Hydroponics

I grew up with a ready supply of freshly picked greens and veggies from my parents' garden, but apartment dwellers don't have such luxuries. This is where indoor growing units can help, and the Nutroponics Garden Tower can host up to 100 plants.

Many city dwellers don't have access to an outdoor garden but would still like to grow their own greens. HydroArtPod is the latest in a long line of indoor gardening devices looking to automate the cultivation of fresh greens in the home.

Greenery covered skyscrapers have become commonplace in recent years, but what if they could also be used to grow food? Such is the thinking behind the "Farmscraper" by Carlo Ratti Associati, which the firm says could feed up to 40,000 people a year.

​Imagine being able to harvest fresh veggies precisely when you need them without leaving the house. That's the promise of indoor gardens like the OGarden Smart and the Cell One. Now IGWorks is making a bid for your living space with a vertical hydroponics garden called the iHarvest.​

Forward Thinking Architecture's triple-decker Smart Floating Farms would feature 2.2 million square feet (2.04 sq km) of fish farm, hydroponic garden, and rooftop solar panels to power a floating barge, which could be anchored to the beds of oceans, lakes or rivers.

Australian innovator Chris Wilkins has developed a new technology to make vertical green walls simple with his plug and play concept. Lightweight, modular and with a cleverly designed aeroponics system, business is booming.

Italian design office Studiomobile has teamed up with the University of Florence's professor Stefano Mancuso, the director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology, to produce a prototype floating greenhouse which it hopes could improve food security in areas with a lack of arable land.

Bitponics connects urban hydroponic gardens to the cloud for remote monitoring and control.

Whole Foods' next New York outlet looks set to become a supermarket with a difference. The supermarket chain will partner Gotham Greens to open a supermarket with a rooftop greenhouse growing produce to be sold on the premises.

Daiwa House of Osaka, Japan has developed and is selling RV-sized prefabricated hydroponic greenhouses for housing complexes.

The Green Wheel is an indoor gardening concept, in which hydroponically-grown plants rotate around a central light source.

It may look nothing more than an oddly shaped greenhouse, but the "Globe (hedron)" is a concept for a rooftop aquaponics dome that Urban Farmers hopes will help address global food security