Look up! It’s the World’s Biggest Rooftop Greenhouse
Is this the world’s largest rooftop greenhouse? Lufa Farms says the massive facility in the heart of Montreal is the real deal.
Building on a new urban gardening trend, a gigantic greenhouse atop a Montreal warehouse growing eggplants and tomatoes to meet demand for locally sourced foods has set a record as the largest in the world. Canadian-based Lufa Farms just opened the facility that spans 160,000 square feet, or about the size of three football fields.
“We are now able to feed almost two percent of Montreal with our greenhouses and our partner farms,” said company spokesman Thibault Sorret.
“The advantage of being on a roof is that you recover a lot of energy from the bottom of the building,” allowing considerable savings in heating, an asset during the harsh Quebec winter, he explains.
Fully automated, the new greenhouse also has a water system that collects and reuses rainwater, resulting in savings of “up to 90%” compared to a traditional farm.
This is the fourth rooftop greenhouse the company has erected in Montreal. The first, built in 2011 at a cost of more than $1.5 million (U.S.), broke new ground. Since then, competitors like Brooklyn, NY-based Gotham Greens have picked up and ran with the idea.
Continue reading at Phys-org.
Subscribe to eNewsletter
