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jin-ho kim
Diploma 16

My design proposal of the project is urban rice farming villa in Philippines, exploiting advanced farming method, vertical growth of the design would reinterpret current urban living strategy. Responding one of current global issues, which is food shortage, the project is aiming to achieve new type of urban agricultural life in a city.

Rice is one of major staple foods especially in East Asia. In the world, there are about 3 billion people who rely on rice as their major source of food. In 2025, the world's rice eaters are expected to hit 3.9 billion. It is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production. In modern life, processing, packaging, transportation and storage enabled convenience of gaining food, saved time and reduced labour. However the system caused a disassociation between the food producer and product, and between rural supplier and urban consumer. The consequence of this disassociation is that we, as consumers, are not seeing the clear effects of climate change and energy shortage on food production. Metro Manila is the capital city of Philippines. Rising population and shortage of cropland is one of the biggest issues now. In 2015 the boundary of Metro Manila is projected to expand to twice its size. The implication of issues has made the poor more hungry and informal settlers have to live in urban leftover space, dump sites and along the uneven riverside. Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil or an aggregate medium. While typical farming is prone to confront geographic and topographic limitations of environment, using different medium, aeroponic enables the farming in soilless space. Aeroponic needs only 1/8 of water compared to typical farming so that there is less concern about climate change. Both natural and artificial light can be a sauce for photosynthesis in aeroponics. The Ifugao people practise traditional farming, spending most of their labour time at their terraces and forest lands while occasionally tending to root crop cultivation. The Ifugao have also been known to culture edible shells, fruit trees, and other vegetables which have been common among Ifugaos for generations and earth, designed to draw water from a main irrigation canal above the terrace clusters. Indigenous rice terracing technologies have been identified with the Ifugao's rice terraces such as their knowledge of water irrigation, stonework, earthwork and terrace maintenance. As their source of life and art, the rice terraces have sustained and shaped the lives of the community members.A barangay (Filipino: baranggay, [baraɡaj]), also known by its former Spanish adopted name, the barrio, is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines and is the native Filipino term for a village, district or ward. Barangays are further subdivided into smaller areas called Puroks (English: zone). A sitio is a territorial enclave inside a barangay, especially in rural areas. Municipalities and cities are composed of barangays. In place names barangay is sometimes abbreviated as Brgy.¡± or Bgy. At 31 December 2006 there were a total of 41,995 barangays throughout the Philippines.In contemporary aeroponics, one thing to be carefully considered for back up the system is its continuous irrigation path. If one part of irrigation system fails, the rest of it fails too. So multiple branch design that is stretched to different ends would prevent total system failure. Locating the project on one of urban leftover area near the river, Irrigation and drainage system of the design would alleviate the rapid increase of water level of the river, and job opportunities would become available to local poverty groups. Based on topographic condition, transport and logistics circulation in a relationship with existing context and access to the main road would shape a frame of the village. Each house is inhabited according to the contextual parameters and public spaces between houses will be facilitated.Responding to hot weather in the Philippines, in order to maximize ventilation and cool breezing, most of the design space is devoted to open spaces and lifted up from ground level. Also sunlight coming through the structure to the field was another important consideration of the design.Aeroponic fields create shade, therefore main living space is located under the field to allow the resident to live actively in hot weather throughout the year.