Farm-to-Desk: Vertical Urban Farm Shares Tokyo Office Space

farm office seating

Two hundred species of edible greens occupy a quarter of this 215,000-square-foot office in Tokyo, Japan, sharing space with thousands of workers who in turn consume harvested fruits, vegetables and rice right in the building’s cafeteria, a direct farm-to-table connection.

tokyo rice paddy

office rice paddy

Plants are expertly interspersed with other functions throughout the building, sustained via soil-based and hydroponic systems, including 1,000 square feet of rice paddies and extensive broccoli fields.

farm bench detail

urban office farm

Kono Designs elaborates on the ways different food-bearing plants occupy any extra (and sometimes hidden) spaces throughout the structure: “Tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.”