project 1.3 - re-experience Precedent Studies

https://www.archdaily.com/868129/sasaki-unveils-design-for-sunqiao-a-100-hectare-urban-farming-district-in-shanghai?ad_medium=gallery

Sunqiao, shanghai

by sasaki associates

Situated between Shanghai’s main international airport and the city center, Sunqiao will introduce large-scale vertical farming to the city of soaring skyscrapers. While primarily responding to the growing agricultural demand in the region, Sasaki’s vision goes further, using urban farming as a dynamic living laboratory for innovation, interaction, and education.

Sasaki’s masterplan therefore deploys a range of urbanfriendly farming techniques, such as algae farms, floating greenhouses, green walls, and vertical seed libraries.

Sunqiao represents more than a factory for food production, however. Sasaki’s masterplan creates a robust public realm, celebrating agriculture as a key component of urban growth.

An interactive greenhouse, science museum, aquaponics showcase, and festival market signal an attempt to educate generations of children about where their food comes from. Meanwhile, sky plazas, office towers, and civic greens represent a desire to create a mixed-use, dynamic, active environment far removed from traditional, sprawling, rural farmlands.

“This approach actively supports a more sustainable food network while increasing the quality of life in the city through a community program of restaurants, markets, a culinary academy, and pickyour-own experience” explained Sasaki in a press release. “As cities continue to expand, we must continue to challenge the dichotomy between what is urban and what is rural. Sunqiao seeks to prove that you can have your kale and eat it too.”