ArduMai LAB is a long-term, field-based collaborative research and design platform focused on developing affordable, climate-responsive agricultural systems in Syria. Rather than operating from a single location, the LAB functions as a network of distributed experimentation spaces, established in response to local contexts, capacities, and community interest.
Each LAB space is shaped by its specific conditions, resources, and priorities. Together, these spaces form a connected framework for hands-on research where designers, engineers, and farmers co-develop agro-technologies using natural materials and low-cost digital tools. All experimentation takes place in real field conditions, where performance, usability, and repairability guide design decisions, and learning is shared openly across sites.
Food systems in Syria are under increasing pressure from a combination of climate stress, resource scarcity, and the loss of affordable agricultural infrastructure. Rising temperatures, water shortages, soil degradation, and economic constraints have made conventional construction materials and industrial farming technologies difficult to access or sustain.
At the same time, many communities have space, skills, and practical knowledge, but lack adaptable systems and applied research platforms that respond to real conditions. ArduMai LAB exists to bridge this gap by enabling field-based experimentation and collaboration, where agricultural systems can be tested, adapted, and refined using available resources, shared knowledge, and climate-responsive design approaches.
Rather than relying on centralized facilities or imported solutions, the LAB supports locally driven development, allowing agricultural systems to emerge gradually through practice, learning, and collective problem-solving.
ArduMai LAB works through collaborative, hands-on experimentation carried out in real conditions. Each research activity is shaped collectively, responding to local priorities, available resources, and practical constraints rather than predefined plans.
Designers and artists focus on material exploration and spatial systems. Agricultural engineers guide cultivation, soil, and water strategies. Mechatronics engineers contribute sensing, monitoring, and basic control tools. Farmers and community members participate as co-designers, testing systems through daily use and guiding decisions based on lived experience.
Development advances incrementally through cycles of design, testing, adaptation, and reflection. Performance, usability, and repairability inform every stage. Knowledge is documented and shared openly, allowing learning to circulate across different experiments and support future development.
The ideas presented here are potential solutions and pilot directions emerging from ArduMai LAB’s research and collaboration with communities, farmers, researchers, and municipalities in Syria. They exist at different stages—from early concepts to technical assessment and field experimentation—and develop incrementally based on resources and local conditions. ArduMai LAB supports communities in monitoring systems, documenting challenges, exploring responses, and sharing outcomes to support learning, adaptation, and future implementation.
Across post-conflict cities, many multi-storey buildings remain structurally standing but unusable for housing or conventional functions. ArduMai LAB explores the adaptive reuse of selected damaged buildings as productive urban farms using lightweight, reversible, and non-invasive systems.
Instead of reconstruction, existing open floors, balconies, and facades are enclosed with lightweight framing and greenhouse membranes. Soilless cultivation systems—such as hydroponics, substrate-based growing, and vertical planting—minimize structural load while enabling year-round food production.
Buildings can host different functions depending on context, including multi-storey greenhouse farms, seedling nurseries, cooperative food production, or training and demonstration spaces. Each intervention is designed case by case, based on structural assessment, social context, and local food needs.
Planned residential areas in northwest Damascus—such as Mashrouʿ Dummar (officially Ḍāḥiyat al-Shām al-Jadīdah) and parts of Mezzeh—contain partially damaged yet standing buildings, open land, and disrupted infrastructure. While affected by conflict, these areas retain spatial order, access, and strong potential for reuse.
Through community dialogue and consultation with specialized engineers, selected structures and surrounding spaces can be reactivated for lightweight greenhouses, vertical farming systems, and climate-responsive urban agriculture. Interventions are designed to adapt to local needs, available materials, and existing conditions without heavy reconstruction.
Many public schools in urban Syria share a unified architectural typology with flat, accessible rooftops. These roofs represent an underused resource for lightweight, soilless food production. ArduMai LAB proposes piloting rooftop greenhouses and vertical farming systems on selected school buildings as educational and productive platforms.
The systems support hands-on learning for students, applied training for teachers, and small-scale food production for school communities. Schools located near agricultural engineering faculties or technical institutes are especially suitable, enabling collaboration between students, educators, and academic advisors.
Different cultivation systems—hydroponics, aquaponics, bag-based growing, and hybrid soilless methods—can be tested across seasons, inside and outside protected environments. A core research question is the development of organic or bio-based nutrient systems for soilless cultivation, reducing reliance on imported chemical inputs.
In many congested and informally developed urban areas, rooftops are among the few available spaces for productive use. ArduMai LAB explores rooftop-based soilless farming systems adapted to dense, undesigned contexts where access, load capacity, and infrastructure are limited.
The focus is on modular, low-load systems that can be installed incrementally and maintained by residents. Prototypes emphasize minimal water use, lightweight materials, and simple monitoring tools, allowing experimentation under real constraints and gradual scaling based on community capacity.