Ecotecture Challenge A way towards local food systems...

North American Legacy FoundationFebruary 2016

Green building is gaining momentum as more buildings and development projects strive to meet stringent sustainability goals such as increased water efficiency, use of renewable energy, and less toxic alternatives to conventional building materials. Organizations like UBC-CIRS, the CHMC, Cascadia Region Green Building Council, FP Innovations, BC Housing, BC Hydro, Fortis BC, and the City of Vancouver, are contributing to achieve better performances for resource use and energy requirements, but buildings and development projects are still far from their full potential in terms of what they can produce. We know there is room for solar power, for rainwater storage, or for plants, but how many functional spaces are desigend or applied to grow edible vegetables and fruits?

Edible gardens are the best known example of locally-produced veggetables and fruits. An edible garden can be composed of a group of tubercules like carrots or beets, bulbs like onions or garlic, leafy greens ranging from cabbage to lettuce, fruits like peppers or tomatos, and herbs like basil or mint. An Edible garden offers palatable and nutritious goods to its keeper, who can harvest, eat and enjoy, or sell them at a farmer's market. At the same time, the garden's maintenance invites to learn basic horticulture by practicing urban farming, experiencing the secrets of organic growth, insect polination, seed banking and germination, irrigation and even your own research proyect. Front yard edible gardens with ornamental varieties of cabbage, kale, and spinaches are now commonly found in public buildings, where they display their own kind of beauty and ecology for each specific niche. The opportunities to expand the location of edible gardens in a building extend into the reception areas, halways, backyards, balconies, and rooftops. An entire food system can be managed through edible gardens as a kind of permacultured urban farm where each component contributes with a portion of produce coming from a specific area.

Some designers are already exploring the intricacies of a“Vertical Farm” where a building is designed just to produce a variety of vegetables through edible gardens, or even fish through aquaponics. The goal of Ecotecture is not to ease the way for “Vertical Farms” but instead, it is a research to identify and evaluate opportunities in existing buildings or new developments to set up sites for edible gardens or ponds where edible fish species can be reared and maintained. Ecotecture aims not just to be part of the policy for sustainable, affordable, residential development, but also looks forward to be a Challenge that buildings with large yards, flat roof-space areas, such as shopping malls or semi-industrial warehouses can take. Ecotecture is a step to set up edible gardens beyond the limits of known grounds, pushing the limits of code and regulatory barriers for buildings, leveraging the efforts to identify sites, find solutions, and capitalize on the outcomes so that an innovative edible garden project can not only be allowed but encouraged for future developments. Take the Ecotecture Challenge and invite us to make an assessment of your project, discover the possibilities to have your project certified as an edible garden, either at home, or several in a townhouse, in the units of a highrise, in a commercial or in an industrial warehouse rooftop.

Thank you!