Globe Architecture Festival 2015: architecture firm Spark has unveiled its concept for “the up coming generation of retirement housing” – a neighborhood of homes and well being amenities combined with a vertical urban farm (+ slideshow).
Named Property Farm, the design aims to tackle the main issues affecting cities in Southeast Asia. The initial is that the number of individuals over retirement age is quickly escalating, and the second is that the majority of foods is imported rather than home grown.
Spark believes the two of these difficulties can be solved by transforming retirement communities into self-enough farming firms, creating fruit and veggies that can be sold to fund healthcare and other amenities for residents.
Residents would be offered part-time employment inside the farm, although this wouldn’t be a problem of the tenancy. This would let them to make some cash flow of their very own, and also assist them to feel component of the local community.
“Residence Farm brings together the usually siloed actions of industrial farming and aged-care residing,” explained Spark director Stephen Pimbley, who presented the idea in the course of the Planet Architecture Festival in Singapore earlier this month.
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“The business farming activity supports its residents in a socially and environmental sustainable atmosphere, assisting the older generation retain an lively local community involvement that mitigates towards dementia and promotes self-esteem,” he advised Dezeen.
Pimbley first started developing the notion after reading a news write-up stating that adult diapers have been outselling children’s nappies in Japan.
“The diaper image stayed with me like an ear worm telling me to do something about it,” he explained.
Segment exhibiting residing and farming arrangements in the housing scheme – click for greater picture
He developed the first iteration of Residence Farm for Singapore, where 20 per cent of the population is expected to be in excess of 65 by 2030, and in which 90 per cent of food is imported.
Diagram exhibiting aquaponic vertical farming in House Farm – click for bigger image
Right after doing some analysis, Pimbley found that it stays common for older people to live with their kids in Singapore and elsewhere. This prompted a layout of a range of home kinds, ranging from studio flats to 4-bedroom residences.
Idea diagram for aquaponic farming facade
These houses would be situated inside of staggered curvilinear blocks, arranged close to the farming locations to enable residents to observe the ongoing routines.
Concept diagram displaying energy generation – click for greater image
These in want of fiscal cash flow would be ready to work on the farm themselves, with jobs which includes planting, harvesting and packing, and renumeration obtainable as a salary, or as an offset for lease, utility bills or healthcare.
Housing unit typologies
“We have had a lot of discussions relating to the social facets of Property Farm which are significantly more complex to resolve than the technical concerns of the building,” said Pimbley.
Diagram displaying feasible arrangement of very first floor – click for more substantial image
“We have no intention of ‘forcing’ the residents to operate, some naturally will be interested in the gardening activities and some will be disinterested, and this is perfectly standard,” he said. “For this purpose there will be a professional staff employed to run the productive garden as a viable business.”
The farm itself would include vertical aquaponic farming and rooftop soil planting, modelled on the existing ComCrop rooftop farming initiative, which operates an aquaponic farm on the roof of an Orchard Street shopping mall.
Diagram exhibiting attainable unit arrangement of fifth floor – click for bigger image
Spark is now doing work with a Malaysian developer to construct the very first Home Farm in Kuala Lumpur by 2018, with the aim to construct a lot more in Singapore and other Asian cities in the future. The undertaking was the award winner in the Potential Tasks: Experimental group during the Globe Architecture Festival 2015.
Diagram exhibiting attainable farming options – click for more substantial picture
“We created this concept for Singapore, but there is the prospective for it to be utilized in any area that would support the growth of leafy green vegetables on developing facades and rooftops,” added Pimbley.
“The notion is a realisable answer to genuine and pressing difficulties faced by a lot of of the world’s increasing cities.”
Proposed website layout
Spark has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore and London. Other tasks contain an angular shopping centre in Fuzhou, China, and a Bangkok youth centre in two converted shophouses.
Venture credits:
Architecture: Spark
Task director: Stephen Pimbley
Crew: Yun Wai Wing, Wenhui Lim, Chanachai Panichpattan, Ethan Hwang, Narelle Yabuka
