Oct 11, 2021
Editor’s note: The following article includes information derived from interviews Agritecture conducted with Matteo Pietrobelli, Founder & CEO at Agripublica, and Benjamin Nechmad, a Redevelopment and Land Use Planner at Topology.
A Growing Crisis In Urban Spaces
With each passing day, there are more and more mouths to feed. And, at the same time, while urban land is expensive, there is a lot of abandoned or unused land in these built-up cities.
For context on the extent of this issue, New York City itself has over 1000 vacant city-owned sites. But, why is this a problem?
If you see vacant buildings or abandoned sites in your neighborhood, you probably also know that they are not the only problem. These sites are symptoms of bigger community-wide or city-wide problems like inadequate public transportation, limited access to jobs, economic inequality, and segregation.
What potential do these vacant spaces have for better serving their communities? And, given that food is said to be at the nexus of several environmental and social problems, how can it help us better solve these varied concerns?
The solution seems obvious: we must retrofit these vacant spaces to tackle the growing food insecurity concerns.
Here are 7 spaces we can transform for food production:
#1: Vacant City-Owned Sites
Image sourced from GrowNYC
New York has seen a history of nonprofits and residents converting vacant, city-owned sites into greenspace and community gardens.
GrowNYC is one environmental organization helping lead this change. According to their website, “they’ve built more than 135 community gardens and urban farms, and 835 school gardens throughout the five boroughs, adding more than 1 million square feet of green space to New York City. These gardens are built on city-owned vacant lots, within public housing developments, on empty space at churches, daycares, and seniors centers, and anywhere else that a publicly accessible community garden will flourish.”
In 2011, 596 Acres started a pilot program to help residents identify unused public spaces in neighborhoods. Residents were encouraged to reach out to city agencies to program them for potential uses like community gardens. Their multi-phase strategy for creating accurate data about city-owned vacant land included their map ‘Living Lots NYC.’
#2: Vacant Industrial Spaces
Vacant and abandoned industrial sites are linked to increased rates of crime and declining property values. The maintenance of these spaces is a huge expense for many cities.
In order to help preserve the city’s history and make better use of these abandoned spaces, Aerofarms converts these old buildings into vertical farms. What once was a steel mill is now given new life as one of the world’s largest indoor vertical farms. After a full renovation, Aerofarms retrofitted a 75-year-old-industrial building into their 70,000-square-foot global headquarters, which is capable of growing 2 million pounds of produce annually according to the company.
#3: Abandoned Buildings & Underserved Communities
Similarly, Matteo Pietrobelli, Founder & CEO at Agripublica, envisions his company taking existing buildings that are in decay in poor food environments and “retrofitting them for the purpose of becoming vertical farms.” Alongside allowing for more accessibility to fresh produce, he envisions these farms “creating opportunities for work and economic development” inside of these communities lacking food equity. “We can train people from the start to be the employees of the farm - administrative, operational, research and development.”
This additionally creates a gathering space that will also lead to more nutritional education for young children. They will “grow up with an awareness of how a certain type of produce can affect their health. And, they’ll have a clearer idea of what nutrition means. The young will understand that there is a lot of pride in working in a farming environment,” which will help create “a new generation of farmers.”
#4: Rooftops
Image sourced from Sky Vegetables
One of the most overlooked spaces for urban agriculture is rooftops. They have great potential for community engagement and providing to underserved communities.
Former Agritecture client Sky Vegetables managed a rooftop greenhouse on top of a new affordable housing building in the Bronx to introduce fresh and delicious produce to a community with limited access to healthy and whole foods. The ~8,000 square foot rooftop farm employed local residents and sold basil, arugula, ruby chard, butterhead lettuce, bok choy, and herbs to local and national supermarkets, while reserving a portion of each harvest for the immediate local community, free of charge. The farm is currently undergoing a transition in operational management.
Brooklyn Grange is a rooftop farming and intensive green roofing business, also located in New York City. They operate four rooftop soil farms across three boroughs, and host about 7,000 people on their farms every season through events and educational programming.
#5: Pre-War Building Retrofits
As part of his Graduate degree from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Benjamin Nechmad worked on a reproducible ‘retrofit kit’ that he believes can transform the classic NYC walkup apartment building into an urban farm - particularly those that are in decaying conditions. With hopes of better connecting the community and providing increased food security, he used Agritecture Designer to imagine a feasible transformation of a prewar walkup building in the Bronx for food production.
By integrating greenhouses and some vertical farming with these walkup buildings, Designer estimated his model to have a maximum annual revenue of $1.5M with a payback period of 3.3 years. Nechmad’s urban farm and clean-eating-oriented community center plan to grow microgreens like arugula, daikon radish, broccoli, kale, and scallions to feed over 900 people.
Image of Smallhold’s in-store mushroom display at Whole Foods New Jersey; image sourced from Smallhold
#6: Restaurants & Retail Locations
Supermarkets have taken an interest in showing consumers how their food is produced. In 2018, Whole Foods worked with Smallhold to install in-store mushroom growing displays inside their Bridgewater, New Jersey store. Now, the company has partnerships with supermarkets across multiple states.
Smallhold got their start installing their “high-tech growing operations” in restaurants. They have installed glowing mushroom-producing cabinets in multiple restaurants around New York City to create atmospheric spectacles lit from within with neon-blue grow lights. Babylon Microfarms in Virginia similarly provides fresh produce grown on-site for corporate cafeterias, senior living centers, hotels and resorts.
#7: Underground
So far, all of these examples have considered what’s possible above ground. Let’s look underground.
Former Agritecture client Urban Oasis is growing salad, pak choi, kale, and mushrooms underground to reduce Sweden’s fresh food imports and tackle the severe inequalities. By growing vertically in what they call their “underground oasis in Stockholm,” the team’s vision is clear - “to bring healthy, affordable and sustainable food to the many people.”
Le Champignon de Bruxelles have similarly taken over the Cellars of Cureghem in Belgium for mushroom production. The 32,000 square foot cellar’s ambient temperature allows the team to grow exotic mushroom varieties using the spent grains from organic breweries.
