Architectural Firm Designs Glass-Enclosed Farm And Condo Hybrid — Will The Green Technology-Friendly Building Be A Part Of New York’s High Line Park?

Over the past eight years, the green community movement to combine cutting-edge architecture with progressive farming techniques. The solutions they seek, by such a combination, is to find a way to keep up with the ever-growing world population while providing a viable way to produce food as arable land decreases. As a result, many architects have created unique structures that are both farms and dwellings. Forward Thinking Architecture designed a solar-powered floating farm that can produce 20 tons of vegetables a day. Japan created a design for an underwater city that is self-sustaining with solar energy and aquaponics. Finally, skyscrapers have been designed into vertical farms.

Now the newest design combining a living solution with a viable food solution is a glass-enclosed farm and condo hybrid. Now that the design has been proposed, will it actually become a reality and become a part of New York’s High Line Park?

The Weston Baker Creative Group proposed the glass-enclosed farm and condo hybrid alongside New York City’s High Line, as reported by Inhabitat. The hybrid building will consist of a farm and elevated park with an apartment-like high rise structure rising from it. It will contain residences, an art gallery, and 10 floors of indoor farm terraces. Since the building is glass-enclosed, it will give pedestrians the opportunity to see the beautiful green gardens created within the busy life of the city.

More details for the glass-enclosed farm and condo hybrid are provided by City Reality. According to their article, it reports the building’s design is driven by sunlight. The official website for Weston Baker Creative Group even provides a statement on it.

“As the sun comes across the sky to the west, the building twists to evenly distribute daylight throughout the day.”

Sadly, the glass-enclosed farm and condo hybrid will remain a conceptual design given the guidelines and regulations of the public space proposed for it, as reported by 6sqft. The building’s fantastical form, the amount of space needed to create the building, and the prohibition of access to adjacent private properties are reasons why the hybrid will never be built. Still, it is a space worth keeping one’s eyes on. Last year, it was reported that Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) will design a project at the site. We also know the site in question was recently purchased by Related Companies, a luxury development firm.

The glass-covered farm and condo hybrid is just another sign they are progressing in creating buildings that will, as mentioned earlier, expand on dwelling space for the growing world population and provide a viable way to grow food when arable land becomes obsolete.

What is safe to say about the glass-covered farm and condo hybrid is that it is a far more possible project to create. There are numerous farm and dwelling hybrids that have been conceptualized. Most of them seem to look at the ocean as the next frontier for human dwelling, something that makes sense given that the oceans are virtually untouched as a living area for people. So far, the closest we have to people living on the water are on boats, especially house or canal boats.

Ultimately, the movement for green community-approved dwelling and farm hybrids will remain a conceptual fantasy until one is actually built.

[Image via iStock]