Description of Challenge
To create imaginative ways to grow food sustainablyA team of architects and botanists have collaborated to create 'The Jellyfish Barge', a floating hydroponic garden designed to produce food with minimal carbon footprint.
Solution
The Jellyfish Barge is a floating horticultural greenhouse that is able to purify salt, brackish or polluted water using solar energy and grow crops hydroponically in a highly efficient vertical arrangement. It is therefore claimed that the barge can support two families from an area of just 70sqm. It is built with low-cost technologies and consists of a wooden base that floats on recycled plastic drums and supports a glass greenhouse for crop cultivation.
The hydroponic cultivation method used within the greenhouse provides up to 70% water savings when compared to traditional hydroponic systems. Required water is supplied by 7 solar desalination units arranged around the perimeter that are able to produce up to 150 liters per day of clean fresh water from salt, brackish, or polluted water. Solar distillation is a natural phenomenon: in the seas, the sun’s energy evaporates water, which then falls as rain water. The solar desalination system of the Jellyfish Barge replicates this phenomenon on a smaller scale.
Barges can be linked together to form more extensive gardens
