The Growroom — Exploring how cities can feed themselves through food producing architecture

SPACE10 and architects Mads-Ulrik Husum and Sine Lindholm have co-created a multi-sensory pavilion for people to smell, taste and enjoy.

With the Growroom, we want to spark conversations about how we can bring nature back into our cities, grow our own food and tackle the rapidly increasing demand for significantly more food in the future.

Filled with herbs, veggies, and edible plants from floor to ceiling, The Growroom is an artistic exploration of the incredible potential of urban farming.

We envision a future where we start to grow much more food inside our cities. In complete self sustaining eco systems, that supply us with super fresh food of highest quality. All year round. Food that tastes better, is healthier for us, more nutritional and doesn’t put massive pressure on our dwindling supplies of fresh water nor our environment.

“At SPACE10, we envision a future where we grow much more food inside our cities. Food producing architecture could enable us to do so.” — Carla Cammilla Hjort, Director of SPACE10

The Growroom was exhibited first at CHART ART FAIR and later on Vice’s Munchies Festival in Copenhagen’s meatpacking district. Visitors were invited to step into the farm, smell the abundance of herbs and plants, and taste a future where food is produced in a sustainable manner — much closer to consumption — inside our cities and as a natural part of people’s lives.

“We’re inviting you to step inside the growing green haven, smell and taste the abundance of herbs and plants, and hopefully it will spark passion about growing your own food in the future.” — Carla Cammilla Hjort, Director of SPACE10

SPACE10’s ‘The Growroom’ is created together with architects Mads-Ulrik Husum & Sine Lindholm, interaction designer Thomas Sandahl Christensen and gardener Sebastian Dragelykke. SPACE10’s Joakim Rex, Kevin Curran, Kaave Pour and Carla Cammilla Hjort. Words by Simon Caspersen and Cecilie Hjermind. Supported by Raaschou and Tradium.

Background

Have you ever wondered how tons of food appear in our cities everyday? Where it comes from? How it gets there? And why it’s so cheap?

The answer is that we have created an astonishing food production system. A system where we are able to secure loads of inexpensive food everyday, by producing food on a massive scale, store and transport it, across oceans and continents, to the world’s cities where it’s eventually consumed.

But our cheap food come with an additional prize. The system is driven by scale, chemicals and fuel. It puts massive pressure on our dwindling supplies of fresh water and requires loads of resources for production, transport and cooling. Disturbingly one third of the food we produce also goes to waste due to spoilage and overproduction.

Imagine if we if we diversified our production methods. If we started growing more food inside our cities where people actually live. Urban farming is already booming. People grow food in their apartments, on rooftops and in community gardens. IKEA has just presented “window farming equipment” as a product — enabling the many people to become small scale farmers. We’re on the vanguard of something very exciting. Cities are starting to feed themselves.

Even more exciting; new technologies have made it possible to take urban farming a step further. Enabled by hydroponic systems, artificial lights and computerised automation we are able to give plants exactly what they need of water, minerals, oxygen.

This means, plants can grow 4 or 5 times faster than in a field. Using 95 percent less water, producing much less waste, and without the need of soil nor sunlight, the method requires much less space than traditional farming, and ultimately leaves a smaller carbon footprint on the environment.

The result on our dining tables is just as fascinating. We can produce food that tastes better, is much more nutritional and healthy for us, doesn’t contain chemicals and is fresh all year round.

The perspective is captivating and the reason why we’ve built The Growroom. We want people to explore this groundbreaking opportunity for all of us.

Curious about the future of food? then follow our publication ‘The Farm’ and stay tuned for more tasty stories on the topic. Or sign up to the SPACE10 newsletter that brings all our explorations to your inbox here

SPACE10 is a future living lab on a mission to design a better and more sustainable way of living.

MORE INFO @ https://medium.com/space10-the-farm/space10-open-sources-the-growroom-aa7ca6621715#.l8r4zt659