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EVF: Experimental Vertical Farm

Part 2 Project 2009
Claudio Palavecino Llanos
 University of Chile | Chile
EVF: Experimental Vertical Farm
Urban Artificial Ecosystem in Santiago de Chile.

The resource natural fertile land is at risk, the abusive natural lands exploitation to farming is putting in danger food industry to next generations, and it’s showing us current agriculture exploitation is unfeasible; in this context raises an experimental proposal GVE: an architectural – territorial design action which raises unsustainable land exploitation by means of integration between 2 critical related forces:

Urban Action: use of wasted urban zones –lands generated from road junctions “clovers” along urban highways- ; changing it into useful and valuable areas to create recognizable places to link the city motorist landscape with typical functions and features of traditional urban fabric.

EVF Prototype Building: an artificial ecosystem managed into a food-producer building between minimal energy and resources consumption; forming a design which understands a building like a “living environment” which is sensitive about physical environment changes. This design forms by a vertical tower to vegetable farming which uses a minimal natural surface to create a big farming surface in different high levels. This spatial arrangement summarizes all agriculture production process from planting and maintenance until production of ready – for – consumption product and dispatch. To accomplish these objectives, all essential prototype components are basically designed from chemical and physical factors which affect vital vegetable conditions: sunlight, air flows, humidity and heat.

This actions have meaning from an integral sustainable development framework (social, economic and environmental), based on a management model which understands this project as a possible action for next 20 or 30 years taking account the current market requirements and political requirements in Chile.



EVF Project is a remarkable Final Term Project because it involves two major current issues: the food scarcity in the world and the use of residual urban lands. Both subjects are properly applied to Santiago city reality by means of a powerful ensemble of towers to produce hydroponical vegetables smartly placed around the highway junctions.

Claudio’s proposal provides a creative alternative throughout a dialogue between the towers within the residual areas and the large scale landscape shaped by the characteristic range of Los Andes mountains skylining the city.

Mr. Palavecino manages the architectural tools and researching with academic rigor and a very high quality design, generating an interesting process to design from complex relations between real problems, while defining a new landmark and providing an innovative expression.

Tutor(s)
2009
EVF is an architectural – territorial design action which raises the problem about natural fertile lands availability and his unsustainable exploitation by means of integration between 2 critical forces
Worldwide situation Do we have enough fertile ground to feed world population?
Chilean situation What’s the availability of fertile lands in Chile?, How do foreign feeding demand affect our situation?
Experimental Vertical Farm Territory – resources - city: Producing foods with minimal expense of energy and resources in a prototype building, an artificial environment-building maked up with the city by urban – territory purpose about wasted urban area
Urban Action Can we give value to wasted urban areas resulted by urban highways arrival? Wasted urban areas: useless lands trapped between highways (“highway clovers”) with serious problems caused by his size, location, visual condition, pollution, form a
(Re)understanding urban territory Wasted urban areas are useful lands which we haven’t used yet
The EVF Prototype is an design to be located in any highway junctions (“clovers”) in Santiago. This proposal is a tower for domestic consumption (vegetables) into an closed habitat which is protected and controlled by artificial systems used to plants gr
Vertical Form Productive process expression The tower layout can concentrate a lot of useful fertile artificial ground surface in a minimal natural area. The vertical plan layout arranged in over layered levels is an interpretation of industrial food pr
Bioclimate skin Continuous skin interacts with wind, sunlight and humidity Structural Skin Continuous skin connects helicoidal levels around with an curved structural perimeter. Main Body Helicoidal continuous surface connected by a central column. Cr
Crop Unit How we can understand a unit where biological factors and wind, light and water flows establish design decisions?: Vegetable habitat, a place where vegetables “live in”
Farming Surface Every single module was organized trough a continuous helicoidal surface that permits a fluency water, air, and light without structural divisions, both in the perimeter as betwen levels. In that surface the vegetables are freely organize
Technology Matters and natural flows as design elements: building as a “living environment”
Ventilation and Temperature Perimetral double skin combines trombe wall, ventilation produced by venturi effect and folding windows to catch wind flows; this prototype can spare all air load (to balance O2/CO2) and it controls indoor temperature without e
Sunlight Building form and scale allow light covers all inside crop surfaces (free areas). This process is allowed by a skin with different green shades and surface designs to increase photosynthesis performance in different species in hydroponical crops.
Towers in the way EVF tower isn’t only a prototype which giver value to an useless area; is a landmark, a recognizable place, an identifiable object in landscape, a signal on the run; a territorial action at macro-urban scale which is compatible with phys
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