Comments on: Harvest Green Project / Romses Architects

By: ameur ben sghaier

ameur ben sghaier — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 00:15:44 +0000

im tunisian student …im wondering if some one have the analyze of this project ( plans …)
voila mon email :amrou88@hotmail.fr
merciii….thx

By: lots

lots — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 02:27:20 +0000

the initial cost will be high but when you factor in energy savings in trucking foods from afar it will be economically viable.

By: nari

nari — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:34:06 +0000

مشروع حلو

By: Kalan

Kalan — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:06:21 +0000

This design looks WAY too familiar, research a french architecture firm SOA and see theres. I afree with building on top of each other but with a conceptual idea such as this lets reach outside the box a little please.

By: ariel

ariel — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:13:07 +0000

in fact, we need this type of apparently not practic function, because, we’re cutting down all the forest for farm, and the lands isn’t enought since this planet is overpopulated

By: Frederick

Frederick — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:35:08 +0000

I’m definitely relieved to see that most of us share the same views on the growing problem of “green-washing” (look at how green, the color, has now made its way into ALL the project images of ALL new buildings supposedly illustrating their environmental qualities, regardless of their reality).

I think this is a very good example of a “half-baked-green-pudding” of a building…

Ecology is basic physics, it requires no easy solution, but simple reasoning. There is no need for emotional over-reaction based on guilt.

You all know the Toyota Prius for instance, the first commercially successful hybrid car. Although technically its a great idea, it is “ugly” (come-on admit it!), and if it wasn’t, it would not sell. No one wants an “eco-car” looking like a BMW M5, driving an eco car seems only acceptable if everyone can see what a good little citizen you are, doing a sacrifice for the planet! In the same way that I believe an eco car should also be as beautiful as a Ferrari and as much fun as a lotus Elise, I think architecture MUST combine sustainable technology with good urban planning, interesting spacial qualities and stimulation aspect.
As architects, it is of course vital that we speed up our work making buildings environmentally viable, but it is even more important that while doing so, we do not loose track of the holistic aspect of architecture.
REDUCING ARCHITECTURE TO ONE ISSUE (as important as it may be) WILL ONLY LEED TO A LONG TERM DISASTER.

When you say “GREEN ARCHITECTURE ISN’T AN ESTHETICAL THING BUT AN ETHICAL ONE”, I couldn’t disagree more!!
Making ecologically viable buildings (let,s stop using Green or Eco for a sec, at least until we know what these words mean…) is simply a necessity, it is not ethical, its IMPERATIVE.
IN THE SAME WAY THAT YOU CAN’T DESIGN A BUILDING WITHOUT A STRUCTURE THAT WORKS, UNDERSTANDING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE DESIGN. NO MORE, NO LESS.

By: walterfaulk

walterfaulk — Mon, 11 May 2009 10:35:05 +0000

you should see his ‘award-winnning’ submission on the other design category of the FORMSHIFT competition, equally useless, with lots of lip-service and pretty images of every green technology, everything except for the kitchen sink.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:29:55 +0000

@ nombre

I think MVRDVs Pig City showed the full costs of our nutritional preferences and did away with a naive notion of ‘biological farming’ and ‘happy pigs’.
This project does the exact opposite: It obfuscates the contradictions of our current lifestyle by adding ‘green’ paraphernalia.

By: nombre

nombre — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:18:50 +0000

isnt it a kind of copy – from mvrdv pigtower?

By: fernando smith

fernando smith — Sat, 09 May 2009 20:52:32 +0000

maybe it coud have more windows

By: Nom_de_Guerre

Nom_de_Guerre — Sat, 09 May 2009 19:05:06 +0000

@Paul

I understand your position but this isn’t CERN’s LHC, various types of small scale urban farming are already practiced but need several conditions to be viable.The results are predictable.

Farming in urban buildings is certainly viable, just look at this amazing example in Milwaukee: http://www.growingpower.org/

What I ask is what is the point of vertical? What is the point of stacking animals and call it sustainable? What is the point of employing renewable energy technology in places where it isn’t supposed to be efficient?

It understand that it is tempting for architects to think that everything can be solved with buildings.

By: Paul

Paul — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:58:00 +0000

At this point all of these vertical farms are just drawings. Would it be so bad to build one or two of them and *then* decide whether they aren’t a useful solution?

By: LiN

LiN — Sat, 09 May 2009 00:15:07 +0000

Can you give me plans and the location of this building?
It’s interesting and i want know more

By: jlbr

jlbr — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:51:08 +0000

I agree with many of you, this simply cannot be taken seriously. I am all for green architecture but to be honest, this is a caricature of what green arch. should not be about. OK, let’s see: you know how much farmland available there is in the whole world? A LOT. And yet these pseudo-ecologists want to come off with a ridiculous idea that an urban building should be a farm and cultivate not only veggies but FISH? Are you kidding me? If you want to decrease carbon emissions make people change their light bulbs, exploit solar and eolic energy, recycle garbage, use green materials, and most importantly, change their consumerist attitudes.

THAT would make a huge impact, not cultivating fish and raising cattle on your rooftop. That is just stupid.

By: verticalfarmingrocks

verticalfarmingrocks — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:49:00 +0000

i agree with your statemant that vertica

By: Nom_de_Guerre

Nom_de_Guerre — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:36:22 +0000

“GREEN ARCHITECTURE ISN’T AN ESTHETICAL THING BUT AN ETHICAL ONE”

I completely agree but ironically this is the exact opposite.

The only way to feed a lot of people while maintaining sustainable agriculture practices is to practice small-scale organic farming in close proximity with natural systems and consumers, not in a completely enclosed artificial reality.

Sustainable, organic agriculture works with nature and helps preserve it- it´s an enclosed system of mutual support and has higher yelds (but also a lot more handlabour). In the future a lot more people will work and live with this.

These “vertical farms” novelties are not only a nonsense in terms of land use (where is the money to buy a plot in NY and build a high rise to grow cabbage? Even if you grew coca leaves it wouldn’t pay for it!) but they clearly are detrimental to the quality of the farm ecosystems that sustain a lot of bug and birdlife, excluding industrial farming methods.

I’m not speaking out of my #$$ as I’ve maintaind chickens and an horticulture allotment for the last 6 years- try it out and reach a more informed conclusion.

It’s time to be pragmatic…

By: Sérgio Caiado

Sérgio Caiado — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:22:45 +0000

The 2030 Challenge – Harvest Green Project / Romses Architects – http://tr.im/kR7U

By: verticalfarmingrocks

verticalfarmingrocks — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:04:58 +0000

please inform yourself on the subject vertical farming before you criticize it.(verticalfarming.c0m)
it’s the only solution if you want to feed 10 billion people in the future and to give these 10 billion people enough land to live on, and if you also want to give some land back to nature ,btw because of global warming our usable land increases rapidly
there not many people around here who realises that we have to change how we live to be able to live

GREEN ARCHITECTURE ISN’T AN ESTHETICAL THING BUT AN ETHICAL ONE

By: Allne

Allne — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:07:07 +0000

I am no expert in green architecture, but this project looks like an expansive condo development to me. I would love to see the plans of this building. I am no expert in farming, but I think farming usually needs a vast amount of open space, for the ease of operating day to day farming activities. In addition, this building “stinks” literally, how do you deal with the animal waste, i don’t think fenestrating the building with curtain walls will solve that problem.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:01:20 +0000

This is pretty cool. I like the way they break down the mass to allow lots of surface area for daylighting and agricultural production: their use of interlocking rectangular volumes to do so creates a hard, machined aesthetic that would contrast with the unruly exuberance of all the green stuff growing on it.

Now Lex: why would it be a given that green architecture needs to be compact? For highrise buildings, the greatest energy sinks tend to be cooling and lighting– both of which argue for breaking down masses to create more surface area. Without running a simulation I couldn’t predict whether this building is tall or large enough for those sinks to be dominant, and therefore the design efficient. However, it is not obvious to me that this strategy would not work.