Is ‘Growroom’ a glimpse into the future of urban agriculture?

Many new mixed-use developments are beginning to use food as a luring, featured amenity. Farm-to-table restaurants and organic gardens are beginning to replace past amenities such as golf courses, but this has primarily been for more rural, or at least, suburban, developments.

While the farm-to-table restaurants are beginning to pop up in more neighborhoods across dense cities, and rooftop urban farms are growing in popularity, space in urban landscapes is still at a premium. But, as inhabitat.com reports, the Danish group Space10, in association with architects Mads-Ulrik Husum and Sine Lindholm have developed a prototype that could help people in urban areas produce more of their own food while also providing a return to nature for cities.

Their prototype, Growroom, was recently showcased at the Chart Art Fair in Copenhagen as a piece of agricultural architecture. Growroom is a spherical structure made of metal framework that holds planter boxes. By dividing the sphere into overlapping slices, in ensures water and light can reach all of the vegetation.

Additionally, the sphere can double as a public space for individuals to take a seat and escape the sun or the rain (the overlapping slices allow the plants to get rain and sun, but shield the individuals within).

Growroom is not a solution that will allow cities to grow all of their own food, but that was never the goal of the project. “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,” Space10 writes on their website.

For even more information on the Growroom, click here.

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