Food- a Cyclical System
Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 1:17PM 
Incorporating the idea of food goes beyond just vertical farming and expanding crop areas. Making the produce, and the remains of the old compost an integrated cycle with the structure is advantages to not only the farm’s output, but the building’s as well. By taking selective compost, crop remains and monitored soils, it not only clears up space on the site, but uses the building’s layering system and heat retention to enable a speedy decomposition.
With that, you could take the layering system of the roof, and sandwich the composting container between the panels to create a controllable temperature zone, using the sun’s natural heat to warm the compost to the needed levels. Typically, most compost is broken down in bins or controlled piles, but by creating a new type of membrane we allow the waste to naturally rotate and move itself. The idea is that you would get a peristalsis type effect, much like how your intestines or a worm would move food, using either biometric metals, or even piezoelectricity, as part of the skin fabric (woven into the membrane if possible). With that, energy and heat would cause the skin to move and contract in a way that would rotate and move the compost down the roof until it reached the final filtering stage. In the above image the filter is placed at the end of the “worm” system, and would feed into the hydroponic water system for the vertical farm.
If applied correctly, the thought is that you would be able to derive nutrients from the compost and then feed them into the water (similar to what is called the “Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)”). Since hydroponics don’t involve soils, nutrient-rich water is what sustains these living interior crops. A pump, along with optional timers and sensor controls, would then cycle through the water to the bed in which the crops are planted (from the case studies looked at, organic farming did seem a plausible option for this system, although it is a bit harder to accomplish because extra monitoring is required to meet organic codes).
One suggestion for this “bed,” instead of soil, is Rockwool, which is simply ground up rock that is spun into threads making wool. This material is very light and often sold in cubes, making it easy to install, fitting nicely into the back grid-system in the wall, and also has a lot of space for air in between the little threads (so no matter how much water is present, the plants won’t be overwatered). Serving as insulation to the house, and the plants, the rockwool has little effect on the cation exchange, except for a small effect on pH, and is long—lasting and biodegradable.
It is important to note, that in the long run, compost, nutrients, water, soil and heat are conserved and excess waste is eliminated. Sensing devices would be very beneficial in monitoring the nutrient levels and electro conductivity (within the hydroponic system, as well as temperature, humidity and things like carbon dioxide in the composting-roof system. Constant monitoring must occur so the first group of elements do not build up, which is very toxic to plant tissue. Yet the proposal here is not to complicate our system of food production, but to incorporate it on yet another cyclical level so that waste is minimal. With that, the overall design for the site would integrate the new, and old, principles of WSU’s organic farm on a modern level.
Mackenzie King
Reader Comments (6)
Discussion: can the compost somehow be under the building and the heat generated by the compost used. Do we need the solar heat to do the composting?
In order to compost and kill all the bad pathogens and weed seeds and such, you need a certain amount of heat input for a certain extended period of time. This is the point of using solar energy in this model to provide heat to the system; however, it does not have to be solar heat, and may come from somewhere else, such as ground source or other. I always wondered if piles of grass or hay or whatever spontaneously combust, is the internal heat from these piles enough to make compost on it's own? Maybe a little compartment inside a grass pile that contains composting plant matter? Back on topic, I liked Josh Doerr's idea of putting the "worm" under the building to also provide heating to the building, because heat rises. If it were on the roof, it would be lost to the atmosphere. However, in summer, the organic farm employees wouldn't necessarily want their building heated, so maybe the "worm" changes positions with the seasons, and becomes a roof "worm" in the summer.
This "worm" also provides valuable compost in both solid and liquid form, which would be beneficial to the hydroponic crops as well as the soil crops. We still do need some way of moving the compost through the "worm"...
Having the compost under the structure not only frees up the roof space for other things such as solar panels and water harvesting it also allows for easier placement of the compost. the original process will require the compost be lifted up to the roof height where if it is under the structure it can just be dumped with a wheelbarrow.
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