The Urban Agricultural Unit
Redesigning A Mobile Hydroponic Greenhouse
Scalable | Adaptable | Educational
This group project partnered RISD graduate students with local community groups. I worked with two classmates, Justin Couch and Meng-Tin Kao, to redesign the Urban Agricultural Unit (UAU), a shipping trailer that a group of providence artists had converted into a mobile hydroponic greenhouse. Anna Shapiro, the organization's leader, was frustrated with the limitations of the trailer and wanted to re-imagine the trailer’s construction. Our team spent two weeks working with Anna to design a mobile, flexible, and scaleable model that was more in line with her project’s goals.
A PHYSICAL DIAGRAM: We divided the UAU into three modules based on Anna's desire for the UAU to an educational tool. Each module serves as a physical diagram of it's function in the larger system: A globe for growing, a water tower for urban water supplies, and a Mar's Curiosity like rover for power and diagnostics.
FLEXIBLE LOCATIONS: Breaking the UAU into function-based modules also made for a more flexible, adaptable system. Now the UAU wasn't limited to parking lots with power and water supplies--it could be in places like backyards, community gardens, rooftops, and fire escapes.
SCALABLE: The UAU also became a more scalable growing solution. One unit might serve one or two people, but as demands grow, a community could add more units.
ADAPTING TO AVAILABLE RESOURCES: A building with an existing solar array could skip the power module and hook grow units and water units into their grid. For locations where solar is feasible, users could replace solar arrays with wind turbines (or any other energy source).
HYDROPONIC CONVERSION: For users with an existing growing space (such as a greenhouse), the water and power units could be used to covert the the existing system into a hydroponic system.
MOBILE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE: Trailer transport makes it easy to do one-day visits to local schools, or one unit could be shared by an entire school district and moved to a new school each term.
