The Plan

40′x8′ Recycled Shipping Container:
Fabrication of the unit begins by insulating the interior walls with high R-value to eliminate unwanted air flow and heat loss.
Constructing an entrance will include an environmental barrier, much like a spaceship, to keep the climate in the growing area at a constant temperature. The top of the container will be equipped with photovoltaic cells, additional panels can be added to the side of each unit to reach desired power requirements or to compensate for the location of the unit.

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535 Richards Street in downtown Vancouver.

Unit to be installed on the roof levels of the EasyPark parking lot at 535 Richards Street in downtown Vancouver

By Terry Brodie
Globe and Mail
December 12, 2011

Excerpt:

Slated to be Valcent’s first ‘VertiCrop’ system in North America

Vancouver-based Valcent Products Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding to install its first “VertiCrop” high-density vertical growing system in North America on the top level of a parkade in the city’s downtown core.

The vertical farming system allows leafy green vegetables to be grown all year round in urban environments in much smaller spaces, using much smaller amounts of energy and water while generating higher yields.

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By Twigs Way & Mike Brown
Sabrestorm
December 2010
240 pages

Beans as bullets’, ‘Vegetables for Victory’ and ‘Cloches against Hitler’: these slogans convey just how vital gardening and growing food were to the British war effort during the Second World War. Exhorted to ‘Grow More Food’, then to ‘Dig for Victory’, Britain’s ‘allotment army’ was soon out in force, growing as many vegetables as possible in suburban allotments, private gardens, even the grounds of stately homes.

Richly illustrated with contemporary photographs and ephemera relating to the ‘Dig For Victory’ campaign, this expertly researched, highly engaging and informative account also includes archive images of home front gardening, garden produce and advertisements.

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Roof garden presently grows watermelon, rockmelon, tomatoes, eggplant, pumpkin, garlic, kale, rocket, herbs, corn, blueberries, peaches, pear, apple, goji, rhubarb and more, as well as a living wall of strawberry bushes.

Health messages include healthy eating, the importance of physical exercise and the dangers of smoking

By Adam Dwyer
Senior Project Officer – Primary Health Services
GP Plus Health Care Centre Marion

Description of the project:

The clients were involved in the planning of the building, through engagement with the landscape architect commissioned to design the roof garden. The building was designed to include the roof garden due to the success of a previous community health engagement/food garden development with these clients. The community engagement is based around healthy lifestyle choices (food, physical activity, stress/mental health, quit smoking/substance abuse), promoting access to free health services, empowerment and social inclusion. Actively growing food brings a lot of these together.

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Window Farming founder describes her project

Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food (in her tiny apartment). So she and her friends developed a system for growing plants in discarded plastic bottles — researching, testing and tweaking the system using social media, trying many variations at once and quickly arriving at the optimal system. Call it distributed DIY. And the results? Delicious.

It is a passion for this city-girl-turned-farmer, whose farm is making a mark on the plates of Oklahoma school children

By Doris Wedge
The Norman Transcript
Dec 12, 2011

Excerpt:

Her 330 acres near Stratford are producing tons of vegetables, with some being harvested throughout the year. There are more than 20 vegetables, from lettuce mix to green onions — available to her wholesale clients today — plus five culinary herbs, all of them grown without chemicals.

She was told that she couldn’t do it by folks who supposedly were in the know, she said.

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