Vertical Farming - History

History

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the only one of the wonders that may have been purely legendary. No definitive archaeological evidence concerning its whereabouts has been found. Ancient writers describe the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes screw as a process of irrigating the terraced gardens. Estimates based on descriptions of the gardens in ancient sources say the Hanging Gardens would have required a minimum amount of 8,200 gallons (37,000 litres) of water per day.

A commercial high-rise farm such as 'The Vertical Farm' has never been built, yet extensive photographic documentation and several historical books on the subject suggest that research on the subject was not diligently pursued. New sources indicate that a tower hydroponicum existed in Armenia prior to 1951.

Proponents argue that, by allowing traditional outdoor farms to revert to a natural state and reducing the energy costs needed to transport foods to consumers, vertical farms could significantly alleviate climate change produced by excess atmospheric carbon. Critics have noted that the costs of the additional energy needed for artificial lighting, heating and other vertical farming operations would outweigh the benefit of the building’s close proximity to the areas of consumption.

One of the earliest drawings of a tall building that cultivates food for the purposes of consumption was published as early as Life Magazine 1909. The reproduced drawings feature vertically stacked homesteads set amidst a farming landscape. This proposal can be seen in Rem Koolhaas's Delirious New York. Koolhaas wrote that this 1909 theorem is

Other architectural proposals that provide the seeds for the Vertical Farm project include Le Corbusier’s Immeubles-Villas (1922) and SITE’s Highrise of homes (1972). SITE’s Highrise of homes, is a near revival of the 1909 Life Magazine Theorem. In fact, built examples of tower hydroponicums are quite well documented in the canonical text of "The Glass House" by John Hix. Images of the vertical farms at the School of Gardeners in Langenlois, Austria, and the glass tower at the Vienna International Horticulture Exhibition (1964) clearly show that vertical farms existed more than 40 years prior to contemporary discourse on the subject. Although architectural precedents remain valuable, the technological precedents that make vertical farming possible can be traced back to horticultural history through the development of greenhouse and hydroponic technology. Early building types or Hydroponicums where developed, integrating hydroponic technology into building systems. These horticultural building systems evolved from greenhouse technology, and paved the way for the modern concept of the vertical farm. The British Interplanetary Society developed a hydroponicum for lunar conditions and other building prototypes where developed during the early days of space exploration. During this era of expansion and experimentation, the first Tower Hydroponic Units where developed in Armenia. link

The Armenian tower hydroponicums are the first built examples of a vertical farm, and is documented in Sholto Douglas' seminal text "Hydroponics: The Bengal System" first published in 1951. Contemporary notions of vertical farming are predated by this early technology by more than 50 years. link

Contemporary precursors that have been published, or built, are Ken Yeang’s Bioclimatic Skyscraper (Menara Mesiniaga, built 1992); MVRDV’s PigCity, 2000; MVRDV's Meta City/ Datatown (1998–2000); Pich-Aguilera’s Garden Towers (2001).

Ken Yeang is perhaps the most widely known architects that has promoted the idea of the 'mixed-use' Bioclimatic Skyscraper which combines living units and opportunities for food production.

Early prototypes of vertical farms, or "Tower Hydroponicums" existed in Armenia prior to 1951 during an era of hydroponic and horticultural building system research fueled by space exploration and a transatlantic technology race.

The latest version of these very idea is Dickson Despommier's "The Vertical Farm".

Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental health sciences and microbiology at Columbia University in New York City, developed the idea of vertical farming in 1999 with graduate students in a medical ecology class.

Despommier had originally challenged his class to feed the population of Manhattan (About 2,000,000 people) using 13 acres (5.3 ha) of usable rooftop gardens. The class calculated that, by using rooftop gardening methods, only 2 percent would be fed. Unsatisfied with the results, Despommier made an off-the-cuff suggestion of growing plants indoors, vertically. The idea sparked the students' interests and gained major momentum. By 2001 the first outline of a vertical farm was introduced and today scientists, architects, and investors worldwide are working together to make the concept of vertical farming a reality. In an interview with Miller-McCune.com, Despommier described how vertical farms would function:

Architectural designs have been produced by Chris Jacobs, Andrew Kranis at Columbia University and Gordon Graff at the University of Waterloo.

Mass media attention began with an article written in New York magazine. Since 2007, articles have appeared in The New York Times, U.S. News & World Report, Popular Science, Scientific American and Maxim (magazine), among others, as well as radio and television features.