegetation in the city has created a synergy between
ecologists, architects, botanists and gardening companies in order to create an
architecture "green" now established itself worldwide. One example is the Bosco
Verticale of Stefano Boeri, built in the heart of Milan and thought of as come «a
project for the environmental survival of contemporary cities», emblematic confirms
that it is opening a highway to an architecture capable of being eco-friendly.
If it's a trend, motivated only by speculative intent and a logic of monetization of
"natural capital", or a forced choice, only time will decide. Everything suggests,
however, that there are two possible solutions: either we can reverse the impressive
growth of megacities and to stop the global concreting processes that destroy the
green, or we can try to relocate green inside of urban areas, destined to be more and
more overcrowded.

Vertical farm buildings and 'green' urban architecture are definitely part of a process
of artificial state of nature, which many lead back to what Vanni Codeluppi called
"bio-capitalism" and others designate by the term "eco-capitalism"
(conceptualization of the ecological problem as an economic problem). But it is
equally certain that the complex interaction between man and nature is based on
complex systems evolving, with dynamics that mutually change and affect one or
the other over time. The current technical and scientific developments oblige to ask

86
ourselves about what today is “natural” and to explore the possibility of containing
environmental degradation thanks to science and technology.
There is also another aspect to be reckoned with. The vertical farms of small size
and community management of urban green spaces offer the opportunity to create
social sharing spaces and the re appropriation from the "bottom" of the production
and commercial chain of vegetables, which can re-open the road to a united vision
of the relationship with nature, integrating it into a size of more conscious life
experience.

Climate change is the most urgent threat facing our entire species
and we need to work collectively and stop procrastinating

(Leonardo Di Caprio)

87
APPENDICE
INTERVIEWS

Interview with Professor

Dickson D. Despommier
Emeritus professor of microbiology and Public Health at Columbia University. Considered the most important
exponent of the vertical farm project worldwide, being part of the Association of Vertical Farm.

Professor Despommier, shall you tell me the reasons why you are giving so much
efforts in order to make succeed the vertical farm project worldwide?

It’s a very long answer to a very short question. My main reason for wanting to see
vertical farms succeed is so that outdoor land can be returned to its proper ecological
function, because now as we speak more and more land is being obtained from nature
in order to produce food, that land is usually hardwood forest, not always, sometimes
is grassland but mostly it’s grassland and hardwood forest. We have a horrible problem
today because we have too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and we have no
way of bringing it out of the atmosphere, back to hearth. So that’s called the carbon
“think”, we are busy removing the carbon think from the heart, mostly by farming. So
if you had to ask me the main reason why vertical farming has a purpose is not only to
supply food of course but to allow the possibility for taking outdoor food production
and allowing that land to return to forest. Now I know this is not going to happen
anywhere and I know it might not even happen to the 50% mark of the amount of land
that is now on use, if the 50% would go back to hardwood forest this would be a
remarkable return of wilding to the hearth, and it would have a fantastic effect on the
planet, but even a 10% or a 20% would be a huge difference compared with what we

88
have today. Climate change is my big problem and vertical farming is the potential
partial solution to that problem.

Is it very recent the progress of the vertical farms, especially for the commercial
ones?

Yes, I mean, 5 years ago the only vertical farm in the world was Skygreen, but today
there are many vertical farms and commercial too. Most of them are located in Japan,
and they don’t call them vertical farms, they call them plant factories, but they’re still
taller than a single storing building, but as long as they’re taller than a single storing
building that’s a vertical farm, and they are about 200 now in Japan. So Japan has the
most, and there is a book that just came out that is called Plant Factory that is produced
by some Japanese indoor growers and they listed 146 vertical farms but the book is a
year old so I am going to assume now that they are from 50 maybe a hundred more
than what they list. If you go to Taiwan they list 45 vertical farms, just in Taiwan, if
you go to Singapore, where Skygreen is, there are 3 other companies now that are
classified as vertical farms, and one of them is run by Panasonic but a worthy vertical
farm in Japan is run by Toshiba, so big industry has been invited in, now whether they
stay in contact with vertical farms or not I don’t know; but as we speak today two big
Japanese companies have elected to try their hand at vertical farming. China has many
vertical farms, but they’re not saying where they farm. I do know that there is a
company in Portage, Indiana, their name is Green Sense Farms, they have been inspired
to China to make 20 vertical farms, the same as they have in Portage Indiana and they
claim to be the biggest in their firm. Green sense farms in United States is very big.
There is one in Panama city (of all places in Panama, no kidding), it’s a 3 story (floors)
vertical farm. There are many vertical farms in United States, most of them in the
Chicago area. There are few, this one in Jackson, WY, that is about to open, called
Vertical Harvest, there is one in Irvine, California called Urban Produce and by the
89
way Urban Produce belongs to one hundred urban vertical farms just like what they
have. So there is a lot of activity. The biggest one is now being opened in Newark, New
Jersey and is called AeroFarms. There is an association for vertical farming, called The
Association for Vertical Farming, and if you join that organization they will give you
a big list of where all these vertical farms are, and CEOs and how much they grow and
what they grow.

What do you think about the social aspects of vertical farm?

It’s interesting that you asked that question, I‘ve recently returned from Paris where
that city wants to make urban agriculture as part of the scene for Paris and they want
to do it not only because it will supply fresh products for people living in the inner city
but also it will supply jobs opportunities. So the job opportunity is a big social reason
for wanting this to happen, there a lot of people in cities that have no jobs whatsoever,
and there’s a lot of abandoned properties within the city limits that are not being used
for anything. It’s very easy to convert a warehouse to a vertical farm, the technology is
already there and the best example is a warehouse in Bedford Park in Illinois, which is
just north of Chicago, and the company is named FarmedHere. It is a commercial farm
and it took over an abandoned electronics factory and it converted it to this vertical
farm. So the social reasons for wanting to do this relate to unemployment, training
people, skill jobs like growing, harvesting, packaging, delivering, marketing, and those
other things that can all be done in vertical farm operations. The one in Jackson,
Wyoming that’s being built has another social program which is equally important and
is to find place in the world for people that are mentally disadvantaged, it helps also
people, with other varieties of birth defects that prevents them from fully functioning,
to find a job. So the vertical farm in Jackson, Wyoming is hiring these people because
they can be trained, and they found out that they’re very useful people and grateful for
the opportunity, and so that’s a big deal. The farm group in Bedford Park hires newly
90
released people from jail. As they get out from the jail they offer them to work with
them, they offer to pay them a decent salary and they reintroduce them in the society
by working. They are very busy expanding that, they just don’t want to be in one place,
they want to be in 5-6 other places as well, so the social program is very strong and
very useful.

What do you think about people who are against the vertical farm project?

There are two kinds, one is the people that say the quality of the food produced indoors
is not good and is not nutritious (etc..) and then there is another group that says the
quality of the food indoors is very good, it’s as good as the food produced outdoors,
but it’s too expensive because it requires too much energy.
Let’s start with the first group.
Hydroponically produced food has been going to markets for maybe 40 years, and no
one objects to it and no one says it doesn’t taste good or it does taste good, they don’t
have opinion, because frankly they don’t know from where it comes from.
To say right off the bat because they’re against something they will make up a reason
why you shouldn’t be in favor of that also, and telling you that it’s not nutritious and it
doesn’t taste good, is stupid. You should probably talk about things that are true and
that would be better to use as reasons if you’re not doing something. So the group that
talks about energy used to have a good point because the cost of electricity hasn’t
changed much over a 10 years period but the efficiency of the LED grow lights has
changed. So 10 years ago it would be impractical to use indoor growing systems that
require artificial light. So, the Skygreen for instance, in Singapore, is transparent, it’s
all glass and has a special system for rotating the plants across the windows to make
sure that every plant in his growth system receives the same amount of sunlight. And
that’s done with an engineering trick, and he is a very good engineer I’ve met him, and
he knows what he’s doing, and his plants grow very well and in fact Skygreen used to

91
be a 2,000 square foot farm and now it is a 20,000 square foot farm and it will be bigger
than that yet again because he’s been very successful. But he doesn’t use grow lights.
So the places that use grow lights have only come on line over the last 5 years basically,
and because the efficiency of LED lights has got so much better, going from 20-25%
efficiency to a currently 68% efficiency. The lights that are available, that you can buy
are about 40% efficient and that’s still enough to make this economically viable in
terms of setting up a business plan and convincing a bank that you will not only break
even, you’re going to make money at this, because the grow lights are not the major
grain of the economic expense that you have to worry about. Mostly, it’s personnel,
it’s either salaries, or internal benefits or health benefits and very often they’ll get a
deal from the city, if you use this abandoned warehouse for the next 5 years we won’t
charge you any property taxes.
So there’s a choosing sentence from the part of some cities to make sure that these
abandoned warehouses that used to be very useful for companies like Wall-mart, EJ
Corvette, K-mart (these are some companies that are no longer have a large presence
in the United States, well Wall-mart is still big but those other companies are mostly
out of business) and they just left the warehouses, they just walked away from them;
so these abandoned warehouses are available for use for other reasons, and vertical
farming turns up to be very very good re-use of an abandoned property. The criticism
in the past was the cost of energy but they can no longer make that claim, that’s no
longer true. A lot of interplant factories in Japan use grow lights. Now, remember Japan
has another reason for wanting to do this because they had this horrible tsunami after
the Fukushima event, and people would not eat the food grown on Japans soil, so we
are having to import all of Japans food and that’s not acceptable, you can’t run a county
like that. So this technology of vertical farming was hard to be explored by a cheap
university, and the government just poured a lot of money into it and got it to speed up
pretty fast so that’s the reason why Japan is the world leader in vertical farming today.

92
In your opinion, could the vertical farm actually save resources such as soil or
water?

So let’s go back to Skyfarm, that guy uses soil and that’s pretty primitive, you don’t
have to use soil, in fact it is preferable not use soil. About half of the plant factories in
Japan use hydroponics and the other half uses a combination of acquaponics and
aeroponics or acquaponics and hydroponics, so there’s a nice loop that you can create,
and indoor loop, a reuse of water by going fish and then taking away the fish and using
to feed the plants, that’s the aquaponics link. So a lot of indoor farms use that as their
storing material and of course they end up being to sell fish too.

What is, in your opinion, the future of vertical farm? Do you think that will take
root even in major European cities?

Well I think that the thing that’s holding it back right now is the lack of awareness, so
more people need to know more about this in order to get this adopted throughout the
world, most big cities have some form of urban agriculture going on right now, like
London, New York, Paris, Berlin and other large cities; these cities are very active
which regards to people wanting to grow their own food.
So their right for instituting vertical farming within the city limits, and that’s
happening.
I would make a bold statement to say that in 10 years from now, virtually every city
will have at least one operational vert prom, but maybe some cities will have hungers
and I can already tell you which cities are going be, that is Seul in Korea. Seul (South
Korea) right now wants to put vertical farms on every flat roof in the city, and would
be a big “wow”, because we are considering very large flat roofs; and I am going to
tell you right now how many people live in Seul: 10. 117, 909 people.

93
Every country would have a different answer for you, so for instance Japan it is an
island country, so they are more or less obliged to live within their own means, and
that’s the reason why the country has gone in that direction, because of the vertical
farming is the immediate answer that they can give to their people, and they can raise
most of the leafy green vegetables within these buildings, so that’s basically what they
are doing.
And I’ve already discussed the social benefits, of course people can trust where food
comes from, and they also feel like they’re supporting local farmers because indeed
that is exactly who is producing the food.
So every country has this desire, so France, you can’t find a fussier country in the
world, when it comes to food than France. Paris is the epicenter for that and the cuisine
that came out of Paris from these wonderful Michelin chefs, those ingredients have to
be carefully selected and yet at the same time here is the mayor of the city saying “we
have to institute vertical farming throughout Paris” that’s a remarkable statement in
itself.

94
Interview with Professor
FRANCA MIANI
Professor of Political-Economic Geography. Currently with the Department of
Economics Parma where he teaches Urban and Local Policies, in the Master of
Science in International Business & Development.
Already implied in lecturer organization and regional planning at the Faculty of
Architecture of Parma.

What is your thought about the green architecture?

The idea of green architecture is not so recent. The architect Ambasz84 with a study in
NY has worked everywhere, already since the 90s, to make green architecture.
Initially it was designed to build having less impact on the landscape as possible. He
has worked very hard in Japan, especially for a “green” restauration of railway
stations. At Expo 2015 they have made it look like the novelty of the century, but it
had been done 30 years ago. In the north of Japan islands were constructed buildings
with glass windows recreating a tropical climate inside. Ambasz also worked to
beautify many squares in Spain. In Italy however he has not managed to achieve
anything concrete because we're always the last in makng the innovations of this
kind, especially to not modify our historic centers. In Puglia, Ambasz designed a
“hidden” holiday village, practically invisible from the sea, without ever realizing it.

So you seem skeptical about this latest urban greening?

84
See: http://ambasz.com/
95
I agree on the idea of green inside the buildings, such as in offices, because we spend
most of our time at work, than at home.
Instead I am against the attempt to revive the real estate market by adding the green
without the proper knowledge of the facts. Often, in fact, landscapers are impractical
and un realistic. An example is the Bosco Verticale of Boeri, where a friend of mine
bought an apartment recently. I have warned her about the difficulties that might arise
with buildings of this kind. For me, they are not sustainable. The trees on the terrace
should be maintained, pruned, changed, etc... And this is a condominium
questionnaire. They will surely be nice and bright, but not practical.
Another example is the pilotta square, in Parma, where the lawn is difficult to
maintain, due to our climate. We're not in England and the green should be done
where it is manageable, feasible and truly sustainable including maintenance. Before
making these works, we should analyze the environment, land and climate. For
example, in Parma, humidity makes it difficult to build some type of construction.
Like the wooden houses that were designed around the year 2000. They would not
last long.
The green in the city is therefore to be taken very carefully. It seems to me made
more to beautify and fashion the constructions, than for real practical purposes. You
cannot resolve in this way the known problems of pollution and urban green.
My advice is to better keep and organize the green already existent, rather than
insisting in making new. The first example that comes to mind is that of the botanical
garden (always in Parma), cared little and badly, in which ultimately collapsed trees,
very dangerous for children's rides.
Serve targeted investments, better maintenance and more control for security. We
surely should invest to increase the wellbeing of citizens, also through green
architecture, but it must not be done to improve the value of the buildings or to make
casually something green only to clean the conscience of people.
It could seem a drastic point of view but I think that it’s impossible to solve
geological and environmental problems in this way.
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Interview with Arc.
GABRIELLA FUNARO
From 2011 he carries out its activities at the ENEA Central Unit Studies, taking care
of sectoral studies for sustainable construction, eco-friendly urban design and
vertical farms design.

Architect Funaro, are you collaborating with Enea since a long time?

Yes. I have been a dependent of ENEA for over 30 years and I have developed the
vertical farm prototype that was presented at EXPO 2015. In particular I am
developing, as a researcher, the vertical farm projects for ENEA, which, as a result of
our presence at EXPO, had the opportunity to arouse various attentions. Let's just say
that I am the referent of ENEA regarding vertical farms.

So you designed and you will work on the Skyland project that should rise in
MILAN?

Yes, it's still me to handle it. Let's say that the Skyland project, which unfortunately
has not yet seen the light, wanted to be the first study to understand how could run a
building contemplating the whole food chain, from production to marketing, to the
consumption of products grown with these indoor cultivation systems. We therefore
say that although Skyland remains for now only “white paper”, the six months of
EXPO of the prototype tests have definitely gave positive results, regarding the
functionality of this system.

97
Can we say that if Skyland is still in theoretical form this is due to the fact that
Italy has always been reluctant to accept innovations of this kind?

We can say that from this point of view we are always a little 'back (laughs).

Can you give me some information about the Cost-Benefit analysis of Skyland?

Let's say that we started with the idea of making it totally self-sufficient, but it is not
so simple, for now. In fact, despite the exploitation of renewable energy, including
solar and bio-gas, the cost of production remains very high, at around € 1,200 per
square meter. The great use of LED lights for growing and the energy required for the
air-conditioned increase electricity costs to the point that make it for now an
unsustainable project.
So we put the Skyland project aside for the moment, concentrating on the EXPO
prototype and on other projects such as the restoration of existing buildings for
vegetable productions always with indoor systems.

Some of these projects are you talking about have already been completed?

No, for now no, but there is a project that is now ahead of all. In fact, we are working
to build a vertical farm commissioned by a private customer, hoping to arrive soon to
the true realization phase.

98
We know that over the world the vertical farm phenomenon has already in place,
particularly in Japan but also closer to our country, such as in France. Are you
convinced that it is only a matter of time before all countries, including Italy,
adopt these production systems? If yes, what are the reasons?

Surely, it is the agriculture of the future and will become unavoidable with time. That’s
for various factors, including the growing world population, the increasing
industrialization and therefore the reduction of arable land, also due to climate factors
that make the once a time fertile lands, today impossible to cultivate. Then there is the
consideration about the depletion of the phosphate mines that produces most of the
fertilizers used today. The case of Japan underlines the problem of polluted soil, from
which the spread of indoor cultivation in vertical farm across the country.
All these factors therefore suggest that the outdoor cultivation in the future will be
replaced by indoor growing, though not entirely, because some products, such as
wheat, continue to be cultivated in the “classic” fields.
In the world there are already many examples of vertical farm, although some, not
having all the correct features, are only “masked” by vertical farm. For Vertical farm
we mean in fact completely closed systems, acclimatized and with LED lights. Those
not totally closed, which use sunlight or other types of illumination cannot be placed
in the category.

In Italy, through our prototype at EXPO, we have launched the first stone. A new
market is going to begin, despite the obstacle presented by energy costs. If you do not
break down these costs will be difficult to implement indoor cultivation on a large
scale. In the future, I think, the shortage of arable land will increase the price of the
same to the point that it will be inevitable that we have to use these new methods. You
must then prepare to the question whether. This is our policy and our thinking.
Another very important thing is the quality of the product. Thanks to the closed-loop
hydroponic systems the product is of the highest quality and, given the non-use of
99
pesticides and the absence of any air pollution agent or other polluting factor normally
present in the air, the products are considerable healthiest than BIO.
Then the possibility of being able to grow on overlapping planes allows six-fold the
average output per square meter of surface.

Another factor to consider is water, a factor in exhaustion that is gaining more

importance than the oil. With hydroponic, water consumption is greatly reduced. The
difference is abysmal, we talk about two liters per cubic meter of lettuce against 40 of
the normal crops.

With the passing of the time all these factors will equalize the costs and for this we
are more than convinced about the success of vertical farming. It remains only to
convince the traditional farmer to take these street, fighting against the general
skepticism that we hope goes thinning thanks to the success of existing specimens.

100
APPENDICE 2

Vertical and Urban Farming Events

The list of events organized in matter of the vertical farms theme is provided by the
Association for Vertical Farming (AVF), founded the 18 July 2013 a Munich
(Germany) and diffused since 2015 all over Europe, in Asia, in USA, in Canada
and in the United Kingdom. «This internationally active non-profit organization
unites growers and inventors to improve food security and the sustainable
development of Vertical Farming. The AVF also focuses on advancing vertical
farming technologies, designs and businesses by hosting international info-days,
workshops and summits. They developed a glossary to bring consistency to the
industry and plan on helping to standardize the technologies. […] The mission of
AVF Mission is foster the sustainable growth and development of the Vertical
Farming movement through education and collaboration.
One of the primary objectives of the Association for Vertical Farming is to bring
together experts, policy makers and newcomers towards collaboration in Vertical
and Urban Farming. Currently we do this through the following three event
formats:
- Vertical Farming Info Days
- Agritecture Design Workshops
- Association for Vertical Farming Summit» (in https://vertical-farming.net/).

Events 2016

14/06/2016 - GreenTech 2016 - Amsterdam

16/06/2016 RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam

13/06/2016 AVF Summit 2016 - Amsterdam

RAI Amsterdam, Amsterdam
Open Forum - Vertical Farming (Ghent, Belgium)
10/02/2016
Faculteit Bio-ingenieurswetenschappen UGent, Gent Belgium

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05/02/2016 -
Agritecture Fresno Collaborative Design Workshop
06/02/2016
Ideaworks Fresno, Fresno CA

Events 2015
17/11/2015 AVF Annual Meeting 2015
German Aerospace Center (DLR), Bremen

02/11/2015 - Vertical Farming Conference Bangalore, India

03/11/2015 The Taj West End, Bangalore

12/10/2015 - NYC AgTech week

17/10/2015 New York City, New York, NY 10022, USA

24/09/2015 - Agritecture Minneapolis Collaborative Design Workshop

25/09/2015 University of Minnesota – Humphrey Institute, Minneapolis MN

18/09/2015 - Agritecture Atlanta Collaborative Design Workshop

19/09/2015 Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA

09/05/2015 - Association for Vertical Farming Summit Beijing

10/05/2015 Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, National Agricultural
Science & Technology Demonstration Park, Beijing

102
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S., Orlandi, F. (a cura di), Buone pratiche per il quartiere ecologico, Alinea Editrice,
Firenze 2005

Battisti, A., Edilizia sostenibile. In Edilizia Popolare, n. 284-285, 2010.

Battisti, A., Urban Farming: due esperienze di ricerca di riqualificazione

tecnologico-ambientale a confronto, In “Il Progetto Sostenibile”, n. 29, 2011.

Battisti, A., Cipriani, F., Tucci, F., Eco-efficient and sustainable settlement
experimentation in Mediterranean housing. In AA. VV.. 3rd International
Conference Palenc: Passive and Low Energy Cooling for the Built Environment,
Rhodes Island, Greece, 29 September-1st October 2010

Battisti, A., Acqua e vegetazione nella sperimentazione progettuale, in Bottero, M.,

Fabris, L.M.F. (a cura di), Atti del convegno “Blu+verde”, Liberia Clup, Milano 2006

Bellini, O. E., Daglio, L., Verde Verticale – Aspetti figurativi, ragioni funzionali e
soluzioni tecniche nella realizzazione di living walls e green façades, Maggioli.
Santarcangelo di Romagna 2009

Bello W., Le guerre per il cibo. Come l’occidente ha creato una crisi alimentare
globale, Nuovi Mondi, Modena 2009

Bellomo, A., Pareti verdi: linee guida alla progettazione, Sistemi editoriali Esselibri-
Simone, Napoli 2003

103
Bit, E., Il Nuovo Verde Verticale – Tecnologie, Progetti, Linee guida. Wolters
Kluwer Italia, Torino 2012

Boeri. S., A vertical fores - un bosco verticale, Corraini edizioni, Bologna 2015

Bologna G., Perché serve un piano B, in Lester Brown, Piano B 4.0, Edizioni
Ambiente, Milano 2010

Brown L., Piano B 4.0. Mobilitarsi per salvare la civiltà, Edizioni Ambiente, Milano
2010

Brown L., Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling
Water Tables and Rising Temperatures, Earth Policy Institute, Washington 2005

Bruni, R., Erba volant: imparare l’innovazione dalle piante, Codice, Torino 2015

Buffoli M., Carli P., Skyland. Vertical farming a Milano (Skyland. Vertical farming
in Milan), in “Territorio”, Franco Angeli, Milano 2012

Calori, A. (a cura di), Coltivare la città. Giro del mondo in dieci progetti di filiera
corta, Terre di Mezzo Editore, Milano 2009

Caplow, T., Building Integrated Agriculture: Philosophy and Practice, in Urban

Futures 2030, Urban Development and Urban Lifestyles of the Future, Heinrich Böll
Foundation Publication Series on Ecology vol. 5, Berlin 2010

Cervantes, J., Culture en Intérieur, Mama Editions, Paris 2011

Codeluppi, V., Il biocapitalismo - Verso lo sfruttamento integrale di corpi, cervelli ed

emozioni, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2008

Cole Plakias, A., The farm on the roof: What Brooklyn Grange Taught Us About
Entrepreneurship, Community, and Growing a Sustainable Business, Penguin, New
York 2016

Contal, M.H., Revedin, J., Progettare la sostenibilità, Edizioni Ambiente, Milano

2009

104
Cox, S., Van Tassel, D., Vertical farming’ doesn’t stack up, Synthesis/Regeneration,
St. Louis 2010

Crutzen P. J., Benvenuti nell’Antropocene. L'uomo ha cambiato il clima, la Terra

entra in una nuova era, Mondadori, Milano 2005

Despommier, D., A farm on every floor, The New York Times, 2009

Despommier, D., The vertical farm: feeding the world in the 21st century, Picador,
New York 2010

Despommier D., Ellingsen E., The Vertical Farm - The origin of a 21st century
Architectural Typology, CTBUH Journal, 2008 Issue III

Fabian, K., Kollenberg, Vertical Farming: Can urban agriculture feed a hungry
world? Spiegel Online International 2011. Available:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,775754,00.html.

Frail, T.A., The Rise of Urban Farming, Smithsonian Magazine, 2011

Fiori, H., Poli T., Coperture a verde: esempi di progettazione, Maggioli, Rimini 2008

Fletcher, O., Innovations in Agriculture (A Special Report) - The Future of

Agriculture May Be Up: Advocates of ‘vertical farming’ say growing crops in urban
high-rises will eventually be both greener and cheaper, Wall Street Journal. October
15, 2012.

Francis, R. A., Lorimer, J., Urban Reconciliation Ecology: The Potential Of Living
Roofs And Walls. Journal of Enviromental Management, 2010

Gangemi, V., Architettura e tecnologia appropriata, Franco Angeli, Milano 1985

Gauzin -Müller, D., Architettura sostenibile. 29 esempi europei di urbanistica,

Edizioni Ambiente, Milano 2007

Georgescu-Roegen N., Bioeconomia, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 2004

105
Gericke, W. F. Complete Guide to Soil less Gardening, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York
1940

Giacomelli, G. A., William J. R., Greenhouse Covering Systems, HortTechnology 3,

no.1, 1993

Hanan, J. J. Greenhouses: Advanced Technology for Protected Horticulture, CRC

Press, Boca Raton (Florida) 1998

Hix, J. The Glass House, Phaidon, London 1974, 1996

Klein, N., This changes everything – Capitalism vs the climate, Penguin, New York
2015

Koolhaas, R., Delirious New York, Mondadori Electa, Milano 2013

Kozai T., Niu G, Takagaki, M., Plant Factory: An Indoor Vertical Farming System
for Efficient Quality Food production, Elsevier, London 2016

Lambertini, A., Giardini in verticale, Verbavolant, Firenze 2007

Monbiot, G.,Greens living in ivory towers now want to farm them too. The Guardian,
London 16-8- 2010, Retrieved 11-10-2010

Merle H, J., Malter Alan J., Protected Agriculture: A Global Review, World Bank
Technical Paper no. 253, Washington, D.C. 1995

Naglieri, C., Urban farm. Buone pratiche per l’implementazione dei caratteri
innovativi e delle tecnologie sostenibili dell’edificio ecosistemico Tesi di dottorato in
Progettazione Ambientale, Università La Sapienza, Roma 2008

Nigris E., La fattibilità della Vertical Farm, intervento al Convegno/Workshop

Internazionale “Green Up. Urban Vertical Farm”, Sapienza Università di Roma, 11-
16 gennaio 2010

Novak, A., The Rooftop Growing Guide: How to Transform Your Roof into a
Vegetable Garden or Farm, Penguin, New York 2016

106
Pati, R., Abelar, M., The Application and Optimization of Metal Reflectors to Vertical
Greenhouses to Increase Plant Growth and Health, Journal of Agricultural
Engineering and Biotechnology, May 2015

Rosco, M., Tonello, S., Dal verde verticale alle vertical farm, tesi di laurea
specialistica, Politecnico di Torino 2011

Sholto Douglas, J., Hydroponics: the Bengal system : with notes on other methods of
soilless cultivation, Oxford University Press, Delhi 1976

Stone C. A., The Urban Farmer: Growing Food for Profit on Leased and Borrowed
Land, Penguin, New York 2015

Tatano, V. (a cura di), Verde: naturalizzare in verticale, Maggioli, Santarcangelo di

Romagna 2008

Texier, W., Idroponica per tutti, Mama Editions, Paris 2015

Tucci, F., Efficienza ecologica ed energetica in architettura, Alinea Editrice, Firenze

2011

Van Patten, G. F., Hydroponic bases, Van Patten Publishing, Vancouver, 2004

Venkataraman, B., Country, the City Version: Farms in the Sky Gain New Interest,
The New York Times 2008

Wüthrich Davide, Bilancio energetico di una vertical farm, tesi di laurea presentata al
Politecnico di Torino, Facoltà di Ingegneria, Corso di Laurea in Ingegneria Civile,
ottobre 2010

Yeang, K., Designing With Nature, MacGraw-Hill, New York 1995

107
Sitography

Of the many sites dedicated to vertical farms and urban green we denote those
mentioned and those that are of particular interest to deepen the topics discussed.

AE, Agricoltura ecosostenibile.it, Francesca Latini, Vertical farm: i metodi di

coltivazione. Aeroponico, acquaponico, idroponico
https://www.architetturaecosostenibile.it/architettura/criteri-progettuali/vertical-farm-
coltivazioni-314/

AEROFARM, Data Science Meet Horticolture,

http://aerofarms.com/

AIP Scitation, Rachel Berkowitz, Vertical farms, 2014

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.4002

AGRITECTURE, This japanese vertical farming company wants to grow your lettuce
http://agritecture.com/post/27440882258/nuvege

AGRITECURE, Vertical farm concepts roundup

http://agritecture.com/post/30938218636/vertical-farm-concepts-roundup

ArchDaily, In Progress: Parkroyal on Pickering / WOHA, 2012

http://www.archdaily.com/217121/parkroyal-on-pickering-woha

Assoarchitetti, Comunicato Stampa A.A.A. Agricoltura Alimentazione Architettura,

2015
http://www.assoarchitetti.it/doc/aaa.pdf

Association for Vertical farming

https://vertical-farming.net/

Association for Vertical Farming, Summit 2015 Beijing, China

https://vertical-farming.net/news/events/association-for-vertical-farming-summit-
beijing/

108
Audizione del Presidente dell’Istituto nazionale di statistica (ISTAT), Enrico
Giovannini Commissione XIII “Territorio, Ambiente e Beni ambientali” del Senato
della Repubblica Roma, 18 gennaio 2012
http://www.istat.it/it/files/2012/01/Allegato-statistico-
DEF.pdf?title=Consumo+del+suolo+-+23%2Fgen%2F2012+-
+Allegato+statistico.pdf

Audizione dell’Istituto nazionale di statistica (ISTA), Emanuele Baldacci e Linda

Laura Sabbadini, Commissioni riunite VIII Commissione “Ambiente” e XIII
Commissione “Agricoltura” della Camera dei Deputati Roma, 17 dicembre 2013
http://www.camera.it/temiap/temi17/suolo13_istat.pdf.

Avvenire, Leonardo Servadio, Vivere in grattacieli ma con veri giardini, 2013

http://www.avvenire.it/Cultura/Pagine/vivere-in-grattacieli-ma-con-veri-giardini.aspx

Banerjee Chirantan, Adenaeuer Lucie, Up, Up and Away! The Economics of Vertical
Farming, Journal of Agricultural Studies of Macrothink Institute, Vol 2, No 1, 2014
http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jas/article/view/4526

Brevetto: Method and apparatus for aeroponic propagation of plants,

http://www.google.fr/patents/US4514930

Bright ideas on energy

http://www.futuresparks.org.au/media/34559/bright_ideas.pdf

British Ecological Society, Ecosystem Services and Valuing Natural Capital

http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/public-policy/policy-priorities/ecosystem-
services-and-valuing-natural-capital/

Camera di Commercio di Milano, Maurizio Melis, Trenta piani coltivati

http://www.mi.camcom.it/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=c232ee00-e87a-4887-
b3f5-1e1932d2cd06&groupId=10157

Case Studies of Vertical Farms

http://issuu.com/andrewweigand/docs/vf-casestudues

Cassidy Wilson, Organic Grid+, 2015

http://cassidy-wilson.com/organic-grid/
109
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), Accounting for Natural
Capital
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Accounting-for-natural-
capital/$File/EY-Accounting-for-natural-capital.pdf

CNBC, Morgan Brennan, Jodi Gralnick, Vertical farming: The next big thing for
food—and tech, 2015
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/24/vertical-farming-the-next-big-thing-for-food-and-
tech.html

CNBC, Craig Lawson, Vertical farming: A hot new area for investors
2015
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/02/vertical-farming-a-hot-new-area-for-investors-
commentary.html

Concise Report on the World Population Situation in 2014

http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/trends/Concise
%20Report%20on%20the%20World%20Population%20Situation%202014/en.pdf

Country Living, Homesteading, Self Sufficient Living, Organic Gardening, Vertical

Farming: What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Vertical Farm?
http://www.countryfarm-lifestyles.com/vertical-farming.html#.Vs3LDPnJxMz

CSIS, Urban Agriculture: The Vertical Farm

http://csis.org/blog/urban-agriculture-vertical-farm

Dickson Despommier and Eric Ellingsen, The vertical Farm – The origin of 21st
century Architectural Typology, CTBUH Journal, 2008
http://global.ctbuh.org/resources/papers/download/449-the-vertical-farm-the-origin-
of-a-21st-century-architectural-typology.pdf

Dickson Despommier, The Vertical Farm, The Vertical Essay, Abstract

http://www.verticalfarm.com/?page_id=36

Earth Overshoot Day

http://www.overshootday.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/

110
Ecofriend, Eco Agriculture: Pyramid Farm – Vertical farming reinvented
http://www.ecofriend.com/eco-agriculture-pyramid-farm-vertical-farming-
reinvented.html

Ecofriend, Farming in future could be ‘Urban Farm, Urban Epicenter’ style, 2010
http://www.ecofriend.com/farming-in-future-could-be-urban-farm-urban-epicenter-
style.html

Ecologia, Marco Mancini, Dall’America arriva lo Skyfarming, la fattoria verticale,

2009
http://web.mit.edu/cron/class/nature/projects_12/pdfs/Yarina_RepurposedVerticalFar
ms.pdf

EcoWatch, Lorraine Chow, 5 Ways Vertical Farms Are Changing the Way We Grow
Food
http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/10/vertical-farms-grow-food/

Elizabeth Yarina, Repurposed vertical farms adaptive building reuse for vertical
urban agriculture
http://web.mit.edu/cron/class/nature/projects_12/pdfs/Yarina_RepurposedVerticalFar
ms.pdf

ENEA, Vertical farm

http://csis.org/blog/urban-agriculture-vertical-farm

ENEA per EXPO, Vertical farm

http://www.enea.it/it/eneaxexpo/vertical-farm

ENEA news Skyland, La vertical farm made in Italy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKvGiRVuuOI

EnviroIngenuity, History of vertical farming

http://www.enviroingenuity.com/food_verticalfarming.html

Escola de Camins, Marc Prades Villanova, Vertical farm façade: First approach to the
energetic savings when applied to the Seagram Building in New York, Projecte o
tesina d’especialitat

111
http://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2099.1/23367/Vertical%20Farm%20Fa
%C3%A7ade%20%28Marc%20Prades%29.pdf

EVF Experimental Vertical Farm

http://www.archiprix.org/2015/index.php?project=2926

eVOLO, Lidija Grozdanic, The Harvest Tower is a sustainable Vertical Farm

http://www.evolo.us/architecture/the-harvest-tower-is-a-sustainable-vertical-farm-
romses-architects/

Fazenda Vertical de Rafael Grinberg Costa

http://terrafloraweb.blogspot.it/2011/08/fazenda-vertical-de-rafael-grinberg.html

Franchini Lorenzo, Vertical farming - cos’è e perché diverrà fondamentale, SIDA

Menagement Academy, Parma 2016
http://mastersida.com/vertical-farming-cose-e-perche-diverra-fondamentale/

FRANCEINFO, Paris: quand la nature s'invite entre les dalles de béton, 2016
http://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/paris-quand-la-nature-s-invite-entre-les-dalles-de-
beton_1328635.html

Futura Environnement, Des fermes verticales pour mettre les champs dans la ville,
2012
http://www.futura-
sciences.com/magazines/environnement/infos/actu/d/developpement-durable-fermes-
verticales-mettre-champs-ville-41264/

Garden Site: Aeroponics - Benefits and Disadvantages

http://www.gardeningsite.com/aeroponics/aeroponics-benefits-and-disadvantages/

Georgofili Info, Francesco Ferrini, Vertical farming”: un’idea affascinante ma troppo

poco sostenibile, 2011
http://www.georgofili.info/detail.aspx?id=594

Global Footprint Network, Ecological Debt Day (EDD)

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/

Go Green, Lisa Ellis, Vincent Zandri, What It Costs For Vertical Farming
112
http://gogreen.whatitcosts.com/vertical-farm-pg2.htm

Green and Save.com, Steve Surman, Towers of imagination: Chris Jacob and Vertical
farming in Theory
http://www.greenandsave.com/green_news/green_building/towers_of_imagination_c
hris_jacobs_and_vertical_farming_in_theory

GreenBuilding.com, Vertical Farm: What Is the Cost to Build?

https://www.green-buildings.com/articles/vertical-farm-what-is-the-cost-to-build/

Greenreport.it, Dalle “fattorie verticali” una risposta sostenibile alla crescente

esigenza di cibo?, 2013
http://www.greenreport.it/_archivio2011/?page=default&id=%2019653

Kozai Toyoki, Niu Genhua, Michico Takagaki, Plant Factory: An Indoor Vertical
Farming System for Efficient Quality Food production, Elsevier, London 2015
https://books.google.it/books?id=R9yoBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA351&lpg=PA351&dq=P
FALs&source=bl&ots=ABl7-GZz28&sig=Bi9InrWahUttyyTCFyXjMb-
xZf8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSycywwpPLAhUBfywKHTrrCDsQ6AEIJjAC#
v=onepage&q=PFALs&f=false

Il Sole 24 ore, Maurita Cardone, Coltivare in verticale, ecco le prime esperienze in

Italia e nel mondo, 2011
http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tecnologie/2011-10-07/coltivare-verticale-ecco-
prime-190803.shtml?uuid=AaXP2tAE

Inhabitat, Lidija Grozdanic, Urbanana is Vertical Banana Plantation That Would

Bring Tropical Fruit Farming to Paris, 2012
http://inhabitat.com/urbanana-is-an-urban-renovation-concept-that-would-bring-
banana-farming-to-paris/

Inhabitat, Gordon Graff’s Skyfarm for Toronto

http://inhabitat.com/gordon-graffs-skyfarm-for-toronto/

International Journal of Technology in Computer Science & Engineering, R. Anlet

Anusha, M. Senthil, R. Sowmya,Vertical farming – on cloud computing, 2015
http://www.ijtcse.com/december%202015/Final%20paper.pdf

113
IPS, Kalinga Seneviratne, Farming in the Sky in Singapore
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/12/farming-in-the-sky-in-singapore/

La Tribune, Philippe Cahen, La ferme verticale, 2014

http://www.latribune.fr/blogs/signaux-faibles/20140428trib000827281/la-ferme-
verticale.html

Le Parisien, Emmanuele Vibert, Futur: les jardins poussent à la ville, 2015

http://www.leparisien.fr/magazine/grand-angle/futur-les-jardins-poussent-a-la-ville-
28-04-2015-4731537.php

LINKIESTA, Vertical farm: gli agricoltori? Presto si trasferiranno sui grattacieli,

2012
http://www.linkiesta.it/it/article/2012/10/26/vertical-farm-gli-agricoltori-presto-si-
trasferiranno-sui-grattacieli/9966/

Lucchini Idromeccanica, Vertical Farm Expo 2015

http://www.lucchiniidromeccanica.it/expo-2015/vertical-farm.php

MailOnline, David Derbyshire, Is this the future of food? Japanese 'plant factory'
churn out immaculate vegetables, 2016
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1190392/Is-future-food-Japanese-
plant-factories-churn-immaculate-vegetables-24-hours-day.html

My news desk, Plantagon to build unique vertical greenhouse for urban agriculture in
Linköping, Sweden
http://www.mynewsdesk.com/plantagon-international/pressreleases/plantagon-to-
build-unique-vertical-greenhouse-for-urban-agriculture-in-linkoeping-sweden-
1100765

MSNBC, Bryn Nelson, Could vertical farming be the future?, 12-12-2007, 11-10-
2010
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21154137/ns/technology_and_science-
innovation/t/could-vertical-farming-be-future/#.Vs3M__nJxMw

National Geografic, Gloria Dickie, Q&A: Inside the World's Largest Indoor Farm,
2014

114
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140717-japan-largest-indoor-
plant-factory-food/

New Scentist, Vertical farms sprouting all over the world, 2014
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129524-100-vertical-farms-sprouting-all-
over-the-world/

NPR, Green Pie In The Sky? Vertical Farming Is On The Rise In Newark
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/05/429345848/green-pie-in-the-sky-
vertical-farming-is-on-the-rise-in-newark

Oggiscienza, GreenJobs: il verde pensile, 2011

http://oggiscienza.it/2011/10/10/greenjobs-il-verde-pensile/

Phis Org, Renee Cho, How sustainable is vertical farming?, 2015

http://phys.org/news/2015-12-sustainable-vertical-farming.html

Plantagon
http://plantagon.com/

Polizzi Editore, I Giardini Verticali: meraviglie del presente, 2014

http://www.polizzieditore.com/www/i-giardini-verticali-meraviglie-del-presente/

Rapporto ISPRA, Il consumo del suolo in Italia, 2015

http://www.isprambiente.gov.it/files/pubblicazioni/rapporti/Rapporto_218_15.pdf

Redesigning Hydroponic Production for Vertical Farming & Urban Markets, The
State of Vertical Farming
https://vertical-farming.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-05-09-Dr.-Nate-
Storey-Redesigning-hydroponic-production-for-Vertical-Farming-Urban-Markets.pdf

Royal Society, Eva Darko, Parisa Heydarizadeh, Benoît Schoefs,

Mohammad R. Sabzalian, Photosynthesis under artificial light: the shift in primary
and secondary metabolism, 3 March 2014
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1640/20130243

SEEDSTOCK, Rose Egelhoff, Five Vertical Farms that Capture the Imagination and
Profit, 2015
115
http://seedstock.com/2015/05/17/5-practical-and-successful-vertical-farms/

Singularity Hub, Peter Murray, Towers Of Vegetables Go Up As Singapore Builds

First Vertical Farm, 2013 http://singularityhub.com/2012/11/05/towers-of-vegetables-
go-up-as-singapore-builds-first-vertical-farm/

SOA architects, La tour vivante

http://www.ateliersoa.fr/verticalfarm_fr/pages/images/press_urban_farm.pdf

Smithsonian Magazine, T.A. Frail, The Rise of Urban Farming, 2010

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/40th-anniversary/the-rise-of-urban-farming-
762564/?no-ist=

Sparkarchitectects
http://www.sparkarchitects.com/work/homefarm#1

Spiegelonline International, Fabian Kretschmer and Malte E. Kollenberg, Vertical

Farming: Can Urban Agriculture Feed a Hungry World?, 2011
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/vertical-farming-can-urban-agriculture-
feed-a-hungry-world-a-775754.html

Taiwan Today, Audrey Wang, Plants factories: the future of farming?, 2011
http://www.taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=143927&CtNode=427

Tech Insider, Chris Weller, The future of agriculture is an indoor vertical farm half
the size of a Wal-Mart, 2015
http://www.techinsider.io/indoor-vertical-farm-is-the-future-of-agriculture-2015-10

Texier William, in Dolcevitaonline, 2015

http://www.dolcevitaonline.it/intervista-a-william-texier-autore-di-idroponica-per-
tutti/

The Economist, Vertical farming Does it really stack up?, 2010

http://www.economist.com/node/17647627

The Enciclopedia of Earth, Dickson Despommier,Vertical farming, 2014

http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/51cbef257896bb431f69cb45/

116
The Global Grid, Lyon, France to Welcome its First Vertical Urban Farm: Ferme
Urbaine Lyonnaise
http://theglobalgrid.org/lyon-france-to-welcome-its-first-vertical-urban-farm-ferme-
urbaine-lyonnaise/

The Guardian, George Monbiot, Greens living in ivory towers now want to farm
them too, London 2010
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/16/green-ivory-towers-farm-
skyscrapers

The New York Times, Bina Venkataraman, Country, the City Version: Farms in the
Sky Gain New Interest, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15farm.html?_r=0

The Urban Vertical Project, Urban Vertical Farming, The first vertical farm
showdown: Why you need to know what’s happening in Singapore
https://urbanverticalproject.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/the-first-vertical-farm-
showdown-why-you-need-to-know-whats-happening-in-singapore/

Treehugger, Gordon Graff Demonstrates That Vertical Farms Can Actually Work
http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/gordon-graff-demonstrates-that-vertical-
farms-can-actually-work.html

Tuttogreen, Simona Treré, I migliori giardini urbani del mondo, 2014

http://www.tuttogreen.it/i-migliori-tetti-verdi-urbani/

University of Maryland, Challengs in vertical farming, 2012

http://challengesinverticalfarming.org/

Vertical Farm Arcology

http://www.agro-arcology.com/

Vertical Farm Type O2

http://verticalfarmingaustralia.blogspot.it/

Vertical farming
http://www3.jjc.edu/ftp/wdc12/jjurkiewicz/history.html

117
Vertical Harvest
http://verticalharvestjackson.com/

VFUA 2014, The University of Nottingham, UK

http://vfua.org/speaker/

Vincent Callebaut Architecture, Citytrees Plus Energy Yangzhou, 2014 China

http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-citytrees.html

Waterford Douglas, 21st Century Homestead: Urban Agriculture, House and Home
2015
https://books.google.it/books?id=91_xCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=N
elson,+B.,+Could+vertical+farming+be+the+future?,&source=bl&ots=WjPZiYJlxI&
sig=vUeD9gw-aJSIeDjpniZ7XzZHTko&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-
hdHAypDLAhWBlQ8KHUS0AFIQ6AEIKDAC#v=onepage&q=Nelson%2C%20B.
%2C%20Could%20vertical%20farming%20be%20the%20future%3F%2C&f=false

Wikipedia, Vertical farming

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming

WIRED. CO.UK, First vertical farm opens in Singapore

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/28/vertical-farm-singapore

World Architecture, Urban Epicenter / NYC

http://www.worldarchitecture.org/architecture-projects/mzme/urban-epicenter-nyc-
building-page.html

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