rethinking design - Spatial Design@Massey

ethinking designsystem is that a balance occurs in the eco-system where the water is filtered by the plants,which in turn obtain all the necessary nutrients from, the fish. This system allows you to eatboth the fish and the plants in a totally safe way, as only chemicals that are harmless to fish,can be used to control any pests on the vegetables.Japanese rice farmer Furuno Takao has developed asystem that integrates ducks into rice cultivation. The ducksprovide impeccable pest control by eating insects andweeds that otherwise wouldharm the crops. The duckmanure provides many nutrients for the rice. Furuno has alsoincorporated fish into the rice paddies. His farm is a modelecosystem, which can feed 100 people on a very small amount ofland. It does this without the use of any toxic chemicals and withvery few outside inputs.HOWAquaponicsAquaponics is the combination of aquaculture, which isfish farming and hydroponics, which is soil-less plant culture. Itmimics every natural waterway on earth. It is essentially organicgardening without the dirt.Some advantages of having an Aquaponic systemcommercially and non-commercially are that it utilizes thenutrient rich water from aquaculture, which would normally havebeen a waste product or would have needed to be filtered in an expensive way. It uses afraction of the water that traditional crops do because there are no weeds to deplete thewater. With aquaculture, water circulates through fish tanks, and then filters through growingbeds and flows back out to the fish tank. Both fish and plants grow in the same body of waterusing one infrastructure.Aquaponics takes away the cost and time involved with mixing traditional hydroponicnutrients. It provides a completely natural and organic form of food for the plants. Because ithas no soil, soil borne diseases donʼt occur. The microbial process keeps both the fish and