A Dubai rooftop into this incredible vertical farm

Leading smart and green facilities management company Farnek, transformed a bare concrete roof to grow fresh vegetables for the 4,500 staff who are already occupying the brand new AED200 million complex at Dubai South.

The vertical farm has the capacity to grow 3,000 veggies which can be used in Farnek kitchens. The energy-efficient build which put employee welfare and sustainability at the forefront of the project will ultimately save the company AED3million in costs… Take note energy-conscious owners.

The repurposed roof will grow over 3,000 plants for employees

Lettuce, kale, and spinach… tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, capsicums and chillis… the gang's all here!

The vertical garden has the ability to produce numerous leafy greens, but better yet, the food produced from the sustainable enterprise will be used in Farnek's own kitchens.

Urban Ponics, Dutch green-tech projects specialist developer signed on to create the 240sqm rooftop vertical garden at Farnek's brand new staff accommodation centre in Dubai South. Parts of the structure were transported from Holland to Dubai for Farnek's in-house engineering team to assemble the 3-metre high structure onsite.

The garden will feature a 200sqm 'shade house' which provides a mix of shade and light, the perfect home for shade-loving plants along with netting, grow pods, lava buckets, misters, pumps, water tanks, irrigation and drainage pipes.

Cost, energy and water-efficient… the build was a no-brainer for this innovative sustainable company

Farnek is an innovative sustainable company and we are always trying to identify new ways of managing our business in a cost and energy-efficient manner. Farnek Village is home to thousands of our employees and we wanted to create a project that would be symbolic of our purpose and our values.

Due to its sustainable design, space is at a premium in the Village and this initiative makes perfect use of an aspect that is generally underutilised at best and completely ignored at worst.

Via Markus Oberlin, CEO, Farnek.

In addition, the facility is water-efficient, with the ability to reuse condensate water from the air handling units to provide irrigation (misting water). Ryan Mitchell, Workers Welfare Manager at Farnek highlighted that vertical farming technologies create a smaller carbon footprint and less space.

Through this initiative, Farnek hopes to make the equivalent of AED3 million in water and energy savings… incredible!

Thanks to solar panels which help meet all hot water requirements, and more than 4,000 LED-lights throughout the complex, 90% of the total lighting needs are met along with 20% more than conventional energy and water savings, worth up to AED3 million every year!

To learn more about the vertical farming project, see here.

Source and Photo Courtesy of Lovin Dubai

Source: Lovin Dubai