Interdisciplinary student project: Vertical farming in desert regions

Students from the University of Stuttgart and the University of Monastir have jointly developed a sustainable vertical farming system. This cross-border collaboration was part of the project “Circular materials design laboratory  – KONKREIS” [de], funded by the Foundation Innovation in Higher Education. Based on recycled materials, the students built a prototype that enables the cultivation of various edible plants at heights of up to three meters. For the practical implementation, the Stuttgart students traveled to Monastir for one week at the beginning of the year, where they not only worked on the construction but also gained valuable insights into the local culture and everyday life.

“Building a vertical farming system in Tunisia was an exciting topic and a welcome change from everyday university life,” and “I think sustainability is a future-oriented topic, especially in the engineering sciences,” are examples of the positive feedback received from participating students. 

Students from the fields of production engineering, architecture, and educational sciences were able to become part of the KONKREIS team through project or study assignments as well as internships, and, in international collaboration, develop approaches for a sustainable vertical farming system. The students then evaluated the designs based on defined criteria and selected a system for finalization in Monastir. The focus was on a key challenge: Developing a simple, cost-effective, and scalable solution. The idea of growing plants vertically is not new. However, systems available on the market are usually technologically complex high-tech solutions that are hardly accessible to many population groups.

“In desert-like regions, food supply is often difficult. Here, planting systems made from inexpensive, locally available recycled materials could help to use resources efficiently and better ensure individual self-sufficiency,” explains Professor Mathias Liewald, project coordinator.

After laboratory tests, seven students implemented the most promising concept together with students from the University of Monastir in Tunisia: a vertical planting system that was built sustainably and cost-effectively from locally available materials and automatically irrigated using a solar-powered irrigation system.

The concept’s key advantage lies in its use of recycled materials such as plastic and steel, which would otherwise have ended up as waste. The system is not only resource-efficient and cost-effective, but also scalable – its height, length, and equipment can be adjusted according to requirements.

The implementation of the operational prototype system in Tunisia marked the final highlight of the two-year interdisciplinary project. The funding provided by the  the Foundation Innovation in Higher Education aimed to strengthen networking among students after the COVID-19 pandemic and to promote self-organization and teamwork. This approach also led to the development of digital learning formats on sustainability in engineering sciences [de] , which are available to all members of the university via the ILIAS learning platform.

The collaboration with the University of Monastir enabled the Stuttgart students not only to engage in interdisciplinary learning but also to gain valuable international exchange experience. A further collaborative project with the university in Monastir has already begun. The focus is on life cycle assessment and the development of software for process routes consisting of forming and machining processes.

The KONKREIS project provided students with a framework for interdisciplinary group projects aimed at fostering teamwork, creative problem-solving approaches, and practice-oriented developments both at the University of Stuttgart and at the University of Monastir in Tunisia. In doing so, current challenges in higher education – particularly in the areas of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and internationalization – were addressed. The students organized themselves into international teams, developed engineering solutions in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and implemented them as prototypes in the laboratory in Stuttgart and subsequently in the form of a prototype system in Monastir. In this way, not only professional but also social and personal skills were strengthened.

The  “Circular materials design laboratory  – KONKREIS” [de] project was supported by the  Foundation Innovation in Higher Education. Within the University of Stuttgart, the Institute for Metal Forming Technology (IFU), the Institute for Plastics Engineering (IKT), and the Department of Vocational Education focused on Teaching Technology (BPT) of the Institute of Educational Science (IfE) were involved.