Lady LUX

Buildings from city to city around the globe are incorporating green approaches into urban living, which even includes using the roof!

That’s right, one of the largest trends has been to utilize the extra square footage of the buildings and turn them into community farms. Allowing for easy access to organic produce right in your own neighborhood and helping the environment. What could be a better LUX-combination?

One of the major contributors to this growing movement of rooftop farms includes restaurants. One of the most popular eateries who has taken this concept and fully actualized it to sustain the restaurants production is called Uncommon Ground. They‘ve literally transformed their 2500 sq. foot roof to incorporate fresh, organic produce into every meal!

“We just used the peppers from the garden and stuffed them with chorizo. When things from the farm are ready, we’ll incorporate it however we can. I come up once a day to see what’s ripe and ready. We work a lot with local farmers and it’s one thing to go to the farmers markets and get produce knowing it was picked a day or two before. But to be able to come up here and immediately put it into use is mind-boggling.” –said Uncommon Ground Executive Chef Brian Millman.

Another neat example of this new eco-approach is in Toronto at the LUX location of the Fairmont Royal York. Here they’ve focused their efforts on creating a 4,000 sq. ft rooftop garden of herbs and vegetables that incorporates the freshness factor into every bite!

With rooftops farms becoming more and more popular some expect future buildings to be built with these eco-living concepts in mind. So we might just see this trend become the new must-have sooner than we think!

This new concept also has a positive effect on helping to cool and heat the buildings. You see in the winter it provides more heat to stay in the building and in the summer it stays cooler. As you can see, rooftop farms will surely become the new penthouse view of our eco-future!

So LUXies, what do you think about utilizing rooftop space for eco-farms? Would having access to fresh produce and vegetables entice you to support more green concepts for your building?

Tagged in: sustainability, restaurants, herbs, rooftop farms, uncommon ground, vegetables, organic food,