2010 ARCH 3502 Pongratz

From TTU College of Architecture

Christian R Pongratz

Office: 705 C Email: Christian.Pongratz@ttu.edu Studio location: 704 Phone: 806-742-3169-226 Course time: M,W,F>1-16.20 P.M.

Course Information: ARCH 3502 design studio with focus building envelope Credits: 5 semester credit hours

Vertical_FARM

Don't our harvestable plants deserve the same level of comfort and protection that we now enjoy? The time is at hand for us to learn how to safely grow our food inside environmentally controlled multistory buildings within urban centers.

The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people in the future. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cost, secure operation). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.

boeri

The Farm City studio is interested in developing a new kind of architecture that would enable cities to feed themselves from within. It is a skyscraper for living and farming. Farm City is a project that creates agricultural area inside new housing towers, an idea promoted by Dickson Despommier, the guru of vertical farming, a professor of environmental health at Columbia University in New York City.

pigcity

By creating living and growing space in a dense vertical format Farm City reduces the need for sprawling suburbs, eliminates food travel distance and creates a living architecture that is part of an urban ecosystem. Farm City allows urban dwellers to be responsible for the production of their food: to be farmers or gardeners. We have lost touch with our relationship to food. Farm City is a place where we can watch our food grow daily and take delight in our own sustenance.

The site for the project is in Chelsea, NYC, the emerging and now “in” district in Manhattan. It developed since the mid 90’s from a pure warehouse and manufacturing district into first art galleries and then small sparks of residential condos catering to the luxury market. The vertical farm project is intended to revitalize the idea of production as a complementary service to the ongoing changes of the city district.

The studio will continue exploring the concept of deep surface with new ideas related to the topic and elaborating on the effect on sectional vertical density. Students will in this regard investigate materials concerning building envelopes, geometry concerning spatial ideas and innovative living-forms based on light efficiencies. The entire design process will be structured in three incremental phases as provocations to isolate the individual design ideas and after spring break synthesize the outcome and finalize the project.
The studio and its 3 design research assignments until spring break are as follows:

Interior >understanding the interrelationship created between shape, envelope and interior space and applying and modifying the effect on natural daylight and natural ventilation;

Formwork > understanding specific modeling tactics and applying the concept of space with differential orientations; understanding of early shape implications for MEP & structure;

Skin > understanding building envelopes & materials and applying the logic behind the effect of them > ornament and screens

keywords: High_rise honey or Farm versus city hydroponics rooftop gardens gas chromatograph flavenoids hydroponic or aeroponic growing methods overpopulation deforestation pollution desertification fossil fuels carbon dioxide emissions climate change air pollution geothermal energy solar energy wind energies photosynthesis pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers blackwater (waste) and greywater into potable water by collecting the water released into the air by evapotranspiration. bio-remediation processes using cattails, sawgrass and zebra mussels minimizing food miles

Kiowa Sibley-Cutforth - Aeroponics - URBARN

J. Kyle Meeks - Organic Crops - Thomas Mayne (Morphosis)

Karen Gresham - Research

Peter Longoria - Alternative energy

Celeste Martinez- Impact on Human Health

Jesus Bahena - lights

Kezah Peter - Waste Management

Debbie Molina - Pesticides and Fertilizers

Ryan Woods - Economical Farming - VSG Safety Glass - TZRW_Vertical Cotton Farm

Tyler Zalmanzig - Economical Farming - VSG Safety Glass - TZRW_Vertical Cotton Farm

Michael Reed - Hydroponics

Samantha Peters - Bio-Remediation - Prefcon - MVRDV - URBARN