Vertical Farming & Building-Integrated Agriculture

Growing food in and on buildings — bringing the farm to the building (when the building grows food; what BIA and vertical farming are; the landscape; the promise separated from the hype), why grow food in buildings (the food and city problem, freshness/local/resilience, the honest energy question), ways of growing (soil/container/rooftop, hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics, choosing a method), controlled-environment agriculture (what CEA is, light and grow-lights, climate/water/nutrients, the vertical farm), integrating food into architecture (rooftop farms, edible facades and living walls, greenhouses and conservatories, the productive building), the building systems (structure and loads, water and irrigation, energy and lighting, environmental integration), making it work (the economics of growing, crops and yields, operations and labour, food safety and quality), the bigger picture (urban food systems, community and social food, sustainability honestly, equity and access), making it real (from idea to a working farm, tools and partners, integrating into design, running and maintaining), reality/limits/honesty (vertical-farm-washing, the energy elephant, what it cannot feed, when not to grow indoors), and practice and the future. Rigorous and honest — growing food in buildings has genuine promise, but fully-indoor vertical farming replaces free sunlight with expensive electricity and is often less sustainable, viable only for high-value crops and unable to feed a city's staple calories, so sun-powered growing usually wins and the energy question must be faced squarely — for architects, interior designers and students. Defers the binding structural (roof and facade loads), waterproofing, water and drainage, electrical, food-safety and horticultural engineering to qualified engineers and specialists, verified data and the governing codes (NBC India, IS, food-safety regulation), treating yields, energy, cost and crop figures as illustrative. India-aware, strongly favouring sun-powered rooftop and terrace growing suited to abundant sunlight and a living tradition, and sceptical of energy-hungry indoor farms.

11 modules · 44 lessons · ~15 hrs · 44 of 44 lessons live