I received this in an email from a good friend of mine. Ralph is the kinda guy that experiments with biological wastewater treatment and experimenting with automotive tire construction methods.

Society collapsing and don’t know what to do? You want someone like Ralph on your side!

Window Farms
An experiment in urban agriculture by Olivia Chen
May 23 2009

Gardening enthusiasts living in cities will certainly cheer for Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray’s Window Farms experiment. The artist-in-residence duo at Eyebeam have teamed up to develop a DIY system for creating “suspended, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield light-augmented” vertical gardens that will enable anyone to start their own garden right in their very own window. Britta and Rebecca were showcasing their prototype at Eyebeam last week and have enlisted a dozen or so volunteers that are building their own farms - all to go on display in windows throughout NYC from May 31 to July 14.

The prototype that we saw at Eyebeam was composed of several vertical columns with re-purposed water bottles that each held a potted plant. The set-up also included a tub of water elevated above the vertical garden that allowed water to drip through the columns - a catch basin was also placed at the bottom to catch the water that was not absorbed by the plants. Britta and Rebecca also told us that at home, they use a pump to cycle the water back through the system.

Although the primary intention of the project is to prove that individuals can develop their own systems for growing food in their NYC (or other tiny) apartment, Britta and Rebecca see this project as part of their greater interest in something they call R&DIY, which stands for Research and Do-It-Yourself. Britta and Rebecca worked with a group at Eyebeam to develop experimental window farms. By engaging a community with their urban agriculture experiment, the duo is out to show that this group method can become part of a greater trend towards the use of social networks to institute.

The second I started reading this I thought about Windsor’s own Broken City Lab. They do this kinda stuff!

I’d love to see a few of these hanging in the windows in my neighbourhood! I dare ya!

Tags: urban agriculture