welcome

This blog serves as the clearinghouse for ideas and documents associated with a Rhode Island School of Design advanced architectural studio on the topic of adaptive reuse for four-season urban agriculture (so called 'vertical farming') in the Providence RI area.

The following is a description of the class:

The cells in the skin of the human body have the remarkable capacity to transform sunlight into vitamin D, an essential nutrient to our thriving and growing. Without it our skeletal system deteriorates, and bones become weak. Certain plants use their ‘skin’ to breathe light as we breathe air: photosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that uses light to translate carbon dioxide into nourishing organic compounds, releasing oxygen as waste. The class will look at the capacity of the skin of a building to harness light and nourish life within, resulting in case studies for a new building typology: the vertical farm.

The semester will be spent investigating existing 20th c. mill buildings and other underutilized infrastructure in Providence for potential as environments for growing, harvesting and selling food. Students will work in groups to analyze and then reconfigure existing structures to develop a rich and varied day-lit environment indoors. The building will be modified into an environment for growing, harvesting and selling food. The program will be a ‘vertical farm’ and marketplace.

At its core, the studio proposes that the professional field (of architecture) needs tilting. Students of architecture are leaving school to enter a society much transformed and inhospitable to the traditional entry-level mindset. Young architects are uniquely poised to become active participants in the transformation of not only the profession but of status quo systems in contemporary society. Our food system is undergoing much renewed interest and scrutiny. It is the locus for many contemporary debates: health, environment, environmental justice, sustainability, local vs. global, community, fast vs. slow. Concurrent with architectural explorations of vertical ‘fields’, students will put their skills and sensibilities towards more systemic problems, at the local level and beyond, to invite the potential tilting of their own future.