The architectural appearance promises to be rather striking, as it seems to evoke the look of an ancient ziggurat — one of those Mesopotamian towers made up of many terraces stacked vertically, representing the symbolic structure of the cosmos. Here the objective pursued is of an entirely different kind: perhaps more prosaic, but equally worthy, and it promises to open new frontiers for the cause of eco-sustainability through an innovative metropolitan agriculture project.

Agro-main-ville, as named by its creators at ABF-lab — the French architecture and engineering firm that designed it — will rise as a genuine urban agriculture tower in the Parisian suburb of Romainville, beyond the city's Périphérique ring road (the so-called "Périf") in the direction of Bobigny, and will allow local residents to enjoy the produce of their own fruit and vegetable crops grown on the building's terraces, in complete energy self-sufficiency and in accordance with the most advanced environmental protection standards.

A truly one-of-a-kind mega vertical garden, with a surface area of 2,000 sq m spread across eight floors — that is, seven cultivable terraces topped by a greenhouse dedicated to experimenting with more delicate plants — with an estimated expenditure of 3.4 million euros.

The cornerstone of Agro-main-ville is the choice of solar exposure as the sole source of light energy, without resorting to any other artificial support, with the specific placement of each crop assessed against this parameter in order to ensure the widest possible range of biodiversity.

As well as representing the most radical realisation of the concept of "zero kilometres", a tower conceived in this way will obviously allow for a drastic reduction in CO2 emissions and fossil fuel consumption, thanks in part to the photovoltaic panels that will harness sunlight.

Dedicated mechanisms for collecting and filtering rainwater will render it reusable across the various crops, which will also benefit from ventilation systems designed to counteract metropolitan overheating and to ensure the most favourable temperature for the growth of each plant species.

A section of the building will be expressly dedicated to so-called "on-site" composting of waste — both that arising from the agricultural processes under way on the tower and the organic waste coming from the rest of the urban centre.

The residents of Romainville will, in short, be able to come and go as they please, taking home part of the harvest or spending time in the gardens set up as meeting places at the junctions between the building's various floors.

Looking at the rendering images (see photo gallery), it becomes immediately apparent that the Agro-main-ville project, beyond its specific aims, contains within it a series of further and far from negligible collateral advantages: in addition to contributing to the urban regeneration of a banlieue, the initiative presupposes as an essential condition the direct and active involvement of the consumer audience — which, ça va sans dire, works better than any awareness campaign.