A Belgian design firm has come up with a radically different environmentally friendly building structure concept that would be built in New York City.  The design is based on the concept of vertical farming, and the building would derive its power from a whole host of renewable energy sources include off-shore wind-turbines, land-based wind turbines and solar energy, thereby making it entirely self-sufficient.  

The structure is known as the Dragonfly, and is the vision of Vincent Callebaut Architectures.  Its name reflects the fact that the building resembles a dragonfly – a feature that gives it both visual appeal, and allows renewable energy technologies to be integrated into it.  The Dragonfly has a set of wings, and in the space between these wings, solar energy devices would store heat which could be drawn on during the winter.  In the summer months, natural ventilation and plant evapo-perspiration would cool the building. The Dragonfly’s ‘spine’, meanwhile, would act as a waste separator, dividing up human, animal and plant waste for subsequent future use.

Urban Farming

The Dragonfly would stand 600 metres above ground (the Empire State Building, by comparison, is 448 metres high, including its spire).  Clearly, this is environmentally friendly building construction on a massive scale.  Inside, 132 floors would provide corporate space, research and development facilities and accommodation, as well as fields, farms and orchards.  There would be 28 separate urban farming concerns in all, where dairy, meat, grain, vegetable and fruit production would take place.

The need for this type of structure – described on Vincent Callebaut Architectures’ website as ‘a metabolic farm for urban agriculture’ – seems to have highlighted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which recently forecast that 5.5 billion people would be residing in urban areas by 2025. 

City Farming

On this basis, cities able to autonomously supply their own energy through activities like city farming, and to cut down on levels of pollution and waste, would be a vital component of future, eco-preservation.

The US Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has intimated that large-scale organic agriculture development could, ultimately, generate sufficient food to feed every person on the planet. 

It adds that large-scale investment would certainly be needed, but that the long term benefits would probably outweigh this in the end. 

Dragonfly Image kindly provided by and copyright of Vincent Callebaut Architectures - www.vincent.callebaut.org