E ven from a distance, this would be no ordinary 40-storey tower. For one thing, the sides are open and you can see through it. Then there are the trees growing from floors that extend plank-like beyond the walls.

Welcome to Pig City – not to be confused with Hogtown – one of several dozen proposals brought together in an exhibition titled Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture. On display at the Design Exchange (234 Bay St.), the show, which opens tomorrow, offers proof positive that in a place like Toronto, anything grows.

Or at least could. As the preponderance of theoretical projects makes clear, we haven't progressed much beyond the talking stage.

There are some real-life exceptions, however, several of them right here in Toronto. Take Wychwood Barns, for example. Opened just months ago, these rebuilt streetcar repair sheds have found new life as an arts centre, food outlet and vegetable garden. The complex, already acclaimed for its brilliance and innovation, sets a new standard for green and adaptive reuse.

Then there's Evergreen's Brick Works, an environmental and gardening showcase now being carved out of the old Don Valley industrial site. This visionary scheme has the potential to become a focus of eco-design and indigenous plant species.

Other proposals are as simple as temporary gardens of earth-filled bags. Also included are various updates of the Victory Garden, which many Canadians planted in their backyard during the food shortages of World War II, as well as the oft-noted Royal York hotel's rooftop herb garden.

Even Pig City, as post-apocalyptic as it looks, makes sense. Proposed by the Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, the argument is that it's more efficient to raise swine in highrise farms than on the ground, where they take up a lot of room. According to MVRDV, if pigs in Holland were raised organically – i.e. fed 100 per cent grain – three-quarters of the country would have to be set aside to meet their needs.

By giving these pigs wings and stacking them in the sties in the skies, the land below remains free and transportation and distribution costs can be cut. Each tower could feed 500,000 people annually. The pigs would also get to enjoy well-ventilated spaces with great views.

God knows how the NIMBYs would respond but this might be one case where swinish behaviour was both the cause and result of their unhappiness.

"Urban farming is in its early stages," says Joe Nasr, who with fellow Ryerson profs Mark Gorgolewski and June Komisar organized the show.

"But it's moving fast," says Nasr. "The scene in Toronto is quite well organized. There's a lot of networking around this. Although the idea has been around for centuries, this is a new movement."

In fact, what we're really talking about is a society emerging from a 50- or 60-year period during which cities were laid upon the altar of the automobile and sacrificed to the gods of convenience.

Turns out that wasn't such a great idea after all. Which is why concepts such as Pig City suddenly make sense. It's either that or no pork.

In fact, the future of urban farming will include radical measures such as the porcine towers, but most will likely comprise countless small operations – but for the plants being grown, grow-ops.

As Nasr also makes clear, many of the current obstacles are man-made. For instance, at some point in its past Toronto banned chickens from the city. New York didn't.

"There's no rationality," Nasr says. "Most of it is historical accident."

Carrot City continues until April 30.





Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca.