Interviews met Yuhan Zhang

The integration of vertical farming stemmed from a simple but urgent realization: food deserts in cities like Chicago aren’t just a public health issue—they’re an architectural one. As I began analyzing the city’s food access map alongside high-rise zoning overlays, I saw an opportunity for the building itself to become part of the food infrastructure. The design evolved from there: we began treating the façade as a vertical farm bed, integrating hydroponic modules that aligned with solar orientation, ventilation paths, and structural grids. The farming layer became a performative skin—contributing to food equity, thermal regulation, and occupant well-being.

The droplet form is both symbolic and functional. Water—its scarcity, collection, and reuse—became a central theme in our ecological performance goals. The tapering geometry mimics the aerodynamic efficiency of a droplet while maximizing wind exposure at higher altitudes for turbine placement. It also facilitates natural water flow along the façade for cloud harvesting and rainwater collection. This biomorphic shape allowed us to fuse form with function, reinforcing the idea that sustainable technologies don’t need to be hidden—they can become the architecture.

The diagrid system was chosen for its high strength-to-weight ratio, ideal for extreme verticality. Beyond structural stability, it provides a geometrically expressive lattice that supports modular ecological inserts. The triangular modules naturally accommodate small-scale wind turbines—positioned in high-flow corridors—and act as anchor points for the atmospheric water collection membranes. The diagrid becomes an infrastructural scaffold: enabling environmental systems to plug into it without interrupting the building’s structural or aesthetic integrity.

We designed Eden Rise as a vertical village, not just a tower. The interconnected bridges and shared sky gardens act as community condensers—spaces where residents converge organically. Agricultural production is zoned vertically, with certain floors dedicated to food growing, processing, and sharing. This mix fosters a daily rhythm of interaction around a common purpose—urban sustenance. Rather than silo farming into a basement or rooftop, we brought it into the public spine of the building, turning food into a social catalyst.

The primary challenge was vertical airflow management—ensuring air could rise and fall naturally through such an immense structure without requiring intensive mechanical systems. We developed a central atrium stack effect strategy, where differential pressure drives air through operable floor vents and sky lobbies. Daylighting required complex simulation to prevent glare and overheating while maximizing ambient light across diverse floor plates. The design employed angled fins, light shelves, and reflective cores to bounce natural light deeper into units. Balancing passive strategies with user comfort across 150+ floors pushed us to develop hybrid adaptive systems that respond seasonally.

While the project remains conceptual, we grounded it in data and dialogue—studying USDA food access research, city health reports, and community garden initiatives across Chicago’s South and West Sides. The intent was to elevate—not just symbolically but literally—the community’s right to grow and access food. This translated into design elements like communal greenhouse floors, local market kiosks, and educational farming modules embedded within the tower. We envisioned a system where residents could grow, exchange, and learn—turning architecture into a civic commons that supports food literacy and dignity.

At the core of Eden Rise is a closed-loop infrastructure. The building harvests atmospheric moisture through cloud condensation membranes and rainwater capture skins. Greywater is filtered through bio-reactive façades and recirculated for vertical farming and irrigation. Energy is sourced from wind turbines embedded in the exoskeleton, solar façades, and biogas from organic waste. By linking water, waste, and energy flows across floors, we reduced external inputs and created a circular metabolism—where one system’s output feeds another. It’s a symbiotic ecology engineered into the building’s DNA.

Eden Rise envisions a shift where architecture is no longer just background—it becomes an active ecological actor. As urban populations swell and climate volatility increases, cities will need buildings that produce—not just consume. I see Eden Rise influencing a new typology of productive towers: generating food, energy, and clean air. Its vertical farm model is scalable to a range of densities and climates. I hope the project sparks policies that incentivize integrating urban agriculture, renewable systems, and public commons into vertical developments.

I was inspired by the concept of the 15-minute city, but reinterpreted vertically. Schools, libraries, clinics, and maker spaces are often the first to be displaced in dense developments. Eden Rise re-centers them. By embedding these programs within vertical nodes—every 20–30 floors—we ensured that education, health, and culture remain accessible to all residents. Each cluster is linked by public sky gardens and staircases, forming a continuous civic thread. It’s about bringing horizontality into the vertical realm, ensuring that density doesn’t mean disconnection.

The recognition affirmed that architecture with a deep ecological ethos can also be compelling in form and narrative. Winning the Silver A’ Design Award gave the Eden Rise project visibility—and momentum. It encouraged me to continue merging systemic environmental design with emotional and cultural resonance. More than anything, it’s reinforced my belief that design is a tool for equity. My future work will continue to challenge the idea that sustainability is technical or optional. It is, and must be, foundational to architecture’s public mission.