Israel's Knafo Klimor Architect Firm Build Agro-Housing Apartments In China

Slated for a 2011 finish date, Knafo Klimor Architects look to be the first Israeli firm hired to design a green building in China. Their concept: to bring the greenhouse inside the house. The team breaks from the model, where historically, Israelis look to the United States, or at least Europe to fulfill their design and architectural dreams.

Their specs:
Program: 150 apartments, multi-stories greenhouse, tenant’s club & kindergarten
Client: Living Steel
Area: 10,000 sqm
Status: completion 2011

According to their client, Knafo Klimor Architects developed this concept with concern for predictions that 50% of China’s one billion people will live in its cities, a trend mirrored in many developing countries in the world.   

The architects observe that massive urbanisation displaces communities, dissipating existing traditions and heritage, as well as placing a strain on energy resources and infrastructure.

The Agro-Housing concept presents a new urban and social vision that addresses this chaotic urbanisation problem by creating a new order in the city and, more specifically, in the housing environment.

The idea behind Agro-Housing is to create a space close to home where families can produce their own food supply according to their own abilities, tastes and choices to promote independent living, freedom and potentially provide additional income.

In addition, these greenhouse spaces become a natural gathering place for the community to interact. Agro-Housing is a place for living, but in essence, it is a model for a new urbanity, contributing to the preservation of traditions and community values and diminishing the trials of rural migration.

Conceptual Approach of Architects:

According to a UN report, in 2010 about 50% of the Chinese population will reside in cities. This huge migration from rural regions to new urban megalopolises will create a dramatic cultural and social crisis, a loss of existing traditions and considerable unemployment.

Massive urbanization will form random communities, severely deplete natural resources, exhaust urban infrastructures and transportation systems, and will increase air and soil pollution.

The concept of Agro-Housing is a new urban and social vision that will address problems of chaotic urbanization by creating a new order in the city and more specifically, in the housing environment.

Agro-Housing is a program that combines a high-rise apartment complex with a vertical greenhouse within the same building. The idea behind Agro-Housing is to create a close to home space where families can produce their own food supply according to their abilities and choices.

This will allow the citizens more independence, freedom, and additional income.

Advantages of this innovative building typology:

• Produces food for tenants and the surrounding community.
• Produces organic and healthy food that is disease and fertilizer free
• Creates an abundance of crops for self-consumption and sale for the neighbors.
• Requires no special skill set for greenhouse operation
• Allows for flexibility and independence for the greenhouse working hours.
• Creates extra income and new jobs for the inhabitants in the building.
• Creates a sense of community and softens the crisis of migration to cities.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the pictures, and dream about a day when modest buildings like these ones will be planted all around the Middle East.

::Knafo Klimor