Design Sprint: Vertical Farming

A conversation about food

Any conversation about energy would be incomplete without talking about perhaps the most primary kind of fuel for humankind: food. A growing population, dwindling land, extreme weather, and urban food deserts have exacerbated an already challenged food supply responsible for feeding nearly 8 billion people. At the same time, food waste continues to grow, as does the impact of food production and delivery on the environment — giving birth to smart agriculture that taps into the power of AI to better control water and energy use as well as innovative ideas such as vertical farming. Hugo is exploring the future of a distributed food system that encourages on-site food production in dense, urban areas to meet the growing need while increasing the sustainability of food production and distribution. In collaboration with Eden Green Technologies, Hugo has investigated how our commercial real estate can adapt and introduce vertical farms into the built environment by developing a reconfigurable parametric model that enables designers to discover optimal design solutions based on site conditions, food production requirements, and population densities.