Creating Urban Agricultural Systems : An Integrated Approach to Design

Creating Urban Agriculture Systems provides you with background, expertise, and inspiration for designing with urban agriculture. It shows you how to grow food in buildings and cities, operate growing systems, and integrate them with natural cycles and existing infrastructures. It teaches you the essential environmental inputs and operational strategies of urban farms, and inspires community and design tools for innovative operations and sustainable urban environments that produce fresh, local food.

Over 70 projects and 16 in-depth case studies of productive, integrated systems, located in North America, Europe, and Asia ,are organized by their emphasis on nutrient, water, and energy management, farm operation, community integration and design approaches so that you can see innovative strategies in action. Interviews with leading architecture firms, including WORKac, Kiss + Cathcart, Weber Thompson, CJ Lim/Studio 8, and SOA Architectes, highlight the challenges and rewards you face when creating urban agriculture systems. Catalogs of growing and building systems, a glossary, bibliography, and abstracts will help you find information fast.

Gundula Proksch is a licensed architect and Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. With over 15 years of professional practice and teaching experience in London, New York City, and Seattle, her design, research, and scholarly work explores novel, sustainable design practices in architecture and landscape architecture.