A better use for sprawling, big-box store parking lots? Urban farms

A typical parking lot at a big-box store, sprawling over several acres, is empty most of the time. With a new design called Car Parks 2.0 , the French design firm Studio NAB shows how that space could be reimagined as an urban farm, with a little room left at the side for charging electric cars from onsite solar panels. “To tackle the problems facing humanity, we must attack the symbols that made us presently in this situation,” says Studio NAB founder and creative director Nicolas Abdelkader. “The parking lot, and especially [supercenter] parking, is one of these symbols, with all that that entails: automotive activity, overconsumption, irrational urbanism.” [Image: Studio NAB] The design strips away asphalt to bring life back to the soil trapped underneath it. In one section, greenhouses and fruit trees grow produce that can be supplied directly to the neighboring store—a little like the model used by the urban farming company Gotham Greens, which grows produce in a greenhouse on a Whole Foods rooftop at one of its locations. Abdelkader also envisions produce being delivered to nearby homes by cargo bike. In another section, former parking spaces are converted into shared garden plots for people […]

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