Shanghai is getting an entire 'farming district' with towering vertical farms and seed libraries

SasakiA rendering of the Sunqiao agricultural district coming to Shanghai, China.Shanghai may be known for its towering skyscrapers, but a large part of the city will soon have towering vertical farms that grow fruit and vegetables.

The city is planning a 250-acre agricultural district, which will function as a space to work, live, shop, and farm food. Called Sunqiao Shanghai, it will include new public plazas, parks, housing, stores, restaurants, greenhouses, and a science museum. Some of the crops will be grown hydroponically indoors (i.e. under LEDs and in nutrient-rich water rather than soil).

The masterplan was conceived by the design firm Sasaki, which has offices in Massachusetts and Shanghai. It's part of a larger plan to turn a portion of the city into an ag-tech hub, Michael Grove, a principal at Sasaki, tells Business Insider. In the mid-1990s, Shanghai's government designated a 3.6-square-mile area of the city for agricultural production, hoping that bioengineering and biopharmaceutical companies would set up research facilities working in tandem with city greenhouses.

Shanghai only constructed 3 single-story greenhouses at the time. Sasaki was commissioned to expand the plan for Sunqiao, Grove says. There isn't a construction timeline yet, but Grove estimates that a crew will break ground on the project by 2018.

Check out the renderings below.