Urban Grow-Labs
The Technology Debate
Rachel posted this great link on the internal site: http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/pipermail/pil-pc-oceania/2007-Janua...
It's a lengthy description of both 'sides' of this debate. His conclusion: "The question and dilemma, for many of new, high-tech materials and systems such as hydroponics that have potential environmental benefit is going to grow, which is why discussions such as this are important."
Basically, the question cannot be one of using technology or not using technology (even a plant in a terra cotta pot is living a technologically-assisted life, even if the tool was invented thousands of years ago). Another example of technology's positive potential is the compost bin, which made the process accessible and appealing to a wider portion of the population.
It would be really interesting to hear some arguments against the use of technological assistance to urban agriculture endeavors. Anyone?
It's a lengthy description of both 'sides' of this debate. His conclusion: "The question and dilemma, for many of new, high-tech materials and systems such as hydroponics that have potential environmental benefit is going to grow, which is why discussions such as this are important."
Basically, the question cannot be one of using technology or not using technology (even a plant in a terra cotta pot is living a technologically-assisted life, even if the tool was invented thousands of years ago). Another example of technology's positive potential is the compost bin, which made the process accessible and appealing to a wider portion of the population.
It would be really interesting to hear some arguments against the use of technological assistance to urban agriculture endeavors. Anyone?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rachel Wingfield on -
I agree, all of current agricultural practices are a technology - the broadest definition of technology is the use and knowledge of tools and crafts, and the ability to control and adapt to your environment. But of course we generally understand technology today more as a machine, mechanic, electronic.. I suppose for myself in relation to agriculture its more a question of scale and when automation replaces the manual, tacit knowledge of plants. This project we are working on is looking specifically at the Urban condition and this artificial and highly controlled environment we have created.. we cannot turn back to a time of hard manual labour and drudgery or import agriculture as we know it today into the walls of the city - there needs to be a portfolio of solutions that incorporate a systems thinking and appeals to the diverse social and environmental conditions the city has to offer.. sometimes I feel the dilemma and contradiction of practice as I study the philosophy of Permaculture and experiment with hydroponic growing in our studio - yet were not privileged enough to have a garden or access to space and fertile soil. I would love to hear peoples thoughts on the contradictions in solutions.
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Permalink Reply by Green Horizon on -
One important aspect of this discussion is that you can decide to become hydro gardener TOMORROW , but doing permaculture take YEARS (on average it takes about 5-7 years to render the typical soil into something optimum for a garden using composting and so on.) It also takes access to an extensive outdoor space and nobody has shown me you can grow as intensively using permaculture as with hydroponics.
I deal with the issue of embodied energy by using lots of materials savesd fromt he waste stream and using resuseable hydro media (hydroton, perlite) or sustainable ones (sand, sawdust, coconut coir).
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