While many of the schemes succeed in bringing food production closer to where it's consumed, they are still too energy inefficient to serve as viable models. The Urban Food Jungle is a conceptual design that responds to diminishing food security and the inefficiencies of classic urban farming models by interconnecting sustainable food production, entertainment, and culinary delight. This “aquaponic” system not only grows organic fruit and vegetables, but freshwater fish too—one nourishing the other in a sustainable, high yield system.

A series of pools are used to raise the fish, generating nutrient-rich water as a by-product. This is circulated to the top of dramatic sculptural columns, fertilizing a variety of plants as they filter and clean the water on its descent back to the ponds, creating a lush edible canopy. This adaptable system has the potential to become a decentralized network of food production, analogous to having your own fuel cell. It lends itself to be modified and embedded within the existing urban fabric in a variety of forms, including in double-height lobbies, sky gardens in tall buildings, and outer-skins or green wall on buildings and structures.

The Urban Food Jungle is a unique solution as it rehabilitates the existing urban fabric in a strategic and sustainable manner whilst maintaining the intrinsic efficiencies of urban density.