Two Architecture lecturers from the Technion Institute in Haifa have designed a high-rise sustainable energy apartment complex that includes greenhouses for all its residents, and are building it in Wuhan Province, China.
Tagit Klimor and David Knafo, who also run their own architectural practise Knafo Klimor, with offices in Tel Aviv and Haifa, believe in the importance of people growing their own food.
“This project, which we have named Agro Housing, constitutes a revolution in the existing social and urban order,” Knafo says.Each apartment (which we’ve already featured on Green Prophet here) will contain a self-contained greenhouse space of approximately 100 sq. feet. The greenhouses will be climate-controlled areas, using a soil-free growing system of coconut fibres and peat, a drip irrigation system (pioneered here in Israel!), and a liquid fertilizing process.
Water for the greenhouse will be recycled from the apartments, and from rainwater collected on the building’s roof. Other green features of the building includes solar heating and cooling systems.”The advantages of the project include significant savings of energy,” Knafo believes. While there are no immediate plans to build such a project here in Israel, this design by the two architect-lecturers was the winner of of the 2nd Annual Living Steel International Architecture Competition for Sustainable Design, announced in Belgium in September.
Bring on ecological design, says Green Prophet. Lets see apartments like this all over the country, from Yerocham up to Nahariya, for all Israel’s citizens and vegetable growers.
Author: James Murray-White
Growing up in a green village outside Cambridge, UK gave me an eye into the natural world, and years later, after being an actor, dramatist, weary traveller and anthropologist, the environment fires me up the most – and the need to save and nurture it… while we live within it. I now live in the UK, with partner Tania and 2 pesky cats – writing and filming the world (slowly making a documentary about the Bedouin situation) take up my creative time. I do this while growing things organically and composting profusely take up the remainder. James can be reached at james (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
It’s sad that this pilot is being built in China and not somewhere closer to home. The climate here is ideal for that….