Conventional agriculture is depleting global resources at an alarming rate. The industry uses half of the world’s habitable land and a third of its fresh water. To find a solution, Simon David, founding principal of the New York firm OSD Outside, looked to an unlikely inspiration: the big-box store. Because they are high-volume, high-concentration units, massive greenhouses can grow food more efficiently than sprawling outdoor farms. And while your traditional big-box store is a soulless structure, hostile to community and culture, the urban farm doesn’t have to be. Farm to City is a 9,300-square-metre urban-farming complex to be built for agricultural company Gotham Greens in such a building, albeit repurposed, in Providence, Rhode Island. It will produce food sustainably in the middle of the city, where demand is high. But the greenhouses won’t reside in a desolate complex of concrete and steel. Instead, they will be surrounded by orchards, forests, picnic stations and hiking trails.

Project Farm to City Firm OSD Outside (U.S. ) Team Simon David with Christopher Gates, Metto Runner, Martin Amaro, Daniela Andino, Heitman and DiPrete Engineering