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Visionary Architectural Proposal Includes Neighborly Vegitecture

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From New York-Los Angeles-based Standard comes a completely new idea featuring man-made terracing and lush valleys of greens.

But the greenery on these terraces is not used for energy reduction or passive cooling, as it so often is in this kind of architecture (although, of course, it would also have these beneficial energy effects.)

This greenery is for eating: and for encouraging neighborliness. As such, this is a live-eat housing complex.

The architects describe their live-eat housing complex as comprising “a cooperative community of 1,000 people living together in terraced cliff dwellings overlooking lush urban canyon. Residents gain equity in the co-op through participation in construction, agricultural, maintenance, education and conservation programs central to the sustenance of the community”.

Threaded through the community are food-growing terraces. Each family gets an allotment that allows them to grow, exchange and share their produce with other residents. The terraces would encourage small gatherings and cookouts.

The idea is that this would break the ice that normally keeps neighbors from getting to know each other. As such, the architecture cum vegitecture proposal was almost social engineering.

In addition to the terraces with their own private allotments, at the base, there is a community farm that is the focal point of the southern canyon, situated on the stepped terraces that link the levels of the canyon floor.

Then, at the base, produce from the Community Farm would also be sold in the market spaces below. The Community Kitchen – next to the child care center and the fitness center – offers regular classes and food tastings focused on nutrition and the benefits of growing produce locally.

The whole concept takes us back to our primeval past when we didn’t buy food impersonally made and available for sale in supermarkets, but we lived in small villages where everyone knew everyone because we grew all our food locally. It’s a familiar idea that is in our past. It  just may be our sustainable future too.