Farming Towers

University of Prishtina

Project idea

Basically the project is a product of three main global issues that the world is facing and it is ongoing: Urbanization, food quality and food quantity. According to many experts like scientist, researchers, urbanist's and architects, by the next decades almost six billion people will move to the cities for a better life as some suppose. The fact is that according to the United Nations, Malthusian crisis has already started to happen which it means that food production is lower than population growth where the difference is going to be even bigger in the next decades. The problem we are facing is that when quantity of food needs to be increased it does not mean that quality will be a parallel segment which means that "pandemics" will be harder to resist.

Project description

The main idea is to create such environments that promote farming as a habit in the first place, because urbanized zones will need it in the future. The purpose of this project is to address the problems of the future in expanding food growing spaces and food quality by integrating vertical farms into multi-story collective housing in order to secure a sustainable income and to cultivate crops for the community that will be active in those urban spaces. People need to understand that markets and their absurd prices are not the only solution. Cities are growing bigger due to the population growth and issues will increase because the current structure is not designed to adapt such a big number of population and that is why I and many others think that we have to change the point of view or maybe just go back to the past, the origin, re-connect with nature by integrating farms into the cities and adapt adequate housing in some kind of symbiosis with farming.

Technical information

Responding to the issues of housing, food quality and quantity, this project is designed by cellular wooden construction which contains flexible housing units and large spaces for farming. The ground floor will serve as a selling market of veggies which were cultivated above in the structure. Four first floors will be 50 % housing and 50 % farming where families will work towards that matter. The last three floors will be dedicated 90 % to farming where workers will have compact residential units in possession. In the middle of the two twin towers are located flexible greenhouses to be used also during the winter. In total production only 63% of it will be enough for the residents and 37 % will be outside the market for selling which means that 220 other people can be supplied. In architectural terms, the goal was to use the space in maximum but not slipping to usurpation by just lifting the greenhouse structure upward and creating a free public space in the ground floor. The most important part of towers position was natural sunlight which was achieved by locating them in such way that all sides of the buildings will have natural sun light during the day. The structure is designed with intersected CLT because of the materials nature and its low impact on environment regarding the issues of production, transport and recycling.