Understanding the complexities of Building-Integrated Agriculture. Can food shape the future built environment?

Our food system is facing an unprecedented challenge: feeding a fast growing population without depleting precious resources like energy, soil, and water. Furthermore, the increasing urbanization has rapidly exacerbated the gap between farm to plate, leaving cities vulnerable to changes in the production and supply chain, as demonstrated by recent pandemics and wars. In this context, emerging technologies that allow plants to grow in absence of soil, permit to produce food in high densely built-up areas, bringing food production right were most consumers live. These initiatives enter within the so called Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA), which is referred as the practice of locating greenhouses and soilless plant cultivation technologies on top and inside mixed-use buildings to exploit the synergies between the building environment and agriculture, involving resource recovery such as water, energy and nutrient flows. This paper aims at determining strategies, objectives, and best practices of BIA projects through the review of 21 case studies, to understand how a new advanced and future-oriented agriculture applied within the cities borders, can possibly shape the urban built environment and food systems of the future. [Display omitted] •Building-integrated agriculture should not be considered just a food-related practice.•Integrated soilless food production exploits synergies between buildings & agriculture.•Building-integrated agriculture can enhance food security in urban areas.•To be effective, Building-integrated agriculture must overcome important challenges.•Economic & social advantages may come from a diffuse integrated urban food production.•Building-integrated agriculture projects still require a specific knowhow.