Urban Food Hub
A home for the world’s first zero-waste vertical farm
Growy is on a mission to fundamentally change the way we produce food in cities by developing the world’s first fully robotized, zero-waste vertical farm. Now, Space&Matter and Growy joined forces to design the Urban Food Hub: a structure that not only houses Growy’s unparalleled vertical farm but also, and perhaps more importantly, brings people together to teach them about sustainable food production. The design is bespoke and adaptive at once: recurring programmatic elements ensure that each structure makes good on Growy promise to provide on-demand produce of high, consistent quality; at the same time, the infill of certain floors can be easily adjusted to meet every community’s unique needs. Our ultimate goal is to establish a global network of Food Hubs so that we can bring fresh and healthy food to all those who want it.
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Space&Matter
Vivid-Vision
Growy
Tjeerd Haccou
Lidia Egorova
Gabriela Chuecos
Martijn van Wijk
Martijn Feenstra
Growy
Turning waste into resources
While global demand for food is on the rise, an estimated third of all food produced globally is lost or goes to waste. The Urban Food Hub addresses these challenges by transforming local food waste into the water and energy required to power the vertical farm cells and nourish its crops.
Composed of biobased, circular materials, the Urban Food Hub boasts a modular design, with some floors reserved for farm cells and greenhouses, others for a restaurant, research lab, or community centre. This flexibility allows the Hub to easily meet the diverse needs of neighbourhoods across the world and become a place that is accessible and inviting to all.
But the Urban Food Hub does much more than just produce leafy greens in a highly efficient, low-cost, low energy manner. It is designed to be a source of inspiration, a visible place where community members learn what healthy food is and how it can be responsibly produced, now and in the future.
