Agricultural singularity

 The LOFT Vertical Farming competition of 2011 had some very interesting entries. One of them was what was termed as Vertical Symbiosis and it lay stress on a harmonic co-existence between humanity and its sustenance. It is a proposal for vertical farming. The concept has gained lot of ground because of the rapidly diminishing real estate available for agriculture.

While the growth of cities and urbanization is on a all-time high, there has been a sort of neglect in the agricultural sector. With increased emphasis and importance being placed on nature, a design has been made to bridge this disconnect that has appeared between nature and humanity.

The idea of a low-rise structure that could also support agriculture is not entirely new. Building it in a manner that encourages direct relationships between people and the food that they eat is the challenge. This requires people to get involved in the 'green' activity. The people sustain the plants and the plants in turn sustain the people. This is what interdependence or symbiosis is all about.

This project also involves efforts to constantly increase the productivity of plants and the fields. But by attempting to blur the lines between nature living and living in concrete homes, the concept strives to make 'green' living a part of the being. And to achieve this, a lot of bio mimicry is going to happen.

Nature builds best. It is from nature that a community in the heart of London has derived the inspiration to go ahead with this ambitious concept. Achieving a spatial singularity by blending elements of nature with elements of the concrete jungle will indeed be a blessing the world would happily receive!