CapitaSpring: The world's highest rooftop Urban Farm

7 Nov

PROJECT CONCEPT:

Building an Agroforest farm, growing fruit trees, shrubs and ground cover that served as protection from strong winds and to improve the soil and ecology.

Having returned to Edible Garden City to work on this flagship Urban Farm project at CapitaSpring in Raffles Place. As the Head Farmer, I helped to build and run the farm, supplying quality produce to the restaurants Kaarla and Oumi daily.

There were over 130 crop varieties to suit the different restaurant menus: Australian, Japanese, Mediterranean and Tropical. Adding on to the food forest, I also took a market garden approach where I also cultivated annuals such as radishes. The Kaarla salad utilised 100% of leaves from the garden, including lesser-known leaves and native herbs such as Pennywort. This project was unique and memorable because of the unique cooler microclimate high up at the rooftop and also the requirements to keep it constantly looking lush and attractive to the public, balancing aesthetics with function, which is a key approach to all of my garden designs.