After speaking with professor Niall Kirkwood, a minor adjustment was made to the overall scheme. Instead of agriculture directly feeding off of the canals that cut through the site, a secondary canal peels away from the main ones in which water will undergo a series of constructed wetlands within which water is cleansed. The issue of salinity and pollution in the water is the main hurdle in proposing agriculture for this site, but a hybrid system of water cleansing plus rainwater mixing will help create a solution suitable for crop growth.
Urbanism on the site will primarily be buildings adjacent to or over the canals of the site. Buildings adjacent to the canals will actually help shade the water, helping to prevent overgrowth of algae in the water (algae water is not suitable for agriculture because due to the depletion of oxygen). A building catalog will consist primarily of the types that react/butt against the canal.
One issue that hopefully I can resolve soon is how the highway interfaces with the construction on the site. The highway over the southern shoreline is lower than anticipated.
In general, the overall productive ecological system is figured out, I will now need to dive in and work on the details (plant/crop types, zoning, phasing, seasonal patterns/changes, building distribution). In particular, I would like to have a planting pattern decided since that is very conditional on the quality of the water, the amount of sun it receives, and its growing season.
The issue of food production and urban agriculture is not new in landscape architecture and one that I have been interested in since my days at Wash U.
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