preliminary I

VERTICAL FARM 

BRIEF: Who would feel the greatest impact in a post-oil society?

Almost 80% of Africa is fighting starvation and famine. This is due to a variety of reasons, ranging from internal conflicts, crop disease, excessive heat, followed by excessive droughts due to climate changes. Additionally, the west coast of Africa greatly depends on oil for their economy. Without this major source of income, these struggling countries in Africa will need to diversify and come up with new solutions.  

In a post-oil society, we would be left with thousands of abandoned oil rigs. These steel structures can easily be re-purposed into efficient vertical farms. This would provide a controlled environment suitable for producing large amounts of food for countries in famine as well as provide another source of economy. 

Although the oil rig I have chosen is located in the Gulf of Mexico, it would serve as a valuable prototype in vertical farming. This prototype would eventually be translated into a typology that could be implemented by other abandoned oil rigs. 

In respect to cost, the steel trusses would be recycled from other abandoned oil rigs and re-used to develop the vertical farms. The vertical farming systems would consist of melted down recycled steel. The majority of the vertical farm is open to sunlight since glass can be an expensive resource and reduce the amount of sun exposure available for the plants.