Urban Farming is a Trendy New Condo Amenity That Could Have Much Greater Benefits
Sourced from Streets of Toronto
Condominium amenities used to be fairly simple. There was a party room, maybe a fitness centre. Then things changed when condo living took off. Now, the latest amenity not only fills a void often associated with sky-high living — namely, getting your hands dirty in fresh soil and growing things — it not only benefits those who use it, but could turn out to offer greater benefits for the city at large.
Call it urban farming or rooftop gardening, but it is, ahem, growing like a weed.
Joe Nasr, PhD and certificate instructor and associate researcher at Ryerson University, is an independent scholar, lecturer and consultant based in Toronto who has been exploring urban agriculture and food security issues for 25 years.
He says the trend of growing food on building rooftops is now taking off, but has been here for the better part of two decades.
And it’s one that extends well beyond residential building rooftops. But this is an area that is expanding.
Waterfront Toronto recently gave the city its first look at the upcoming Quayside development and jaws collectively dropped. Not just as a result of the scale of the development, but also the forward-thinking nature of the buildings and amenities. One thing that stood out as a growing trend that could have many benefits for the city and its residents is urban farming.
The world-class development, located on a 12-acre site at the foot of Parliament Street and Lake Shore Boulevard East, will be the country’s first all-electric, zero-carbon master plan. Following an international search, Waterfront Toronto announced that it will begin negotiations with Dream Unlimited Corp. (Dream) and Great Gulf Group, known as Quayside Impact Limited Partnership, for developing the downtown Toronto site.
From the Living Architecture Monitor
