California may have found an ally in its struggle to preserve its water supply: the Ring Garden.
Designed by Alexandru Predonu, the Ring Garden is a rotating desalination plant and aeroponics farm that harvests seawater, solar energy, and carbon dioxide to produce clean drinking water, food crops, and biomass for animal feed. Predonu’s design was a finalist in this year’s “Land Art Generator Initiative: Santa Monica” competition, and his visually striking concept might be exactly what California needs to curb its water use; as of this writing, 80 percent of the state’s water supply goes towards agriculture.
The garden’s rotation and desalination processes are powered by photovoltaic panels, and it takes in seawater through screens that keep sea life out. The water is then cleaned by a high-pressure pump and distributed to an irrigation system for the rotating plants and Santa Monica’s water grid, respectively. Any leftover brine water is redirected to biomass production. Predonu is confident that his Ring Garden will redirect more than 300 million gallons of water a year to drought-stricken Californians, while only using nine million gallons itself.
The Ring Garden concept also allows, and encourages, public interaction. Visitors will be welcome to visit, pick vegetables from an outdoor aeroponics garden, and learn more about sustainable innovation from an on-site Eco Awareness Center.
The fate of Predonu’s Ring Garden will be decided when the winners of “LAGI 2016: Santa Monica” are announced at Greenbuild in October.
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