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What if all food eaten in a city was grown in the city? What if empty commercial buildings became vertical indoor farms?
Aging supermarkets, malls and downtown commercial buildings left vacant following the COVID pandemic have been retrofitted into hydroponic food farms and drone delivery hubs. If you want to go to the market to get your greens, they're there for you, grown fresh onsite...
Research informing this future
Many commercial centers have gone vacant since the start of the covid pandemic. Retrofitting them for different uses, urban farming included, could be a way to employ the structures for new and needed use. They would need upgrades for indoor agriculture to be effective, from waterproofed building envelopes, to enhanced ventilation and LED lighting systems. Researchers are already modeling how these kinds of retrofits could take place. Some cities have already started to deploy them.
Action items and additional relevant projects
Vertical indoor farms that enable local food production at scale
Indoor farming start-ups that use software and robotics to grow produce in city warehouses
Resources on starting an urban farm
Retrofit buildings to accommodate urban farms
What you do think? What if you had these in your neighborhood? Would you want them? Would you not? Why?
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