Rostlaube | Rooftop Farming

What once used to hold freight and cargo has now begun a second life as a homestead for plants and fish. It sounds almost like a sustainability fairy tale.

The container houses a school of carps in its botton half and a modular greenhouse on top where tomatoes and lettuce grow. The fish's water is used to irrigate the plants, with the animal waste (Ammonium) acting as a natural fertilizer (Nitrite and Nitrate, after the water's natural bacteria are done with it). The filtered water is then led back into the bottom tank. Only the fish food is brought in from outside the natural cycle, and the power that is right now being used to power the pump will soon be going solar.

“The container farm covers about two thirds of a family's daily requirements for vegetables and their entire need for fish” explains press spokeswoman Nina Zillmann. But with a height of over five meters and a weight topping three tons, this urban farm probably won't fit on most people's balconies, unless you have a roof top or a large garden with enough space. 

For now, the “Rostlaube” remains a prototype. It was developed by a group called Urban Farmers, a research project at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Wädenswil. Frank Sippel, the malt factory's executive director - who is Swiss himself - brought it to Berlin. He wants to establish his factory as a site for sustainability with the helpf of so-called Green Steps, small steps to lead to a long term functioning of the factory grounds as one giant organism. He's already started employing green power by Düsseldorf based pioneers naturstrom and has already bought up  a fallow meadow next to the factory which he plans to turn into a biotope.

(azi)