vertical + horizontal farm tower

source: designcultnet

Kevin Chu Demonstrates The Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower Farming and Crop Distribution Tower

Kevin Chu, the project leader of the displayed work Kevin Chu’s Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower Farming and Crop distribution tower spells out, The Vertical + Horizontal Farm tower offers a concept on what agriculture will become for the next 50 years. As more and more people migrate to the city and our insatiable appetite increase, the concept of the metropolis vertical farm has to be considered and realized sooner then we think. Using London as the base city for the tower, the V + H tower utilize the next generation of sustainable energy technology to supply local population with low cost and high quality crops.
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source: adesignaward

A’ Award and Competitions are proud to see that the design Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower by Kevin Chu has been acknowledged with the noteable Platinum A’ Design Award at Futuristic Design Competition

Futuristic Design Competition Platinum A’ Design Award Winner

A’ Award and Competitions are pleased to announce that the design Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower by Kevin Chu has been awarded with the noteable Platinum A’ Design Award at Futuristic Design Competition marked as the winner by the transnational judging committee of the A’ Design Awards & Competitions among a great number of nominations.

Insights on Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower

Kevin Chu, the creative mind behind the awarded design Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower explains “The Vertical + Horizontal Farm tower offers a concept on what agriculture will become for the next 50 years. As more and more people migrate to the city and our insatiable appetite increase, the concept of the metropolis vertical farm has to be considered and realized sooner then we think. Using London as the base city for the tower, the V + H tower utilize the next generation of sustainable energy technology to supply local population with low cost and high quality crops. ” To learn more visit: http://www.adesignaward.com/design.php?ID=24667

Team Members for Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower

Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower was made by Kevin Chu

The Platinum A’ Design Award

The Platinum A’ Design Award is a prestigious award given to top 1% percentile designs that has exhibited an exemplary level of quality in design. The designs are judged by a panel of three different jury which is composed of Academic, Professional and Focus Group Members. The designs are evaluated with score normalization to remove any biases and are voted on aspects such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, fun details, technology, and any other specific points that could be considered, each of these points are further weighted for different jury groups.

About A’ Design Award and Competitions

A’Design Award and Competitions, aims to highlight the excellent qualifications of best designs, design concepts and design oriented products. A’ Design Award and Competitions are organized and awarded annually and internationally in multiple categories to reach a wide, design-oriented audience.
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source: adesignaward

DESIGN NAME:
Vertical + Horizontal Farm Tower

PRIMARY FUNCTION:
Farming and Crop distribution tower

INSPIRATION:
Locust Wings Structure, Japanese Transformer Robots, Articles on why farming is dying but a rebirth is necessary, Aeronautical Engineering, Next Generation Sustainable Energy Methods.

UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
As global population increases and resources are unable to compensate for the insatiable appetite of the human race, the concept of the agricultural metropolis has to be developed to meet this demand. As we all know, more and more people are migrating to cities from the suburbs but the rising cost of logistics, commodity inflation as well as the increase demand for food consumption forces the birth of creating farmlands within the restrictive spaces of a city. This will not only grant city dwellers fresher agricultural products at a lower cost but can also increase green zones and improve surrounding environments. The Vertical Farm Concept was born of these criteria and it was a brilliant solution but I believe there needs to further inspiration in order to make this concept more educational and attractive to the present and future generations. To this day “farming” and the concept of the “farmer” is still viewed by the general public as a low paid and manual intensive labor. More and more youth born from the country side are discontinuing the farming profession in order to seek less physical and higher paid work in cities. I wanted to design a farming community that can truly embrace pioneering technology as well as educate the next generation to view farming as a “cool” profession that can deeply benefit the continuous expansion of the city. The building I started to contemplate does not merely just serve as a vertical farm structure but also an educational and experimental laboratory on agriculture, renewable energy as well as a social environment where farmers and local residents can “mingle” and learn from each other through behavioral science. All the residents in this place gets its own produce for free and the vicinity gathered crops can also be distributed around London and sold in a substantially lower market price in minimal amount of time from cultivation. The Vertical+Horizontal farm should manifest a true philosophy of the 21st century farming ideology and create a true social point of this new generation of metropolis agriculture to the world. Inspired the concept of the Sun Dial, Guilin & Yunnan (China) Step Farming method, Aeronautical Engineering as well as the Dragonfly Wing structure, the V+H farm serves as the world’s most technologically advance, fully self-sufficient and eco-friendly structure. All of the green energy technologies within the structure are of experimentation stage at present but I foresee them to replace our current archaic methods. This included Solar Helium Balloons, E.T.F.E Transparent Photovoltaic Skin, Laterally Mounted Wind Turbine as well as Plant Covered External Cladding System that absorbs surrounding CO2 admission of London. The main structure of the building are designed as residential, commercial, research and activity spaces and completely cladded with Perforated Titanium Tiles that allow for plant growth through its holes. Since the structure’s skin will eventually be covered with plants, the whole main building will change in texture and color according to the four seasons and one never has to worry about façade maintenance which leads to a much lower longer term cost and environmental sustainability. The windows of the central structure employs the latest generation of chromatic reflective glass which can control sunlight filtration by means of electrical molecular transformation. They also serve as a one-way mirror thus further reducing any need for curtains or shading devices. Farm fields are located at the ground level as well as each of the horizontal “wing” structure protruding from the building. Each of these “wings” has a 150m structural span and houses farmlands as well as seed research laboratories within its Monocoque structure. The insect like transparent wing canopies are made of E.T.F.E (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) skins with photovoltaic cells embedded within the material. Their function is to turn each of the wing farms into a greenhouse during the colder months of London as well as providing solar energy for the structure and controlling transparency levels within each farm compartment. The complete V+H farm will stand at 380 meters high with one of the tallest organic restaurant, sky lounge, conference hall and theater in the world. Each wing farm is able to rotate 360 degrees from the central axis in order to gain maximum exposure of the sunlight throughout the day while the underneath structure contains storage cocoons gathering crops from farmland above. These cocoons are constructed out of a volumetric telescopic structure and can increase in size according to internal stock volume with their stretchable outer skin made of recycled fabrics. The cocoons are actually robots that utilize V.T.O.L (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) propulsion rotary engine which are allocated above the collection structure. Once each cocoon is full they can be guided around London for crop distribution and can be controlled by G.P.S (Global Positioning Satellite) technology same as that found in automobiles. Each cocoon can recharge its electrical energy when it docks back at the main wing farm structure. The design of the protruded wing farm also helps to reduce the building’s footprint on surrounding areas and because each wing is constantly rotating around the main structure, intrusive shadow casting is reduced to a minimum. The ground level of the V+H farm contains further farming fields that function as introduction to the technique and physiology of farming for the casual visitor and beneath these field are residential quarters for V+H resident farmers. The entrance to the main structure is set back between the fields and access walkways are sliced in between forcing the visitor to pass through the farmers’ residence. This is created in order to maximize the interaction between farmers and visitors which through this social manifestation, a better acknowledgment of agriculture will be gained by the layman and hopefully provoke verbal and information promotion. The V+H farm is a dynamic and constantly changing entity in the heart of a buzz ling metropolis. It is an organism that changes, absorb, educate, transform through time and circumstances. I believe it shall become the essence of 21st century agriculture itself and its dynamism will hopefully provoke a new generation to embrace farming in a vastly more innovative and reacceptance attitude.

OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION:
The main vertical wing farm structures operates via a centrally mounter rotational mechanism. This allows each level of the farm to rotate to the maximum solar gain position according to the sun’s location at that period of the day. If the above wing farm is rotated in the path that cast shadows on the lower structure, thus structure can rotate away from the shadow and maximize sunlight absorbtion for extended plant growth. The E.T.F.E covering above the wing farm structure closes during colder months of London which in turns creates a green house for prolong crop growth.Since any major city has a huge agricultural consumption apetite, the constant supply of crops are necessary escpecially during winter. There are wind turbines mounted below each wing farm to utilize more sustainable energy gathering for the building. The crop distribution robots operated via GPS system and crops can be delivered to any location around London. They will dock in specifcally designed storage towers where residents around that area can collect their order. Once the process is finishes they will fly back to the main farm tower to repeat the process. The lower step farm landscape around the tower is made with pack soil while the farmers’ living quarters are located below. Visitors and farmers are encourage to maximize each other’s interaction in order to promote metropolis farming culture to the next generation. There are also fisheries at the boat docking area of the building as to promote clear water fishing on River Thames. Below the main tower is a rainwater recycle storage tank for residents’ use. Solar shading canopies are located around the park area of the building for further energy absorption. Finally the building’s external skin is cladded with titanium preforated panels that allows external foliage growth covering. This will greatly reduce any facade cleaning maintenance work while creating a structure that can absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide from the city. It will also changes the appearance of the building though different seasons of the year.

PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY:
Using aeronautical monocoque wing construction, the wing farm structure is made of lightweight aluminium allow ripcage structure with carbon composite cladding panels to save weight and reduce rotational compression stress. E.T.F.E (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) translucent skins are used for the wing’s greenhouse canopy structure. The main tower is cladded with preforated aluminium panels that allows for external foliage growth. All the windows in the apartments quarters uses chromatic one way mirror acrylic glass (similar to that found in high performance sunglasses such as Oakley Jawbone series) to create solar shading and privacy system devoid the use of curtains or shading lovres.The ground floor garden uses Helium Solar Balloons to absorb solar power while creating one of the lightest sustainable energy shading structure in the world. Carbon composite wind turbine are mounted below each wing farm while the rest of the ground level farmland uses tradition pack soil technique to create the step farm formation. Below each farm are where farmers living quarters are. The rest of the compound utlize all natural and recyclable material cladding system. The crop distribution robots uses a telescopic coccoon structure which extends when it fills up. The external fabric are made recycled canvas cloth and it is controlled by G.P.S (Global Positioning Satellite) for crop distribution.

SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES:
The Tower is around 380metes in hight and will have a land coverage of approx 30,000 sqm.

TAGS:
Vertical + Horizontal, Robotics, Transformable, Farm Tower

RESEARCH ABSTRACT:
Entomology on wing structure.Japanese Transformer Robots mechanical operation diagrams. Articles on why farming is dying but a rebirth is necessary.Aeronautical Engineering basic explanation on the principle of monocoque aluminium wing formation.Next Generation Sustainable Energy Production articles on Solar Balloons, Translucent E.T.F.E Solar Skin, Biomorphic preforated cladding panels. Lateral Wind Turbines Physics. China Guilin step farm creation methods. Rain water collection studies.

CHALLENGE:
This was one of the hardest competition my company, FABLAB has to undertake in such a short period of time. We had to come up with such a huge structure that needed to solve so many of our environmental issues while using technologies that has never been applied to architecture before. We also need to push our creative limits to the edge in order to think of forms and technical compositions which can predict the movement of technology for the next 50 years. The intense research and analysis was limited to no more than a month while the form of the building has to be utterly groundbreaking while also functional. The hardest part was to create a design that although quite far fetched, can be related to our current sustainable issues and possibly be realizable when the time comes.