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Urban farming rising trend
Greening roofs: A house in Cipete, South Jakarta, has transformed its roof into a garden
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reening roofs: A house in Cipete, South Jakarta, has transformed its roof into a garden. Rooftop farming is an urban agriculture trend that is spreading in Jakarta and other Indonesian cities. (Courtesy of Sigit Kusumawijaya)
Urban farming has long become common practice on idle plots of land in cities, but today, the space for green and healthy lifestyle-driven activities has been expanded to rooftops of houses and other buildings.
“Some rooftop restaurants have taken advantage of their own crops cultivated on the roof of a building,” says Sigit Kusumawijaya, an architect and urban designer.
Rooftop gardens and farming in Indonesia date back to the 90’s, when some creative individuals whose hobby was gardening took advantage of vacant space on their rooftops as a convenient venue for leisure by transforming the spaces into gardens.
The trend of rooftop farming, however, did not start until recently, in line with the increasing popularity of urban farming, according to Sigit, who graduated from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands with a master’s degree in urbanism and also has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Indonesia.
According to Sigit, rooftop farming is growing in popularity in China, the United States and European countries.
Balcony gardening is one way to bring agriculture home, so to speak, which is considered a solution to the problem of increasing demand for farmland to supply the urban population and limited amount of arable land in urban areas due to the strict land use policy in China, according to Nordregio.or, an international research center for regional development and planning.
In Indonesia, the trend of urban farming has benefitted architects and urban designers like Sigit, as demand for rooftop-farming designs is on the rise.
Sigit, who runs his own company named sigit.kusumawijaya, says he has at least one or two clients per month placing an order for urban gardening or farming designs.
“The demand comes not only from clients in Jakarta but also from other cities, such as Yogyakarta, and from Bali,” he says.
By function, he says, rooftop gardens brimming with decorative plants are used by the owners as places for leisure or relaxation. But, driven by a healthy lifestyle, many now also focus on productive plants, such as water spinach, spinach, tomatoes, chilies and etc.
“They want to consume crops or vegetables free of chemical pesticides and using organic fertilizer,” says the cofounder of Indonesia Berkebun, an urban farming community.
“I try to blend aesthetic, green and functional values in my urban farming design projects,” he says.
Rooftop gardening or farming has an aesthetic value, because it leads to a unique shape, which is beautiful to look at. The green rooftops can reduce the micro-temperature by about 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“With the growing trend of urban farming, I also encourage interested clients to include productive plants, but this will entirely depend on the clients,” he says.
The size for the rooftops and the goals of rooftop gardening or farming vary from one household to another.
Commonly, urbanites utilize pots or soil that cover the rooftop to cultivate the crops or plants.
“Pots are commonly more suitable for farming on a small rooftop. Spacious rooftops commonly use both pots and soil on the rooftop,” he says.
Many clients also want a feel of soil and grass on the rooftop, with various short and tall plants growing. Rooftops utilized for cultivating plants require special treatment, otherwise there is a risk of damaging the structure.
Prior to covering the rooftop with soil, it should be waterproofed to ensure no water penetrates the roof, he explains.
The kinds of plants determine how deep the soil needs to be.
To grow grass, 10 centimeters of soil is enough, but to cultivate crops or flowers, “you need the soil to be between 20 cm and 30 cm deep. For chilies and tomatoes, the required soil depth is between 30 cm and 40 cm,” he says.
“But if you want to plant a tree on the rooftop, you need the soil to be at least one meter deep,” he adds.
He acknowledges that, as he often combines urban farming with architecture in his projects, “my peer architects once jokingly called me a garden architect or crops architect”.
