5 ms·

Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s (2015)

88 points by mikecarlton 6y ago

pierot 6y ago
This is one of those articles I regularly revisit. It is so fascinating to see that progress is not necessarily a straight and always forward moving process.
breck 6y ago
This is really interesting. Has anyone seen a dataset about the abundance of fruit walls over time?
pugworthy 6y ago
99 Percent Invisible did a story on this in 2017 if one's looking for a different presentation on them... https://99percentinvisible.org/article/fruit-walls-before-greenhouses-walled-gardens-created-urban-micro-climates/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/fruit-walls-before-gr...
- delibes 6y ago
  I thought it sounded familiar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638
liquidify 6y ago
This kinda of reminds me of passive solar home design. The fact that the positive aspects of ancient tech aren't common in modern society is pretty sad. If all the homes in even a single modern industrialized nation were passive solar designs, it would save the planet enormous amounts of energy. Frankly, I'm surprised that certain nations haven't mandated these technologies seeing as they would give a nation a competitive edge over other nations who did not.
- dgb23 6y ago
  In the follow up article they describe how the Chinese are aggressively applying this technology during the last decades.
- ThePadawan 6y ago
  > Frankly, I'm surprised that certain nations haven't mandated these technologies seeing as they would give a nation a competitive edge over other nations who did not. Germany and Switzerland sure are! Well, not "mandating" as such, but * subsidizing it for private buildings * mandating for public buildings The general goal seems to be around 40 kWh/(m^2 a), with additional incentives/targets to go to full passive (i.e. net zero energy usage). Unfortunately, most of the reading material is German (at least on Wikipedia) :(. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minergie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minergie and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house are good starting points in English. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effizienzhaus https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effizienzhaus (German) has some details on the subsidies. Without knowing too much about real estate prices in Germany right now, the available loans to refurbish buildings seem to be in the order of somewhere between "certainly worth it when buying a decrepit old house in a flyover state like Brandenburg" and "well I guess if we're already building a new house, we might as well take out this low-interest loan and build it energy efficient as well".
dgb23 6y ago
Some of these principles are applied by the permaculture and earth-ship movements. They are part of a trend to focus on sustainability, learning from and working with nature.
the_arun 6y ago
Pretty interesting. Great opportunities to have these planted behind walls of our freeways in US.
- MisterTea 6y ago
  yum. automobile particulate.
delibes 6y ago
Needs 2015. Linked previously in a comment on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638
fudged71 6y ago
This article really scratches an itch. I have been frustrated by how poorly we use energy in northern climates; we simply replace common sense with petroleum and electricity. There is solar, there's thermal mass of dirt, there is geothermal. Northern homes could be surrounded by glass, and/or sunk into the ground/hills. Black should be more common for exteriors. Solar water heating should be more common. With a bit of earth moving and ingenuity we could build greenhouse orchards into the sides of hills and save on shipping costs for fresher produce.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  This article really scratches an itch. You might also be interested in r/UrbanForestry on Reddit.
  - fudged71 6y ago
    Neat! There isn’t much content there. I became interested in this topic when I saw Edmonton’s winter design guidelines a while back, there are lots of considerations in this document https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/documents/pdf/wintercitydesignguidelines_draft.pdf https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/documents/pdf/winter...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
dang 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395292 It's a great HN submission but once an article has had significant attention, we mark reposts as dupes for about a year. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
chrisjarvis 6y ago
wouldn't the roots of the trees eventually destroy your wall if they are planted that close?

88 points by mikecarlton 6y ago

This is one of those articles I regularly revisit. It is so fascinating to see that progress is not necessarily a straight and always forward moving process.

breck 6y ago

This is really interesting. Has anyone seen a dataset about the abundance of fruit walls over time?

pugworthy 6y ago

99 Percent Invisible did a story on this in 2017 if one's looking for a different presentation on them... https://99percentinvisible.org/article/fruit-walls-before-greenhouses-walled-gardens-created-urban-micro-climates/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/fruit-walls-before-gr...

delibes 6y ago
I thought it sounded familiar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638

liquidify 6y ago

This kinda of reminds me of passive solar home design. The fact that the positive aspects of ancient tech aren't common in modern society is pretty sad. If all the homes in even a single modern industrialized nation were passive solar designs, it would save the planet enormous amounts of energy. Frankly, I'm surprised that certain nations haven't mandated these technologies seeing as they would give a nation a competitive edge over other nations who did not.

dgb23 6y ago
In the follow up article they describe how the Chinese are aggressively applying this technology during the last decades.
ThePadawan 6y ago
> Frankly, I'm surprised that certain nations haven't mandated these technologies seeing as they would give a nation a competitive edge over other nations who did not. Germany and Switzerland sure are! Well, not "mandating" as such, but * subsidizing it for private buildings * mandating for public buildings The general goal seems to be around 40 kWh/(m^2 a), with additional incentives/targets to go to full passive (i.e. net zero energy usage). Unfortunately, most of the reading material is German (at least on Wikipedia) :(. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minergie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minergie and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house are good starting points in English. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effizienzhaus https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effizienzhaus (German) has some details on the subsidies. Without knowing too much about real estate prices in Germany right now, the available loans to refurbish buildings seem to be in the order of somewhere between "certainly worth it when buying a decrepit old house in a flyover state like Brandenburg" and "well I guess if we're already building a new house, we might as well take out this low-interest loan and build it energy efficient as well".

dgb23 6y ago

Some of these principles are applied by the permaculture and earth-ship movements. They are part of a trend to focus on sustainability, learning from and working with nature.

the_arun 6y ago

Pretty interesting. Great opportunities to have these planted behind walls of our freeways in US.

MisterTea 6y ago
yum. automobile particulate.

delibes 6y ago

Needs 2015. Linked previously in a comment on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15538638

fudged71 6y ago

This article really scratches an itch. I have been frustrated by how poorly we use energy in northern climates; we simply replace common sense with petroleum and electricity. There is solar, there's thermal mass of dirt, there is geothermal. Northern homes could be surrounded by glass, and/or sunk into the ground/hills. Black should be more common for exteriors. Solar water heating should be more common. With a bit of earth moving and ingenuity we could build greenhouse orchards into the sides of hills and save on shipping costs for fresher produce.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
This article really scratches an itch. You might also be interested in r/UrbanForestry on Reddit.
- fudged71 6y ago
  Neat! There isn’t much content there. I became interested in this topic when I saw Edmonton’s winter design guidelines a while back, there are lots of considerations in this document https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/documents/pdf/wintercitydesignguidelines_draft.pdf https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/documents/pdf/winter...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

dang 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22395292 It's a great HN submission but once an article has had significant attention, we mark reposts as dupes for about a year. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

chrisjarvis 6y ago

wouldn't the roots of the trees eventually destroy your wall if they are planted that close?