GROW Housing By Gordon Graff

GROW Housing
By Gordon Graff

 

 

Table of Contents
Executive Summary.....................................
Introduction................................................
GROW Housing System................................
GROW Housing Components
Vertical Farm......................................
Methane Digester................................
Living Machine....................................
Community Gardens............................
Geothermal Pump...............................
The Rent‐To‐Own Model...............................
Appendix....................................................

Executive Summary
The GROW Housing project seeks to establish a new model for urban development ‐ one which
utilizes an innovative sustainable design strategy to facilitate the creation of affordable housing.
The model was developed to mimic the cyclical flow of resources exhibited by the natural
world. To create this system, a vertical farm, Living Machine®, and methane digester have been
merged with a residential development with a population of 1,000 people.
Key Features
• The creation of rent‐to‐own housing for 500 residents, with an equal number of market
value housing units.
• on‐site growth of 100% of residents dietary needs from Vertical Farm
• on‐site generation of all power needs by converting community bio‐waste and farm
waste into electricity via a methane digester
• Street‐level commercial space on Queen and Jarvis Streets to improve the
neighbourhood streetscape, stimulate the local economy and provide jobs
• Geothermal Heat Pump system provides entire site with heating and cooling needs,
therein massively reducing the energy demands of the site with surplus heating and
cooling needs to the neighbouring arena and community centre generating thousands
of dollars in annual savings for the City of Toronto
• Geothermal Heating is extremely cost effective over the life‐span of the system,
providing a real financial advantage.
• A Living Machine® closes the water cycle of the project, enabling the reuse of all
rainwater and waste water from the site. Solid biological waste will be filtered and
directed to the methane digester for power production
• on‐site processes of ALL biological waste generated by residents and farming
operations.
• Creation of over 5,300 m2 of rooftop community gardens
• Bio‐waste collection program allows local processing of ‘green bin’ waste, which is used
to generate additional power needs via the methane digester
• The Vertical Farm, and community bio‐waste collection programs would generate many
low‐skill jobs for the community
• Farm produce available for community purchasing through the ground floor grocery
store.

 

Introduction
The GROW Housing project seeks to establish a new model for urban development ‐ one which
utilizes an innovative sustainable design strategy to facilitate the creation of affordable housing.
Taking a cue from ecosystem dynamics, the model was developed to mimic the natural process
where by waste of one entity becomes the food of another, creating an efficient cyclical flow of
resources. The long‐term financial gains enabled by this energy and resource efficiency enables
GROW Housing to offer a financially sustainable affordable housing solution.
Presently, urban buildings require a wide array of networks to distribute the services essential
to sustain human life. Without the delivery of safe drinking water, fresh food, and electricity
for environmental temperature control, conventional urban buildings would be inhospitable to
humans. These networks must also efficiently dispose of the waste and refuse we generate in
order to preserve a healthy living environment. It is remarkable to think of the distances these
materials arrive from, and are carried to, simply to facilitate urban living. Truly, modern urban
buildings are strict consumers; completely dependent on the centralized distribution network
for sustenance, and completely unconnected to (and unaware of) their external effect on the
biosphere.
In the face of this common disposition of urban buildings, the GROW Housing project seeks to
propose a new model for urban residential development. By relying less on the centralized
distribution network and more on localized self‐sufficiency, residents of GROW Housing will
realize a more profound connection to the life‐cycle of their consumed resources. Moreover,
localizing the production of food, filtration of water, generation of power, and processing of
waste establishes a cradle‐to‐cradle (or cyclical) flow of resources that greatly enhances the
ecological sustainability of urban living. Fewer food imports are required, and less waste needs
to be exported, meaning the development requires virtually no increase of service
transportation. To lower GROW Housing’s energy demands, it employs a geothermal heat
pump to produce all hot water, heating, and cooling needs for its residents, as well as
architectural devices that reduce the need for artificial lighting. Besides the requirement to
import municipality approved potable water, GROW Housing is not only completely selfsufficient,
but actually a force that lowers the ecological impact of the neighbourhood at large.
Additionally, it is impossible to overstate the significance of GROW Housing’s position as the
first high‐density residential building in a downtown core to produce 100% of its resident’s food
requirements on site.

 

Site Analysis
Located just east of Toronto’s downtown core, Moss Park is
bordered by Queen Street, Jarvis Street, Shuter Street, and
Sherbourne Street. Undoubtedly, it is one of the most eclectic
neighbourhoods in Toronto’s urban tapestry. High‐end stores,
art galleries, and restaurants intermingle with all the illegal
activities that typify economically downtrodden urban areas.
Moss Park was originally the heart of Toronto’s industrial area.
The tightly packed tenement houses that characterised the
neighbourhood were cleared during the urban renewal programs of the 1950s and 60s, mostly
replaced by large towers surrounded by green space ‐ the infamous modern planning typology.
By the 1970s, the complete de‐industrialization of the area rendered the Moss Park
neighbourhood as one of the poorest in Toronto. Over the years, the city’s social and
temporary housing initiatives slowly accumulated in the neighbourhood due to the affordable
land and central location. Drugs, theft, and prostitution have become common sights around
the park for decades, though recent actions taken by the residents, business owners, and
Toronto Police Department have improved matters.
Mere blocks from the financial district, St. Lawrence Market, and the Eaton Centre, Moss Park is
an ideally located neighbourhood. As a result, the wider community has experienced
considerable gentrification over the past few decades. Properties in nearby Corktown and
Cabbagetown have recently become in high demand, and former industrial structures such as
the Distillery District have been converted into trendy lofts and fashionable shopping areas.
The park has one of the few baseball diamonds with lights in the downtown core, as well as a
heavily used hockey arena and recreational facility that generate considerable activity.
The building site, which is on the
west side of the park, is currently
consumed by the Moss Park
Armoury. Its considerable set-back
and stark facade are completely
disproportioate to the human-scale,
and greatly deteriorate the street life
in the area. Furthermore, the
prominent barb-wire fence
separating its lawn from that of the
park is a visual eyesore that creates
the ideal setting for drug deals and
gang loitering to take place. Its
extreme low density completely
under‐utilizes the accessibility of the
site, which includes being directly on the streetcar line and a short walk from the Queen Street subway station. All‐in‐all, the
Armoury contributes very little to a community that is in dire need of a positive intervention.

GROW Housing System

One of the great strengths of the GROW Housing model is that it does not require unproven or
highly expensive technology to enable its outstanding performance. In fact, each of the
project’s devices are quite common, with many examples existing within the GTA region alone.
Large‐scale hydroponic farming has been around for decades, with many producers in southern
Ontario. The Living Machine® wastewater treatment method has also been used for decades ‐
a version of one is currently at work in the Canada Life building just a few blocks from the
project site. Lastly, Methane Digesters are not an uncommon sight on farms in rural ontario,
converting the unused biological waste material into usable energy. They are relatively simple
technology,
However, by combining these three devices within a residential development, the linear
metabolism of resources that typifies conventional urban development can be massively
restructured, enabling extremely efficient resource usage. Moreover, the on‐site production of
enough food to sustain the development’s population, as well as the generation of all power
needs from community biological waste processing, gives the Grow Housing model a miniscule
ecological footprint with virtually no green house gases emitted for its perpetual operation.
This diagram shows the relationship
between the methane digester, vertical farm
(F), and residential buildings (R). As the farm
produces food for the residential units, large
amounts of bio‐waste are collected from the
farm’s production and fed into the methane
digester to produce electricity, powering the
artificial lighting of the farm. Additionally,
the bio‐wastes from the residents’ usage of
the food is directed to the methane digester,
producing power for their homes.

 

This diagram shows a comparison
between the ‘linear’ water
management of conventional
buildings, and the cyclical system
used in GROW Housing. The
nutrients within the wastewater
are processed by the methane
digester to produce both power
and compost, while the Living
Machine® filters the water to be
used for all non‐potable uses,
including irrigation for the
hydroponic farm.

 

GROW Housing Components
Vertical Farm
Vertical farming consists of the practice of agricultural production inside multi‐storey buildings.
The premise is derived from the desire to maximize agricultural production per area unit of
land, effectively making agriculture ‘denser’ in order to reduce the land requirements necessary
for food production. The density afforded by farming vertically enables these farms to be
located within dense urban areas, therein bringing truly local agriculture to large city centres.
When considering agricultural production is arguably the most destructive force human beings
have inflicted on the world, the logic of densifying agricultural production becomes clear.
According to the World Resources Institute, over 80% of the world’s forests have been
destroyed by human production; most of which to clear arable land for crop production or
grazing land for animals. As such, Grow Housing’s production of food for 1,000 residents yearround
saves hundreds of acres of land from conversion to agricultural production.
Essentially, the farm works by densely packing hydroponically grown produce within its 6
stories of space, all of which grow under artificial light. The usage of hydroponic crop
production as the growing medium is a fundamental component of the vertical farm. Its
minimal space requirements permit the massive densification of agricultural production to take

place, as it enables the vertical stacking of produce. Additionally, the controlled environment
enables multiple harvests per year, rather than the very limited growing season available at
Toronto’s Latitude.
One unique benefit of having a high‐density farm located within a residential development is
the ability to harness the air‐filtration properties of plant life to create an internal, natural
ventilation system. As we all know, plants absorb carbon dioxide and expel oxygen during
photosynthesis, making them natural air filters for human environments. The residential units
used air can be circulated to
the farm, absorbed by the
plants, and then returned to
the residential units with the
oxygen‐rich emissions of the
farm. This internalized system
enables a minimum of outside
‘city air’ to be brought into the
building, which, when
considering the increasing
frequency of smog days in
Toronto, could be a significant
health benefit.

Methane Digester (located within basement)
Of course, using artificial lighting to grow crops requires a large amount energy. In order to
close one resource cycle, the Vertical Farm incorporates the use of a methane digester for
power production. The digester consumes bio‐waste to produce power, using the stems,
leaves, and other inedible biological produce of the farm as fuel. Not stopping there, the
methane digester can also process all of the resident’s organic waste to contribute to their
power production, as well as that of the neighbourhood at large. While neighbourhood
residents may not benefit as directly as on‐site residents, their organic waste is being disposed
of in a local site, greatly reducing the transportation requirements for normal Green Bin
collection.
The methane digester reproduces the natural anaerobic digestion process used by bacteria to
create ideal conditions for biological decomposition. Differing greatly from the aerobic
digestion process used by composters, the anaerobic digestion process is more technically
demanding and chemically complex than the composting process, but it requires much less

space and makes far more efficient use of the organic matter. As the organic matter
decomposes, methane is released. The methane, which is 21 times more potent than carbon
dioxide in causing global warming, is captured and used for the generation of electricity. After
the material has decomposed sufficiently, it is then removed from the digester, for use as a
natural fertilizer for the rooftop gardens.
As can be examined from the calculations on page 9 – 10, the vertical farm will produce 13,492
kg of biological waste a week. Using the model generated at Columbia University directed by
Dickson Despommier, 13,492 kg of bio‐waste would produce 1,123,931 kWh of electricity per
year in a methane digester, well over half the vertical farm’s electricity usage. With the
introduction of a neighbourhood organic waste collection program to convert outside biowaste
into energy, the possibility of GROW Housing meeting 100% of its energy demands from
methane digestion seem very likely. Furthermore, the collection program would introduce
new, low‐skilled jobs to the community.

Living Machine
Continuing the theme of natural
system resource processing, GROW
Housing incorporates a Living
Machine® to filter collected rain
water, used irrigation water from
the farm, and waste water from the
residential units. This natural
wastewater treatment system uses
a series of microorganisms, flora
and aquatic life to purify the water.
The basic Living Machine includes three stages, each with different properties and tasks. The
first stage takes place in an anaerobic septic tank, the second in a closed aerobic reactor and
the third stage in an open aerobic reactor. The exact number of tanks and stages included in a
design depends on the context of the Living Machine®, how much water needs to be cleaned,
and the quality of water output required. The Worrell Water Living Machine® used in GROW
Housing is a Tidal Wetland Living Machine® with primary treatment screens. The system can
produce 40,000 gallons of water per day for the farm and non‐potable water uses for the
residential units. The system costs approximately $1.7 million to install. Over a year, the Living
Machine® provides GROW Houses with $95,656 worth of water free of charge. As such, the
system has a 17 year payoff schedule.

 

The Rent‐To‐Own Model
Located within Toronto’s social housing epicentre, on the site currently occupied by Moss Park
Armoury, GROW Housing proposes a novel strategy to provide low‐income earners affordable,
equitable housing. The strategy was conceived to introduce home ownership opportunities to
low‐income individuals who are normally forced to the rental market. This differs significantly
from the rent‐geared‐to‐income (RGI) model used predominantly for assistance housing today,
which has been criticised for propagating a system that does little to help individuals increase
their financial standing.
As such, the rent‐to‐own (RTO) model attempts to break the rental cycle by re‐directing
tenants’ would‐be rental money into a limited mortgage. This mortgage would be administered
by the non‐profit GROW Housing Association, with payment schedules flexible to a qualified
applicant’s income. In order to ensure the RTO units stay available to low‐income individuals,
the units will be transferred back into the possession of GROW Housing Association when the
tenant wishes to sell, for which they the tenant will receive the paid value of their unit plus the
incurred inflation, and minus the building fees and taxes. Though the units are not as flexible as
a free‐market unit, the rent to own system does ensure low‐income individuals can achieve the
dignity and financial advantage synonymous with home ownership.
As GROW Housing is a mixed‐use development, many different configurations of residential and
commercial space are proposed. Townhouses, condominiums, and lofts of varying sizes are
available, street level commercial along Queen and Jarvis Streets, and a commercial hydroponic
farm are the primary land uses of the development. 50% of the residential units are freemarket,
while the other 50% are RTO; each interspersed to ensure an integrated social
environment.
The building was designed as a modular construction, with easily recyclable materials to ensure
the embodied energy of the building’s materials can be swiftly metabolised for other
productive uses. The aesthetics of the project were intended to be congruent with the rich
historic vernacular of the community.

 

APPENDIX
(Table 1‐3 based on research conducted at Columbia University, directed by Dickson Despommier)
http://www.verticalfarm.com/plans‐2k4.htm
http://www.verticalfarm.com/plans‐2k5.htm