HYPERNATURE
Made for the World Design Capital Valencia 2022, in collaboration with Non-Architecture, Hypernature is the vision for the future of agriculture. It considers the utopian and dystopian side of tomorrow, where the city either continues with the same type of agriculture, drying the entire region, or it reinvents itself and uses design and architecture to be in sync with Nature.
How to deal with the impact of agriculture?
And how to feed an ever growing world population?
In order to recover the land’s original ecosystems, we started to imagine ways of increasing the surface without impacting the ground.
With everything concentrated in slim towers, the site can remain untouched.
Vertical farming is an existing method but only in very small scales. It relies on machinery and computers that render the entire production automatic.
Without human error, the entire process is totally efficient - better use of electricity, water and other means - to generate any type of food in any place with the minimum of resources.
What will the future look like?
Everything will depend on how we use water.
The Horta can remain a symbol and an integral part of the Valencia context. The entire region can become protected and production can even be reduced to a level that impacts biodiversity the least.
With regulated agriculture on the Horta, the ecosystems can continue to support wildlife. And towers with designs inspired by plants, that could produce any type of vegetable or fruit and even be used for other purposes, such as collecting water or harvesting solar and wind power.