Keep on developing ideas on Urban Farm

What is Urban Farm? What are the benefits of Urban Farm? Can Las Vegas sustain an Urban Farm? Can Las Vegas benefit from Urban Farm? As I was learning more about farming in the city, I realized that it is more than just growing fruits, vegetables and flowers in your backyard. It is even more than understanding how to prepare soil or take care of the plants like an expert. The Urban Farming provides not only food, but food that is fresh, healthy and most importantly, locally grown and not brought from someplace else with added preservatives. Urban farms, as seen in other cities, have provided not only fresh and healthy food, but also promoted healthy living, empowered people and enriched neighborhoods and city environments, because residents of those cities were exposed to firsthand experience of farming, educational classes, hand-on workshops and training all in effort to better themselves and others.
Before Las Vegas became what it is today, it used to be an area where people farmed certain crops to feed their animals and grew vegetable and fruits for their own and their family’s use. With time, however, the farm gave way to 24/7 entertainment, hotels and casinos and today, only several people still grow small quantities of vegetables or fruits and only as a hobby and not as a lifestyle. I would like to change that and would like to increase the scale of how much people grow in their backyard to a scale of city wide. I would like farming to be a lifestyle once again.
Bringing farming back to Las Vegas Valley is important to me as well as raising awareness and informing people of possibilities of growing their own goods and educating them on how to start farming and gardening, how to pick the right type of plants to plant, how to take care of plants and even how to process freshly harvested goods. It is also important to take an opportunity, raise awareness about our environment and educate people about sustainability, such as how to use solar power, which Las Vegas desert has plenty and also about how to conserve water by recycling water and efficiently harvesting rainwater, because water in Las Vegas is scares. Farming is important to me, because I have experienced it growing up. I was born and raised in an environment where we grew our vegetables and fruits in our yard. I also spent many summers at my grandparents’ farm where fresh goods were placed on our table right from the farm and without even realizing, especially recently, I started to compare that environment with the one I currently live in, the desert of Las Vegas, and I know that people would love to experience what I have as I was growing up.
Many might question if my intensions are right since many believe that nothing can grow in the harsh environment of the desert, but they are wrong, because it has been done. Many countries of similar climatic conditions have been farming for centuries and even cities in the United States, and even in the Mojave Desert have been Urban Farming for decades and have been successful.
The question is, can Las Vegas sustain an Urban Farm? Absolutely. Can Las Vegas benefit from Urban Farm? Absolutely. Las Vegas Valley could become the city where people eat fresh and locally grown foods, live a healthier lifestyle in neighborhoods that have been enriched because there is an urban farm next door, because they can grow their own vegetables and fruits or buy them at the nearby farmers’ market, because they can order food at the restaurant that is established on Urban Farm or enjoy their day at work office with the window that opens up into an Urban Farm and better yet, they can also share all of this with people who are visiting from other city. Residents of Las Vegas can be empowered because of the improved environment.

Urban Farm-here are some examples I looked at for my sketch problem

Possible Locations

Diagram of the Las Vegas. Where are the locals? Where do visitors go? Where can one see locals and visitors? Where are the possible locations for urban farm?

Scale and Location of Urban Farm

I was reading Chapter 9: The Inner City from Suburban Nation book by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck. The chapter was about how to improve city centers to attract more people by perhaps offering similar amenities as suburbs offer. The chapter is really not even related to urban farming, but it made me think about the scale and location of the farm. Even though a model community sounds like a great idea, I do not want to encourage suburban sprawl even more. I though to myself, what is the point of growing your vegetables if you still need to drive someplace in the city to the market to sell them (in case you grown more than you need for your own use) or even if you have market within walking distance, people from elsewhere would have to get there. Even more, how do they know where to go?
Previously, I also mentioned that I would not want a typical hotel/ casino setting (scale) since people would not experience farming firsthand, and therefore locals would not benefit from it. Therefore, I am almost certain that the scale I am going to go with is going to be something in the middle, something in between the residential neighborhood (which is for locals) and something that is in form of a typical Las Vegas hotel/ casino (which is for visitors, although one will always find locals there).
The medium/ middle between the two would provide the best of the opposite worlds. It would be the area where locals live and work, close to the city center, yet enjoy the amenities that a suburb house could provide, the yard. Visitors on the other hand would be welcome to stay at the farm ( thinking about living units that could be rented). The farm could easily become visitors' attraction, like attractions that typical casino such as fountain show at the Bellagio, the volcano at the Mirage or gardens at the MGM Grand. Locals end up at the strip for those attractions as well. The setting would definitely be known.

Reading: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

I just started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and I am only done with intro and currently on page 19, but I am finding this book very useful and helpful. Previously, I wrote that I am thinking about incorporating food processing plant (small scale, depending on scale of the project) and now I am becoming more and more interested (I almost wish I did not start reading this book, because all of the food I see, all I can think about is the amount of corn in it).

I can see how people wanting to know what is inside their food and I think that by showing them how some foods are made, "in a good way" will raise awareness and educate them that urban farm can solve some of the problems.


Back to the book. Author writes about chain of food and that all of the products in the supermarket have them, some short and some long. For example, potato bag says that they been grown in Idaho, or onions in Texas which creates short chain and is easy to track. On the other hand, there is meat and this is where chains become longer. There is no label on the meat saying that meat came from animal that was born in South Dakota and raised in Kansas and fed on grains grown in Iowa. Even foods that are simple have long chains if you start to think about it. How was dry-creamer made? There has to be something grown somewhere. And then, there is corn. According to the author of the book, there are about 45,000 items in an average supermarket and about 25% of all of these have corn in it. All of this really makes me wonder where our food is coming from, whats in it and how it is made...this I think, makes the idea or urban farming and even on-site processing plant stronger.

Getting ideas out-What scale should it be?

The idea of bringing farming back to Las Vegas area is one of the main focuses of my thesis. The second important idea is to make people aware that it is possible and educate them on how to start farming/ gardening even to small scale. The idea developed because I compared the environments where I live now and where I grew up and used to live. The climate is different; therefore, it is going to be a challenge to figure all out.
I grew up in the environment where we had our own vegetables and fruit in our yards. It was just enough for family’s use and not to the scale of selling it, although my grandparents lived on farm and produced a lot of produce. I experienced farming/ gardening at two different scales, therefore, at this point I still need to decide on scale of the project for my thesis.
Before Las Vegas became what it is today, it used to be an area where people farmed certain crops, however, with time it disappeared and today only some people grow a little bit of vegetables and fruit for their use. I would like to, therefore, increase the scale of how much people grow in their backyards to the scale of community wide or city wide.
For this thesis, to determine scale is important early on since the size and the program will vary. If I choose community size scale, I would be looking in designing a model community of urban farming. A model which could be applied to any community. However, the challenge would be not only architecture of the community, but also issues such as how to raise awareness, how to let people know that it is there, how to expand the idea beyond the city limits? Also, since water in Las Vegas is scarce, would grey water from surrounding houses would be enough for irrigation? Would there be enough people/ families to start composting that is effective for fertilization? In a model community I would also be looking into program beyond housing. Education is important to make urban farm work. Program such as educational center would become crucial, but how should it be incorporated to not be boring with number of classrooms and office and effective? Herb suggested incorporating small food processing plant as part of education center since today more than ever people are interested in knowing where their food is coming from or how it is made.
Second option is to design urban farm of the bigger scale, perhaps in a form of hotel/ casino. Raising awareness and expanding beyond city would become less of the challenge, while architecture would. It would be used not only by visitors but also by locals (but to what extend?). Program would need to include places not only for visitors to rent, but also for locals to live in if locals to be involved, because if it is just a hotel/ casino, as there are many on the strip, locals would try to avoid it. Besides, hotel/ casino would be entirely in charge of the farm and locals would not be experiencing it firsthand. The benefit of such scale, however, would include larger amounts of grey water for irrigation, restaurants and cafes would produce enough waste to have composting plant on site. Overall, larger variety of vegetables and fruit could be grown, while food processing plant could include more machinery for wider variety of foods and the entire experience would be educational.
Besides the scale of the project, picking the right site is important. At this point, I feel that smaller scale project could be located anywhere while larger scale project would have to be located somewhere near or in-between tourists’ destinations.
Another important portion of thesis is understanding agriculture. Since desert is not like most other places where farming and gardening is natural, it is important to understand what grows best and when. Desert has only two seasons therefore, the growing seasons vary.