Building an Ecosystem: Integrating Rooftop Aquaponics with a Brewery to Advance the Circular Economy

By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities and consume 80% of the global food supply. As the changing climate exacerbates pressure on all sectors of the economy, new frameworks for resource management in urban areas have been introduced. The food-water-energy nexus and the circular economy are two prominent examples; these conceptual frameworks recognize that resources consumed by cities are finite and intricately interdependent. In alignment with these ideas, professionals in the built environments shoulder a significant responsibility to design future buildings, neighborhoods, and cities that can sustain themselves while exerting minimal impact on the surrounding environment. The supply and consumption of food, water, and energy in future cities have, therefore become an architectural problem – and an opportunity for designers to contribute to a more significant societal shift. As cities transform to manage the food-water-energy nexus sustainably, architectural design that is intimately involved with the industrial processes that buildings host can play a crucial role in closing the urban resource loop. Urban agriculture projects, such as aquaponics, that depend on technological innovation and an ecosystem approach are becoming more common. In the interest of achieving a fully circular urban economy, aquaponic farms’ inputs and outputs can be integrated with those of other urban facilities. Through literature and case study review, this paper investigates the potential integration of aquaponic greenhouses with brewery spaces to make use of the circular nature of this growing system. Potential resources that can be linked between integrated greenhouse aquaponic growing and brewing include water, heat and energy, and organic matter. Careful design and a wide range of innovative technologies can be used to recycle growing and brewing process byproducts and reduce the overall energy and water demand while producing fish, crops, and beer.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.108.5

Volume Editors

ISBN
978-1-944214-26-5