Sweden Builds 18-story Greenhouse

Oh, how I wish to have some US based news to share. I guess I’;ll have to do some digging in the upcoming weeks to find something encouraging coming out my old native soil.

From Grist.org a story that’s immensely encouraging at first-blush, but is a little more confusing as you get into the details.

Basically, an 18 story greenhouse has broken ground in Sweden(Feb 9th, 2012), built by the company, Plantagon.

However, there are some questions.

First, what does the thing even look like? Girst has one photo(visible on that original link). The press invite has another photo, and the Plantagon homepage and this article from CleanTechnica has yet a third. I tend to believe that it’ll wind up looking like the one from the CleanTechnica and Plantagon pages. Hey, if people are willing to make a sweet design video with futuristic techno segueing into classical, they must be serious. Perhaps the other photos of the rectangular building is another option, perhaps I’;ve got it backwards.

(Edit – Upon further review, I’;m leaning towards traditional sky-scraper style. To fund the project and to ensure the success of their first project, they’ll want to mix a small test run in with some rent paying businesses and offices. Southern exposed greenhouse and fill the rest of the building with offices.)

Secondly, and this relates somewhat to design, what about the plants receiving enough sunlight. Plantagon’;s website literature seems to emphasize southward facing facades and planting retrofits and new construction as a facet of a mixed use building. However, this building seems to be marketed as solely a greenhouse. It seems to me that a circular structure would be best for solar harvesting. With any design though, how do you expect to put these things in the middle of a city? Shade from other buildings is likely to erase any chance of enough sunlight getting to the plants, regardless of spherical or traditional skyscraper design. Do we envision these greenhouses(green-homes?) circling cities to provide fresh produce?

Lastly, and this is basically stolen from the Grist.org article comments(of which there are many with good points), what about the question of basic reliance on hydroponic farming as our newest savoir and skyscraper green-homes(greenhouses?) as it’s home?

“Fuzzywhze” brings up a couple of good points about lighting and energy use -

“I’;m skeptical that the architects have much knowledge about greenhouses. Lighting will be the primary difficulty. I would bet you’re just going to end up with a bunch of unhealthy if not dead plants. If artificial light is going to be used, it’s going to be a tremendous drain on the electrical grid.”

“This is a horribly stupid project. I can only think it will be tremendously energy intensive. Skyscrapers are well known for the amount of energy they use just moving people up and down them.”

While, “agelbert” considers the possibilities for mushroom growing, which seems really interesting -

“Also, in a multistory building devoted to farming, you are going to have the opportunity for mushroom growing and other mycology products. Since Mycologist Paul Stamets has already proven (he has several patents using fungi mycelium and/or spores as pesticides) that certain types of myceiium increase nitrogen fixation as well as accelerating microbiota growth necessary for heallthy soil (he has successfully defouled with seeded fungi spores a former school bus depot in Washington where the motor oil residue would not allow anything to grow), several floors would probably be logically devoted to mycelum growth and the mushroom fruiting bodies (which, as you know, need no light), not simply for mushroom crops, but for natural plant pesticides, fertilizers and soil conditioning agents.”

And perhaps the most critical question regarding hydroponic farming in general, from “Ecotopia” -

“Not something conservationists should be embracing…the idea here is to grow food without soil, using chemicals and water, which will have to be highly chlorinated to avoid the growth of bacteria and other organisms that will thrive in the artificial, moist environment….if you think antibiotic resistant bacteria are scary now, just wait for this future, wtih new types of bacteria adapting to this new substrate. We should all resist this anti-human, anti-earth method of raising food…”

Just because we can, does it mean we should? Will hydroponic farming create just as much problems as the introduction of antibiotics has? Maybe it’s just because I’;ve been reading too much Joel Salatin, but it seems a little abnormal to be growing all of our food in glass covered domes, in water rather than soil. I’;d like to do some more research regarding the pros and cons of hydroponics, as well as the alternatives along a soil based approach that are suitable for use in intensive urban settings. I wonder what the expected productivity and costs of this project are?