With 132 floors, this planned 600-meter high futuristic curved building in the sky over Manhattan shall be a monolith of environmental design. At first glance, it looks like a gigantic sailboat that landed on the East River. It will also usher in the return of the hanging gardens. Agricultural fields will be designed to occupy 28 floors.

Its façade is translucent, finely veined, and showcases floors of gardens, rice fields, orchards, and meadows – all suspended. This ‘metabolic farm program for urban agriculture’ is called “Dragonfly” by its designer Franco-Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut. The project was unveiled in early May.

The project of vertical farm using an experimental design is intended to help address a global challenge to double the production of food in the next forty years to feed 9 billion people. By 2050, the earth will have an estimated 3 billion extra mouths to feed. Addressing this need with traditional farming will require a staggering addition of a billion hectares of new crops.

Another rising global challenge is urbanization as two-thirds of humanity is expected to live in cities in the near future. Too many people flock to the world’s cities and eventually suffer from hunger. The proposed solution of overlaying crops in vertical farms within cities seems to be a viable proposition. Here lies the radical transition of urban agriculture that is developing around the globe. The phenomenon of city farms has caught the interest of people as seen through such projects in the slums of Nairobi, on the periphery of Paris, as well as the roofs of houses in Tokyo.

Via designboom