Design: van Bergen Kolpa architects.
Through the Beijing Vertical Farm, the design team provided China’s first urban food production innovation center to horticultural company AgriGarden and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences..
The project is located on the campus of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and is an innovative center for fruit and vegetable cultivation in Beijing and even in China. This transparent three story building is a prominent entrance for campus research facilities, from which one can overlook the downtown area of Beijing and the ring road..
The building covers an area of 3500 square meters and has three floors, surrounded by a huge entrance hall, showcasing a series of innovative vertical cultivation techniques. There is an educational route inside the building that guides visitors through open-air fruit and berry trees, automatic vertical lettuce planting, fruit planting under LED lights, and rooftop greenhouses where tomatoes and cucumbers are grown under sunlight..
In this building, no drop of water is wasted. When irrigating plants, the remaining water is recycled and reused. The climate control of the building adopts natural ventilation and evaporative cooling methods. The heat passively extracted from the sun and the waste heat from LED lighting are used for heating..
This is a proud steel and glass sculpture that highlights its agricultural and public functions. The building is composed of a particularly slender steel structure, and a series of transparent bay windows stand out in the sky of Beijing. The transparent glass facade at the entrance is highly expressive and stands out from the crowd. During the day, you can see the scenery inside and outside the building from the windowsill without any refraction. In the evening, the building becomes a bright light in the city through various LED lights..
