Urban coconut plantation wins European student prize for sustainable design

Guardian : As part of his final course work for the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University last year, Jacob Szikora designed a coconut growing facility for Sheffield’s London Road. His Concrete Orchard went on to win the EDUCATE Prize , an international award that recognizes students for innovative ideas on sustainability in architecture and urban design. Szikora was motivated by the high cost and environmental impact of shipping food all over the world. “My project, using the extreme case of the coconut as an example, explored how more products could be grown in Sheffield and other urban contexts, in order to reduce the amount of emissions wasted on transporting them from elsewhere,” he said.