As designers for a diversity of structures and spaces, higher education architects often have the unique experience of assisting the world’s best minds in building facilities for innovative, community-shaping research. By utilizing architectural problem-solving and design thinking, we help further scientific knowledge, strengthen university programs, and facilitate critical multidisciplinary work.
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) — various systems and practices to control and optimize growing conditions — is likely to become increasingly important in farming as technology advances, demographic demands shift, and environmental circumstances evolve. Helping drive the growing understanding of advanced CEA are researchers at the Utah State University College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences, and VCBO architects are helping these scientists transform USU greenhouse research facilities into high-tech, entirely indoor “growhouses.”
By mitigating the typical limitations of traditional greenhouses, growhouses have the capacity to facilitate highly controlled growing techniques. However, building these facilities presents numerous challenges, and additional research and testing are required before the practices are scaled up. With potential impacts on food systems, medicine, materials science, and even space exploration, this complex research into high-tech CEA could have far-reaching implications. In collaboration with engineers and USU experts in this venture, VCBO is helping solve complicated problems at the forefront of an emerging field.
Moving the Greenhouse Inside — How the Growhouse is Changing the Game
The earliest forms of controlled environment agriculture date back centuries, but advancements in horticultural and engineering technology have rapidly expanded the potential of CEA in modern research and commercial settings.
Both greenhouses and growhouses are forms of CEA, providing improved farming conditions to minimize the impacts of varied growing seasons, inclement weather, and climate change. However, unlike the transparent, sunlight-exposed environments of greenhouses, growhouses take an advanced approach — by bringing cultivation entirely indoors and controlled in a high-tech closed system.
Though still under the CEA umbrella, traditional greenhouses are somewhat exposed to the natural elements, making it difficult for growers to maintain the desired daylighting, temperature, and humidity. Indoor farming aims to create an entirely artificial environment, enabling the growers to strictly manage the habitat without the unpredictability of the great outdoors.
Navigating the Challenges of USU’s Complex Growhouse Facility
Before this technology can be scaled up for broad application, additional research on the right architecture, engineering, and growing techniques for various plants is required. Working to maintain its leadership role in agricultural innovation in the state and around the world, Utah State University is leaning into the challenge to expand our understanding of indoor CEA.
Leading the efforts is Bruce Bugbee, professor of plant science and director of the USU’s Crop Physiology Laboratory (CPL). Following other successful architectural projects for the campus’ life science programs, Bugbee and his team connected with VCBO in 2021 to create a master plan for the growth and modernization of its agricultural research facilities. Additions to the institution’s greenhouse research complex quickly emerged as a priority.
“Research facilities for indoor agriculture are a big deal,” Bugbee said. “It’s definitely going to be a big thing in agriculture — for food production and other spaces.”
In late 2021, the team began converting part of an existing greenhouse space into an advanced growhouse, primarily to facilitate cannabis research. USU researchers had previously been testing the concept in small growth chambers, but the time had come to scale up the facilities, adding more space to study at a higher volume.
Exterior rendering of USU's growhouse facility currently in construction
Going into the project, the team had to consider multiple design factors to create a fully operational — and fully indoor — agricultural research facility. The growhouse needed to follow strict building envelope requirements, creating a completely closed system. Because researchers using the facility will need to control multiple variables and achieve numerous set points in order to be productive, the design also needed to break down the space into individual chambers, each with its own closed system.
Within the facility, the architecture needed to successfully house complicated mechanical, electrical, and computer systems to adequately create and control robust growing environments for each of the smaller chambers. This included incorporating complicated dehumidification and air conditioning systems to manage temperature, humidity, ventilation, and artificial lighting. In this computer-controlled environment, scientists would be able to test different conditions and plants in each of the chambers, even some pretty unusual ones.
This level of sophistication provides researchers with endless possibilities for study, but it can also be more costly. While the cost of the building itself is not relatively substantial, the mechanical systems — and the energy consumed to power them — are expensive. Prior to construction, the team conducted extensive modeling to determine the precise level of mechanical power that would be required to install the appropriate technology and optimize energy allocation.
While the requisite systems are energy-intensive, growhouses are exceptionally water-efficient. The growth chambers are air-conditioned and humidified, which elevates CO2 and makes the plants grow faster. Because it’s a closed system, the water used for irrigation can be captured and reused, and any water vapor in the process can be condensed back to liquid water and recycled to irrigate the plants.
Intensive modeling was required to design larger growth chambers scaled up from the existing growth chambers at USU (above).
Researching the Future of the World’s Food and More
In dry climates such as Utah’s — many of which are experiencing record droughts — this kind of water efficiency is incredibly valuable. Water shortages and other impacts of climate change present serious threats to the world’s agricultural systems, disrupting the output of food and other resources.
High-tech CEA is likely to grow to become an essential addition to outdoor farming, creating more resilient food systems moving forward. Indoor agricultural research centers, such as those in construction at USU, are creating a path forward toward the broad application of growhouse technology and the corresponding farming practices.
“It’s a case study not just for Utah,” Bugbee said, “but for the world.”
In addition to dealing with climate change, indoor growhouses have the potential to transform the structure of food systems, allowing more high-quality products to be grown closer to consumers, including in urban areas and other climates otherwise ill-suited for certain crops. The advancement of photobiology and indoor vertical farming techniques may also be capable of producing higher, more consistent yields on less land than traditional farming.
Another growing research need is in high-input pharmaceutical agriculture, also known as botanical medicine. Cannabis — legalized in Utah for medicinal use — is driving growhouse research at USU as the plant is not native to the local climate. With potential applications in botanical medicine as well as the use of hemp in materials science, the plant is growing in interest in scientific and commercial fields. By driving growhouse cannabis research now, USU is uniquely positioned to lead in the field if cannabis legalization occurs at the federal level and increased research funds become available.
Especially important to USU’s growhouse research are the possible applications beyond Earth. USU’s agricultural research program is largely funded by NASA, and researchers are currently studying the use of growhouses for possible food production on the International Space Station (ISS) and the surfaces of the moon and Mars. As the science progresses, the architecture and engineering of these growhouses could be the precursor to advanced astrobotany and space farming.
Ongoing research at the USU Crop Physiology Laboratory includes studies on cannabis, photobiology, and astrobotany.
The Future of Growhouse Architecture
The exciting opportunities for the world’s agricultural systems presented by growhouses are compelling. While research gradually raises our understanding, more immediate impacts are felt at the university level.
For USU researchers, as new studies further the university’s expertise and new findings drive external interest, more funds are allocated to propel research. By becoming a leader in the field, researchers may also seek funding to establish dedicated academic centers and degree programs with tailored curricula. At the student level, the new growhouses and the resulting research also improve the university experience.
“It’s more than just nice classrooms — these are nice laboratories with real-life growth areas, complicated mechanical systems, and novel technology,” Bugbee said. “If you have cutting-edge facilities, you inspire students — you allow them to study the technology of the future.”
Universities are critical spaces for the development of emerging technology. Bugbee said his team plans to conduct multidisciplinary research with other departments in the growhouses, such as studies with the biological and irrigation engineering programs in the College of Engineering. It’s the “beauty of a university” that brings all of these experts together in these boundary-pushing spaces.
The ultimate goal is to design and build successfully operating growhouses, demonstrate their value, and then scale them up for real-world application. Design needs vary as facilities grow larger, which presents a significant challenge to researchers working to demonstrate value and generate buy-in from potential public and private sector partners. However, Bugbee and his fellow researchers remain committed to driving the future of the growhouse.
“These are important frontiers,” he said, “and we need the structures to do the work.”
About the Authors
Derek Payne has led innovative architectural design and planning endeavors for nearly all higher-learning institutions in Utah. Through close collaboration with project stakeholders, his projects effectively embody their users' values, aspirations, and hopes. Derek's contributions have garnered national recognition for design excellence, primarily centered around creating distinctive environments that foster learning, collaboration, discovery, and student living.
Celestia Carson is exceptionally skilled at facilitating the crucial interface among different user groups within a complex facility to ensure that their distinct identities are maintained. Specializing in higher education design, she balances technical disciplines and outstanding aesthetics throughout the planning, design, and construction processes for Utah’s colleges and universities. Many of Celestia’s projects have garnered national recognition and awards for design excellence.