Agriculture: The Latest Architecture and News

“The Mindfulness City will be a sustainable city. To be mindful is to be aware — to perform best,” said Giulia Frittoli, partner and head of landscape at BIG. The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked Buddhist country in the eastern Himalayas, nestled between China and India. It covers 14,000 square miles and has a population of nearly 800,000.

The Royal Office of Bhutan asked BIG, Arup, and Cistri to develop a plan for a new Mindfulness City in Gelephu in southern Bhutan, near the border with India. The city will span 386 square miles and include a new international airport, railway connections, hydroelectric dam, university, spiritual center, and public spaces.

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In collaboration with MassLab, OODA has been awarded first place in the Barrosinha Agricultural Company competition, aimed at creating a 2,000-hectare development seamlessly integrated into the agro-forestry heritage of Alcácer do Sal, Portugal. The master plan, covering a variety of functions for tourism, housing, commerce, and leisure, is designed in harmony with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, striving to transform Herdade da Barrosinha into a model of sustainable renewal.

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Foster + Partners has just revealed the designs for the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) campus in Oxford. Initially established as a research and development center, the campus is now gaining a significant expansion. The Institute’s core focus and research was around cancer, wellness, and public health at large, and it is now extending its mission to encompass new vital domains: medical science and healthcare, food security, sustainable agriculture, clean energy, climate change, and government policy economics.

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As populations continue to migrate from rural to urban areas, space is at a premium. Many settlements are becoming ever-more congested – with adequate, affordable housing in short supply and transport systems struggling to serve their respective residents. But as much the conversation about urbanization is about people, it is sometimes also about the animals that come with those people – urban livestock that play a key role at providing sustenance on an individual level, in addition to becoming an avenue for communal trade.

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URB to develop the world's largest agritourism destination in Dubai, providing food security and to foster sustainability of the local communities, heritage, and cultural landscapes. In line with the city's ambition of making its rural areas restorative land facilities, "Agri Hub" targets to create 10,000 new jobs across various sectors, including a new agricultural research institute and a public farm for educational and retail purposes.

In an age of unprecedented globalization, our food supply chains — the institutions and mechanisms involved in food production and distribution — have become longer. So much so that they are hardly perceived as chains or systems. They have been integrated into our lives, and into our cities, and transformed our relationships with food. And yet, those very long food supply chains are implicated in some of our most pressing global problems, from food security and waste to biodiversity and climate change. These food supply chains have come to their current state, their current length, over decades, or centuries perhaps, through all sorts of political, social, cultural, and economic processes, and carry with them a range of burdens: vague producer-consumer relationships, and a host of negative environmental externalities, among many others.

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MVRDV has unveiled the design of a terraced office building created for the agriculture company Lankuaikei. Set within a rapidly developing area of Shanghai, the 11-storey structure covered by a curved technological roof that follows the stepping structure is conceived as an agricultural oasis that showcases the company's vision of food production. With an extensive sustainability agenda, the project encompasses various strategies, from the extensive use of greenery, renewable energy to low-carbon materials, addressed both with high tech and low tech solutions.

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Israel’s Pavilion for the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale highlights the impact of intensive mechanized agriculture on landscapes and ecosystems, as well as the disruption caused to local communities. Titled Land. Milk. Honey and curated by an interdisciplinary team comprising Dan Hasson, Iddo Ginat, Rachel Gottesman, Yonatan Cohen and Tamar Novick, the exhibition portrays the fundamental changes experienced by the region through the stories of local animals, constructing a history of the 20th-century development.

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In their winning competition entry, French architecture firm Ilimelgo reimagines the future of urban agriculture with a vertical farming complex in the Parisian suburb of Romainville. The project integrates production of produce into the city through a 1000 square meter greenhouse that maximizes sunlight and natural ventilation. Recognizing the developing world’s diminishing agricultural space, the project aims to meet the growing demands for crop cultivation in urban environments.

Videos

Tap a button on your phone and hop into the shower; walk downstairs 15 minutes later, and you have a fresh pot of coffee waiting for you. That’s a ritual that is no longer just a fantasy for many people. The rise of the internet of things has allowed us to control remote appliances with just a tap of the touchscreen. Until now, the scale of these processes has largely been limited to personal devices: anything from brewing a pot of coffee to warming up your car on a frosty morning. But what if we could grow food for thousands of people, with that same tap of a button? That is the goal of Forward Thinking Architecture’s “Smart Floating Farms” project.

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