Thursday 21 May 2009

Space age farming

With all the advances that is happening in the hardware/software sect of technology it was just a matter of time before the not so exciting industry of agriculture implemented some cutting edge ideas as well. Behold, the world's first vertical seawater farm project.


This artist sketch is an idea put forward by two Italian architects to who else other than the government of Dubai who has been at the forefront of innovative projects for the past years. Dubai's location on the equatorial belt has led to the city have a extremely hot and dry environment. Therefore, farming has been completely out of the picture in Dubai all these years other than the growth of palm trees thanks to their adaptibility in harsh growing condititions. The only minimal amount of farming in the country U.A.E. takes place further north in the cities of Al Ain and Fujairah.

Each of the pod like objects in the tower will work by capturing the evaporating saline water from the Arabian Gulf and Dubai's creeks and will work to turn it into fresh water. The fresh water in turn will be used for harvesting crops at new heights. This idea was inspired from the ancient Arabian wind towers that captured humidity and irrigate crops high above the ground.

There you go, before it was an emerging and sprawling metropolis from the desert sands with the skyscrapers and malls and now looks like they on the road to the Amazon forest. What can we expect next? Well, atleast they are being green for a change.

No comments:

Post a Comment