The Neighborly Garden

This vertical urban farming project aims to reintroduce agriculture into the city and, by doing so, to represent an incentive at the architectural scale that has the potential to adapt and expand to an urban dimension. A timber structural grid is designed to elaborate on Japan’s tradition of wood construction. The building and program are also attempts to energize the neighborhood and render the city more accessible and more democratic. Conceived as a place for social interaction, it includes an organic food restaurant and a market with fresh fruit and vegetables on the lower levels, followed by four levels of production areas. These programs have the potential to bridge the gap between the elderly and the younger population within the community by serving as an educational hub.