HUNGRY ECOCITIES : Paths to progress Experiments
+ PROJECT
RE-SOURCE.SOCIETY
Nicolas Rotta & Instagreen
SUMMARY
Controlled environment agriculture can ease the environmental pressure of agriculture. Using less water, less land and no chemicals. But, controlling indoor environments comes at a cost: heating, cooling and dehumidifying demand large amounts of energy, leaving heavy environmental footprints and expenses.
Re-Source.Society created a collection of resource efficient systems that work together to regulate indoor climates:
- The Cooling Cactus uses outdoor air to lower the temperature, without altering the humidity levels
- The Living Lung in its turn uses outdoor air to remove humidity from the indoor air, without changing the temperature
- The Basic Brain measures and compares the indoor climate with the outdoor climate and decides whether or not it is opportune to make use of the outdoor temperature, humidity or both.
By de-coupling the temperature and the humidity we can now benefit much more, and much more often, from what the natural outdoor climate has to offer. This way, the climatisation of indoor spaces depends much less on energy consuming air conditioners and dehumidifiers.
Our digital twin makes it possible to simulate real situations and customise the designs of the Cooling Cactus and the Living Lung to different types of farms in different types of climates around the globe.
“Nicolas Rotta has an inspiring passion for practical sustainable systems that leverage natural processes. He beautifully combines biomimicry and low tech approaches with high-tech design methods. Through the collaboration between Nicolas and InstaGreen we can creatively draw form very diverse fields of expertise ranging from biological, thermal and metabolic systems, to 3D modeling and printing, AI-driven design, cultivating and designing with mycelium. We look forward to working together and making the complexity of indoor climate control both simple and highly resource efficient.”
Anneke Stolk – Co-founder InstaGreen
UPDATES
● What’s the right supply chain for urban food?
STARTS.EU, 28/04/2025
+ ARTIST
Nicolas Rotta
Spain
I am dedicated to sustainability, regeneration, and social design. With a background in architecture, design and biology, I view self- sustainability a powerful tool for community empowerment, well- being, and liberation. Collaboration is at the heart of my process, and I enjoy blending different fields and perspectives to find creative and synergetic solutions with the natural, social, and technological surroundings. I love to get my hands dirty by following the building process from design to material sourcing to construction and like to use photography to explore and document.
+ SME
INSTAGREEN
Urban farming
Barcelona, SPAIN
Instagreen is a European urban farming company based in Barcelona, that developed a disruptive way of growing vegetables in urban areas including modular hydroponic cultivation systems, e-logistics and on-site living display of the greens, with proven business models for small to medium scale local farms.
InstaGreen provides trainings and mentoring to enthusiastic entrepreneurs all over the world who want to start or scale up their own local microgreen farm in their city of choice.
The company also supplies their in-house developed cultivation systems and growing materials to microgreen farms across Europe.
The HungryEcoCities project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement 101069990.