Welcome to the agrihood: golf courses out, urban farms in as upscale developers invite buyers to grow fruit and vegetables
Developers from Suzhou, China, to Palm Springs, California are betting that giving homeowners the opportunity to practise healthy living by growing ‘clean food’ – on vines and in olive groves and garden plots – will be attractive
When residents of prestigious apartment buildings and upscale communities tire of their sophisticated amenities (wine bars, concierges, Olympic-sized pools), they will turn to the simple pleasures of the land. That, at least, is the thinking of residential developers around the world – and one they are banking on.
Agrihoods – gardens where fruit and vegetables grow that are shared by a neighbourhood or community – are a nascent trend in global real estate development, but one that is on the rise. Partly, it’s an outgrowth of the trend in farm-to-table dining, partly a hunch that residents of a building or neighbourhood have an incipient desire to come together to tend urban gardens and share what they grow.
Hong Kong urban farmers find bliss in rooftop gardens
It’s already happening in Hong Kong’s backyard.
A new development for the active elderly, Yangcheng Lake Island Senior Housing, near Suzhou in Jiangsu province, will this year welcome its first residents and invite them to grow produce on plots of land for their own consumption or for use in the on-site restaurant kitchen.
“The fundamental idea is to incorporate clean food, clean air, healthy living – all the things that are important around the world,” says Jason Briscoe, managing partner of the Shanghai office of architectural firm Steinberg, which is building the 1.2 million square foot community.