*Experimental Living and Housing Forms: Cities of the Future as Sustainable and Integrated… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113213*

tightly linked. Throughout a highly sustainable closed loop, cow manure is reused to produce fertilizer for public spaces within the city. The concept is envisioned for a future in which rising sea levels make farmland increasingly unusable due to flooding. The goal is to consider a new approach to bring agriculture back to the city while minimizing resource depletion and environmental impact and building resilience to climate change in a time-based design conception.

Another example of integrated agri-food production in the city is the Jellyfish Barge (**Figure 2**), a floating greenhouse module that aims to minimize energy, water, and soil footprint. Jellyfish Barge uses hydroponic cultivation with 70% water savings compared to traditional agriculture. The barge is made of recyclable materials and uses solar distillation to collect and purify 150 l of salt water per day. Fifteen percent of the seawater is returned to the water to improve the mineral content and nutritional value of the crops. One module is around 70 m2 and can grow between 1400 and 1600 plants per month. One hectare could host more than 120 apartments.

Of course, these strategies do not expect to address the problem of city feeding by minimizing transportation and producing all consumed foods locally. Given the population figures, this scenario is inconceivable if only the continental hydrographic network is used as a new farming surface. But, as future visions suggest, one could even consider close offshore waters as farmland.

The Forward Thinking Architecture firm is branching out and transforming the way we think about agriculture and water. Its smart floating farm (SFF) concept is at the heart of this new way of thinking, and it is a real and already buildable construction. The floating farm is an offshore three-story floating facility that will host large hydroponic crops and fish farms beneath them. It is designed to be built off the coast of a city to produce both fish and vegetables using a simple system of linkages between different operational layers. The structure's composition is inspired by traditional Asian fish floating farms, but it also features two additional layers, one for growing any type of plant and another to supply the needed energy through solar energy conversion. Aside from the actual growth of plants (automated hydroponics) and hatching of fish, water-access points and a desalination plant (to convert ocean water to freshwater and then use it for farming) are provided, as well as an abattoir for the fish and a packaging facility. Solar panels, wind turbines, and wave energy converters have the potential to convert natural forces into useful electricity. It has the ability to produce 8.1 tons of fruits and vegetables and 1.7 tons of fish per year. The factory would be almost completely automated using sensor systems to capture data and fine-tune the
