Design guidelines for using a plant factory as a community garden

through practice at temporary housing in Natori city, Miyagi

Abstract

In April 2012, we installed plant factories to function as community gardens in two temporary housings in Natori city, Miyagi prefecture, for community rebuilding. Thus far, we have been making visits once every 1-2 months to hold harvesting and tasting events and check the research statuses regarding the use of the plant factories. We report practices implemented by us to improve the situation and list the advantages and problems regarding three features of plant factories. We have derived five design guidelines applicable to both hardware and software for using a plant factory as a community garden.