As more and more people move to cities—and out of rural areas—architects and city planners have begun to revolutionize the way we think about farming. Vertical farming and urban agriculture offer relief in metropolitan environments, helping to reduce the pressure of public food supply while also changing our traditional approach to food production. The five A+ finalists for the farming category offer a variety of solutions to our growing urban populaces, from a mobile produce market to an urban jungle that grows organic fruit and vegetables and freshwater fish, too. Click through to see them all!

Like what you see? Make sure to vote for your favorite project over at the A+ Public Voting site!

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Brooklyn Grange by Bromley Caldari Architects

Architizer is hosting the world’s definitive architectural awards program, with 50+ categories and 200+ jurors. As part of an ongoing series, we’re spotlighting projects that fit into “Plus” categories, including “Farming,” that tap into topical and culturally relevant themes. To see a full list of categories and learn more about the awards, visit architizerawards.com.

It may sound gluttonous, but we just can’t stop thinking about food! It’s easy to argue that architecture plays a part in the world of a foodie; most restaurants are uniquely designed to better the dining experience after all. However, the architect’s ties to the food industry go much deeper, and designers are beginning to revolutionize the way we regard (and manage) food production.

As these cities grow, it is important that we continue to find new and innovative ways to provide for the populace. Vertical farming and urban agriculture offer relief in metropolitan environments, helping to reduce the pressure of public food supply while also changing our traditional approach to food production. See 10 great examples!

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Image courtesy of Vincent Callebaut

Today, while the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) was busy coordinating Food Day events across the nation, we got to thinking about all the delicious plants that will have to grow on buildings if our rapidly urbanizing world is to produce enough sustenance for the projected 9.1 billion people who will need access to fresh food by 2050. Could it really be a coincidence that so many of the causes CSPI addresses—healthy eating, hunger, food security, agriculture policy—find some resolution in the promise of agritecture, farmscrapers, and other utopian portmanteaus? We think not!

As the vertical farming trend has taken off in recent years, many architects and designers have begun tackling the question of how to marry agriculture with architecture. Here’s a look at some of our favorite concepts (most of them unbuilt) for fanciful food-producing pyramids, geodesic domes, flower pods, and insects. Check out the pictures!

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While plans are in the works for a 100,000 square-foot hydroponic rooftop farm in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, urban gardening options are slightly more limited for the average city dweller without access to a sprawling warehouse rooftop. As a solution, Paris-based design collective Barreau&Charbonnet offer the Volet Végétal, a system of planters that uses a drawbridge-like contraption to utilize the space directly outside an apartment window.

Rows of custom-sized planters are fitted into a wooden frame that is then mounted against the windowsill. A pulley system allows one to pivot the entire frame horizontally, extending five feet perpendicular to the window. To water, trim, and harvest the plants, one simply reels the planters back into a vertical position for easy access. In colder months, the entire frame can be moved indoors, serving as a free-standing indoor garden. As Natalia Repolovsky mentioned on Shoebox Dwelling, the Volet Végétal functions much like an obsolete fire escape, extending access to that precious commodity we call space beyond the small interiors of many city apartments.

[All images via Shoebox Dwelling]

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Image via The New York Times.

Sunset Park Farms. It’s easy to dismiss the name for another hokey brand of unscrupulous chicken farmers that Food, Inc. told you to avoid back in 2008. But for those who can pick out the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood in the name, Sunset Park might bring to mind a sprawling industrial milieu, and the future home to a 100,000 square-foot hydroponic rooftop garden. According to the New York Times, Bright Farms is planning to start construction in the fall for a hydroponic greenhouse spanning the rooftop of a massive former Navy warehouse acquired by the city’s Economic Development Corporation last year. What could well be the largest rooftop farm in the United States is slated to yield millions of pounds of produce a year, enough to supply fresh vegetables to 5,000 New Yorkers. Moreover, its soil-less agricultural system will not only use significantly less water than soil-based operations but also capture an estimated 1.8 million gallons of New York City’s storm water per year.

“Brooklyn was an agricultural powerhouse in the 19th century, and it has now become a local food scene second to none,” said Paul Lightfoot, the chief executive of Bright Farms, to the Times. “We’re bringing back a business model where food is grown and sold right in the community.” Lightfoot and his company are currently negotiating to have their lettuce, tomatoes and herbs carried in local supermarket chains.

The effort to grow the number of commercial rooftop farms in New York City led borough president Marty Markowitz to press for changes to the city’s zoning laws. Like many opening up to the prospect of New York City growing and consuming its own local produce, Markowitz sees the eight-story Department of Navy structure—abandoned since 2000—as prime real estate for a farm operation: “Here in New York, we don’t have acres and acres of unused land to grow fresh food, but Brooklyn’s got plenty of industrial buildings with unused roofs that are perfect for urban farming,” he said in a statement. The Bright Farms project could be an exciting step towards the redevelopment of the waterfront neighborhood.

Image via Bright Farms.

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Yesterday we saw how architecture could extend beyond its service to man to serve man’s best friend, as evidenced in Frank Lloyd Wright’s sophisticated doghouse for Eddie, a 4-year-old black Labrador. After all, why can’t our domesticated friends enjoy the fruits of good design? The same can be said for the rising population of domesticated chickens, one of the more recent species to join the urban migration. As more hens are shacking up in our cities, more designer chicken coops are entering the market, aiming to makeover our feathered friends from country bumpkins into city slickers. The latest to catch our eye comes from Portland-based architecture firm Wright Design Office (no relation to Frank, I presume), and it offers a modern dwelling made of recycled cedar and metal or fiberglass roof panels. The roof of the structure can even double as a coop-top garden.

[All photos courtesy the architects]

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The concept of urban agriculture is fast taking root in our cities, and while images of towering vertical farms with high-altitude pastures and verdant exteriors may captivate us with their fantastical designs, the greatest leaps and bounds in this area stem from simple, tried and true farming methods and adaptive reuse of pre-existing structures. The latest “farm of the future” on the horizon: the Frisch vom Dach, or the Fresh from the Roof project in Berlin. Der Spiegel recently reported on the efforts of three German entrepreneurs to transform the expansive rooftop of a former malt factory in Berlin into a sustainable urban farm projected to produce tons of vegetables and fish for the city each month. Read on.

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