SPARK architects came up with the Homefarm project - a residential complex for the elderly with all the necessary infrastructure, a market, ponds and beds for growing fruits and vegetables.
A bold conceptual project, as conceived by the authors, will help solve several urgent problems of the city-island-state of Singapore. First, it will provide the growing contingent of retirees with affordable housing and create a comfortable “living environment” for them. According to forecasts, by 2030 one in five Singaporeans will be over 65 years old (for comparison, in 1990 the proportion was 6%). Secondly, it offers a solution to environmental and food problems through green terraces, roofs and vertical vegetable gardens where fresh vegetables and fruits will grow, which can then be sold in the market planned on the ground floor, which will provide residents with income.
Singapore, a small state in southeast Asia, is a relatively small, fully urbanized city without a “hinterland” and therefore has to import more than 90% of the food it needs. In addition, it is constantly striving to reduce its already low CO2 emissions. The Homefarm project is in line with the political and social aspirations of the local leadership, serving as a relevant proposal for the sustainable development of the city and a social message for the creation of a self-sufficient community of retirees.
The project, designed by SPARK Architects and led by Director Stephen Pimbley, won the "Experimental" Future Projects category at the 2015 Singapore World Architecture Festival. According to Pimbley, this concept
spawned the news that more diapers for adults are sold in Japan than for babies - as clearly demonstrated by the "aging" of the population in Asia. This is how the project of a new generation of housing for the elderly was born. The complex is designed for implementation in Singapore, but can be built in any other metropolis with a climate favorable for vertical gardening, Pimbley emphasizes. So, now negotiations are underway with Malaysian developers about the possible construction of the first Homefarm in Kuala Lumpur.
Architects from Spark hope that their idea will spark a discussion about the mixing of two completely different spheres - urban (housing of different levels for the elderly) and country life (high-tech gardens-vegetable gardens - according to the principle
aquaponics). The Homefarm residential complex will allow retirees to live like on a farm, work in the beds for their pleasure (as many hours a day as they like), but at the same time remain in the urban environment, surrounded by all the necessary infrastructure, be a part of society - and close in interests community.
300 apartments of different sizes (from 36 m2 to 165 m2) are designed to accommodate from two to eight people each. According to Pimbley, his own small study showed that it is customary in Asia to live with parents, so the complex features large apartments, these are the so-called apartments for three generations ranging from 127 to 165 m2 for eight people and "apartments with a double key" (89 up to 124 m2) with two access points for 6 people. Still, most of them are studio apartments (216 out of 300) for one elderly couple.
The complex is a curvilinear 8-storey block with housing and long terraced gardens, which stands on five 3-storey podiums, grouped around a garden in the middle and connected by passages. An agricultural center, a market, a supermarket of natural products, health and welfare centers, a library, a kindergarten, and a trading floor are provided at different levels of the complex. There are four drainage basins and an entrance to the underground parking outside the perimeter of the complex.
Gardens in the project are presented in three versions - one vertical and two horizontal, with ordinary beds. A vertical farm with a total area of 7,500 m2, operating according to the aquaponics system, is located directly on the facades of the courtyard. A 5,800 m2 traditional soil farm is on the podium. And small linear narrow beds (total area 1500 m2) are arranged on terraces along the perimeter of street facades and on the podium railings. According to estimates by the creators of Homefarm, the gardens are designed for 170.5 (full-time) and 341 (part-time) jobs, and the elderly residents of the complex will be led by experts in the field of agriculture.
Homefarm is not only a green, but also a "green" project: it provides devices for the collection and further use of rainwater, it is supposed to use plant waste as a source of energy - as fuel for a biomass power plant. The farmland is modeled on Singapore's urban ComCrop farm, which operates on the rooftop of the SCAPE complex * on Central Orchard Road.
