{"id":506,"date":"2017-07-15T16:27:34","date_gmt":"2017-07-15T20:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reprogrammingthecity.com\/?p=506"},"modified":"2019-06-29T21:25:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-30T01:25:24","slug":"culture-urbaine-geneve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reprogrammingthecity.com\/culture-urbaine-geneve\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Food Source? Repurposed Bridge Provides Food and Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carbon-absorbing, oxygen-producing, air-cleaning, an alternative energy source, an ecological beauty aid, a vitamin-rich future food: these are not words normally associated with a highway bridge. Yet with the addition of a system containing clear tubes, a pump system and a rich organic liquid, drivers in Geneva have an entirely new vocabulary with which to describe the function of bridges in their city.<\/p>\n

Dutch-Flemish design group Cloud Collective<\/a> installed an algae growing system on an ordinary Geneva highway bridge, turning an uncelebrated part of the city\u2019s grey infrastructure into a platform for future urban food and fuel.<\/p>\n

The benefits of the Culture Urbaine system to the immediate area and the city\u2019s overall ecosystem are numerous. The algae eats the CO2 created by the cars and produces oxygen as part of its natural process. In addition, the algae produced by the bridge system, says the collective, \u201ccan be used to filter air, as a combustible biomass, or even as raw material for different cosmetic and alimentary products.\u201d<\/p>\n

Algae is a nutrient-rich food source, already widely appreciated and used extensively in a range of commercial products and biofuels. Less appreciated is its potential as a future urban food source given its ability to grow and thrive in urban environments and its dense nutrient content.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe functioning and placement of this bioreactor,\u201d says Cloud Collective, \u201csignals practices of the future: food production in an urban environment, the conservation of green space and the reinterpretation of existing infrastructures.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cloud Collective\u2019s inspiration for the project was to rethink the potential of merging natural and urban processes, to \u201ctry to prove that even these locations of highways and car routes \u2013 despite their anonymous and generic character \u2013 can play an important role in the production of food and biomass.\u201d<\/p>\n

This project and dozens of others are featured in the Reprogramming the City Book<\/a>!<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

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