Catalog

Value Farm 價值農場

2014

Former Guangdong Float Glass Factory, Shekou, Shenzhen

Project Description:

Value Farm: Cultivating social innovation, architecture as productive landscape Value Farm integrates urban transformation, architecture and productive landscape, exploring community building through farming in the city. The project was conceived and designed by Thomas Chung (Associate Professor, School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong). Value Farm is the world’s first large-scale urban farm built to regenerate an obsolete factory, designed as a hybrid of plots, fabricated urban ruins and public garden. 2,100m2 of Shekou’s Former Guangdong Glass Factory is transformed for the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism \ Architecture UABB (SZ) 2013.

The design is inspired by Hong Kong’s dense city fabric and the emerging trend of rooftop farms that reconnect the city’s inhabitants to small-scale food production. Brick enclosures at different heights reference Central’s Graham Street precinct’s demolished rooftop configurations to create an architecture of plots, pavilions and platforms for a variety of crops composed as an expansive edible garden. Hong Kong seeds and workforce cultivate refreshing nourishment, while the highly popular Sowing, Tasting and Market Festivals engaged international curators, architects, and visitors, connecting them with local community groups and social media.

As a transformative architecture-landscape envisioning responsible eco-revitalization, it demonstrates post-urban value in social innovation beyond the biennale.

Description how the project contributes with humanity:

Innovation and Significance:

The project leader headed a research team with engineering, landscape and farming experts design and build the world’s first large-scale multi-use urban farm designed as a hybrid ensemble of plots, fabricated urban ruins and public garden to recycle a disused factory. As a transformative architecture-landscape envisioning responsible eco-revitalization, Value Farm revives Southern China practices and innovates through testing different cultivation methods and species with designed plots, pavilions, and productive landscape architecture.

Delivery:

The research was demonstrated through a built 2,100m2 urban farm to revitalise an obsolete glass factory in Shekou, Shenzhen for UABB (SZ) 2013 Biennale, and successfully continued for over six months as a multi-disciplinary laboratory and research node on urban food and algae production. Highly popular Sowing, Tasting and Market Festivals engaged international curators, architects and designers with local citizens and community groups. The research extended into an international research collaboration with RMIT, Australia (August 2016- December 2017), and continues in Hong Kong as a live rooftop farming laboratory.

Dissemination:

Winner of Academic Committee Award of UABB(SZ) 2013 for its “important symbolism of shared ecology”. UABB(SZ) 2013 had global impact, with over 250,000 visitors worldwide. Gold award for Architecture for Social Innovation, HKIA Cross-Strait Architectural Design Awards 2015 (HK). Winner for Architecture, Exhibition Installation category, Iconic Awards 2015 (Germany). Finalist for the World Building of the Year Award Landscape Category of the prestigious World Architecture Festival (Berlin, 2015). Value Farm featured in many major international architecture media (Archdaily, Inhabitat, Divisare, etc), and interviewed for numerous local and national printed, television and social media.