With the Smart Food Campus project we repurposed an abandoned cement factory into a lively, green, ultra-sustainable food production and distribution hub.
The core of the project is the high tech vertical farms housed in the silos. Once a cement storage, the structure is given a new life and a chance to redeem its carbon-heavy past. In the new, carbon neutral annex made of mass timber and glass is a dark store: a food distribution hub dedicated to online orders. From there, EVs will deliver regular supermarket goods and also the produce grown next door, with the shortest farm-to-table distance available in Iceland. On the opposite side of the silos is the food startup incubator, which will have opportunities to collaborate with both the farms and the distribution hub. On the ground floor and accessible to the general public there is a food court, a farmers market, a zero-kilometre restaurant and a few other attractions for the neighbourhood.
The Smart Food Campus will promote locally grown and produced food in a country that has very limited farming possibilities due to its climate. It will provide Icelanders a chance to eat fresher, more nutritious food with a much lower carbon footprint. It will also be an accessible entry point for food entrepreneurs and a stage for community engagement in the world of high tech and hyper local food.
Rendered images: Rosario Badessa
Powered by waterfalls and hot springs, Iceland has for decades been in the forefront of sustainable energy production. But while the country’s geology provides abundant energy resources, its climate conditions impose limitations on open field agriculture. Dependency on imports adds cost and a huge carbon footprint to Iceland’s nourishment.
Smart Food Campus will be the launch pad for Iceland’s self-sufficient and sustainable food future. High-yield and commercially viable urban farming, combined with a food startup incubator and a smart logistics hub, will create the synergy to develop and introduce new and hyper local food products. With its own food hall, restaurant, gardens and sky deck the Campus is bound to become the hearth of the new neighbourhood, inviting to socialize and celebrate food culture.
The project will repurpose the abandoned factory into a lively, green, ultra-sustainable food production and distribution hub. If concrete has contributed to the scarring of our climate since Roman times, there could be no better way for an old cement factory to find redemption.