URBAN AGRICULTURE CENTRE: AN INTEGRATED SPACE FOR URBAN FARMING, RESEARCH AND INTERACTION

Abstract

Agriculture is an important key to human development. The social relation between human and agriculture, that was developed from initial phase of human development, is getting weaker. Everything around us has changed a lot including available natural resources, technological advancements, climatic conditions, population density and their demands. But, agriculture hasn't changed much in thousands of years. We are still going above acres of crop land, far from the people who eat it. In Kathmandu valley, urban and peri-urban agriculture have been practiced from ancient time and is traditional way of life. Like many cities in the world, Kathmandu is pushing the agriculture and nature away from settlement. The current unsustainable system of agriculture including massive amount of food imports and malpractice of chemicals in food production have created severe threats to health, environment and economy of the valley. It is no longer economically viable because of population growth, crop failures, urbanization, and dealing with a changing external environment. Building a farm and a research unit close to the people it serves is the only option to deliver a sustainable approach to food crises and food security in the future. Considering drastic decrease in the available farm land and current demand of food, the better alternative to prevailing tradition system of agriculture can be vertical farming, indoor high-tech farming and roof farming. Promoting and extending the urban agriculture in the city through adoption of vertical farming is the major aim of the project. The project will also contribute to strengthen intricate relation between agriculture and people. The concept is to design a hi-tech urban farm and necessary research and training units for the urban farm that provides theoretical and practical knowledge about various growing technologies of urban farming, along with the fresh, healthy and disease-free fruits and vegetables grown in the farm to people of the city. Therefore, the project emphasizes symbiosis of agriculture and architecture through modern agricultural systems to reconnect people with nature and solve major issues of food crisis at the same time.