INTEGRATION OF VARIOUS NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SYSTEMS WITH EMPHASIS ON MODIFIED AQUAPONICS METHOD FOR LARGE SCALE PRODUCTION OF VEGETABLES AND FISH

Abstract

As a small country with limited natural resources, Singapore imports over 90% of its food requirement for its 5 million inhabitants. The global peak oil and energy descent scenario would pose a threat to food importing nations like Singapore, since the modern food system is both highly centralised and almost entirely dependent on oil. But more worrying is the fact that the key food products are imported from just one or two sources. Hence any disruption in production to any of its key supplier countries could have significant consequences to the food security of Singapore. In the wake of energy descent and due to such overwhelming dependency on external food sources, certain long‐term strategies have to be evolved to ensure food resilience for Singapore’s growing population. It is also learnt that, with a small change in the eating habits and diet patterns of its inhabitants, Singapore can produce as much as 75% of its per capita consumption, locally. As a response to the emerging movement toward more self sufficient communities and resilience to centralised system of food supply, this thesis focuses on the development of a prototype urban farm typology that is perceived as a decentralised essential infrastructure within cities. The idea is to have a decentralised multi‐scaled network of food production centres across various parts of Singapore which are managed and served to a localised neighbourhood population. The project seeks an alternative architectural approach that combines the benefits of diverse nature based systems with the efficiency of intensive food production and the scale of an industrial farm. The outcome of the thesis is conceived to be an ecologically integrated farming paradigm where various systems, both natural and artificial, are integrated so that what is considered waste of one system can be used as the input for another.