Public spaces through urban farming

Urban farming can help in many ways in creating public spaces with an engaging environment. Restaurants and shops can be opened that sell the locally grown crops, tours and workshops can be given through the urban farms and Other products like compost, DIY kits and biodegradable materials can also be sold. To enhance the individual urban farming...

From resource draining to maintaining

The area of Amstel III will drastically change by 2040 into a lively urban district. This change allows for the rethinking of the urban metabolism of the area, to shorten the material cycles and by better utilization of resources. Through estimation and calculations on potential flows related to energy, water, and organic material the potential...

The Fertile City: Raising Food Awareness Through Architecture

Cities are attracting people increasingly because of the work opportunities, universities and wide range of facilities. It is estimated that the world population will grow up to 10 billion people by 2050 with the majority living in cities. In Europe 80% of the population will live in cities by that time (Food and Agriculture Organization of the...

A modular aquaponic system designed for company canteens

Aquaponics is the combination of two existing techniques, hydroponics (soilless farming), and aquaculture(aquatic animals growing). This symbiosis process of recycling wastes and recirculating water creates potentials for aquaponics in future vegetable and aquaculture produce. The vision of Riverfood (client company) is to make aquaponics...

(Dis)Continuity: Life in urban conditions of Amsterdam 2050

Amsterdam faces a problem common to many historical metropolises of Europe – how to maintain constant transformation of urban fabric in a changing world while preserving its heritage at the same time? Pushing new investments outside the borders of historical areas create a risk of transforming a living organism of a city into an artificial open...

FARMHAL: High-efficient material flow in a building integrated agriculture system based on existing building stocks, theory and application

In this paper, the study focuses on the potential material exchanges between indoor farms and existing buildings which is or will be developed for residential use. Based on the material flow, an architectural model, Farmhal1, is proposed as an example of possible interventions. Further on, a workflow is constructed for the assessment of existing...

NeighbourFOOD: Raising food awareness in the future city

The studio that I chose to participate was ‘Dutch Housing: Stronghold Amsterdam’. The topic of this studio as mentioned in its studio manual concerns problems with ecology, climate, overpopulation, mass-migration, a shifting global power balance, changing demographics, etc., cities like Amsterdam will face in the future. But the question is: how...

The food producing city of tomorrow: Food production versus city living

I did my graduation project at the master track Dutch Dwelling, Architecture. The studio describes the graduation assignment as following: “The task in the Dutch Housing Graduation Studio is to design a housing project that fits in a scenario of your own making for the future of Amsterdam. Behind the brief for an apartment building lie the...

Subasta Alamar: Cooperative Auction for Urban Agricultural Products

With the fall of the Socialist block in 1989, the Cuban national economy collapsed, followed by a severe scarcity in gasoline, materials and especially food. Of Alamar, a socialist housingproject in construction in East Havana only the areas dedicated to dwelling were finished, leaving the neighbourhood without a defined public space or economic...