“Exuberant architectural expression calling attention to the possibilities of insect farming”
Regional Jury Report – North America
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Modular edible insect farm, New York City, USA
Interior, housing 224 biounits for 22,000 crickets. Modular bio-units designed to fulfill cricket specific spatial needs, allowing them to thrive and reproduce within the system, and providing appropriate spaces for hibernation, easy harvesting, feeding, sorting the young from the old, breeding, and longitudinal circulation. As a modular unit it is accessible as a community agricultural tool, adaptable to any existing urban space: community gardens, empty lots, rooftops, and waterfronts.
Last updated: June 24, 2017 Vancouver, Canada
This pavilion is a demonstration of an urban farming system that minimizes the ecological footprint of protein- rich food production. Animal meat production is extremely resource intensive. This project proposes an alternative that emits just 1 % of the greenhouse gas emissions and requires 0.001 % of the land to produce the same amount of protein annually when compared to beef production. The interconnected pods that comprise the structure include cricket habitats and their water and food supply connected via circulation tubes. The modular construction educates consumers on the use of the farming apparatus, which ultimately envisions a food supply chain decoupled from environmental destruction.
As provocative as this entry might seem, it is nonetheless commended by the jury for its radical approach to food systems. The project should be seen as a provocation to the status quo of meat production, which is carbon intensive. It proposes a form of protein that is less carbon intensive. The exuberant architectural expression was understood by the jury as a means of calling attention to the possibilities of insect farming, making it appear sanitary and futuristic, if not yet palatable.