At present, pressurized “air-supported” fabric domes have been well suited for uses as sports stadiums, soccer fields, and cycling velodromes, worldwide. Swissleaf has completed a design alternative that harnesses the potential of these structures for purposes in urban indoor vertical farming applications and the emerging cannabis marketplace.

“Grow Magazine Vol IIII Issue V -2018” excerpts:

# 1 biggest challenge for cannabis facility designers is the “prevention of external threats from entering the facility”
# 2 biggest challenge is “ability to filter and scrub the entire air volume of a grow room continuously, many times per hour”
# 3 biggest challenge is “ability to sterilize and disinfect equipment and rooms easily”

The Swissleaf smart- dome truly represents a disruptive approach to traditional indoor grow-op facilities that are predominately used worldwide by LP’s, namely hybrid greenhouses and abandoned industrial buildings.

Air supported sports domes are an attractive alternative; they are low cost, durable design (+20 years’ life) and assure a controlled contaminate-free indoor environment. The inner dome space now becomes effectively, the primary cleanroom for cultivation uses. Existing sports domes are inflated and maintained to 1.5 to 2.0 inches’ water column with clean HEPA (MERV 13) filtered ambient air, airlock entrances are provided for all personnel, and equipment to restrict the loss of pressure to a minimum. Additionally, the airlock entrances prevent the infestation of externally airborne insects, bugs, bacteria, pollen, mold spores, pathogens, into the dome.

Assembled inside the smart-dome are sealed climate-controlled flowering, vegetative, clone, and mother grow rooms, which effectively achieves a further secondary level of containment. These grow rooms are maintained at a lower static pressure 0.5 to .75 inches’ water column to the smart-dome, and prevent any reverse cross-contamination from the grow rooms back into the general common areas within the dome.

The utility of smart-domes for horticulture applications is a game-changer in our opinion, it’s a cost-effective organic cultivation platform, and when combined with automated aeroponic or hydroponic growing processes, it effectively eliminates the requirement for costly and harmful pesticides. Furthermore, this ecosystem assures buds that are free of any biological contaminates and will not require further irradiation processes to pass Health Canada product specifications. This Swissleaf cultivation strategy establishes ideal indoor conditions for superior quality plants with high yields, and the ability to reproduce strains from their original genetics consistently. Additionally, our smart-dome technology platform will enable further GPM certification status, which is a coveted standard by premium medical-grade cannabis cultivators worldwide.

Smart-domes are an attractive solution for vertical farming due to their expansive ceiling elevations at the apex, which are designed to combat harsh Canadian snow loads. Indoor flowering grow rooms nominal size is 48’x 52′ with a ceiling height of 18′. Utilization of two levels of cultivation (6′ per level), which, when combined with an adjustable mobile racking system, achieves an industry-leading cultivation capacity (lb-ft2) per flower room. Each flowering grow room has an impressive canopy area of 5,184-ft2. The 125,000-ft2 dome layout is designed with 12 flowering rooms for a total canopy area of 62,208-ft2. When multiple domes are considered, the smart-dome concept can scale to match any significant indoor grow-up operation worldwide. Furthermore, the 125,000-ft2 dome has an apex ceiling height of 75′ which presents attractive opportunities to increase grow areas vertically in future designs. Typically, warehouses are designed to elevations of 24-32′ underside of steel, and costs become prohibitive when considering higher ceiling heights.

The cannabis marketplace in Canada is evolving quickly and experiencing growing bottlenecks in many key areas of their operations. Swissleaf believes that the application of smart-domes to existing LP’s for “nursery” plant cultivation and nurturing could potentially free up large floor areas in their greenhouses and warehouses for additional flower cultivation.

Vegetative, clone, and mother operations could be redeployed in an adjacent smart-dome installation very efficiently and at a low cost and potentially within the same licensing operating permit from Health Canada.

The HVAC requirements for early-stage nursery plants are not nearly as intensive and complicated as flowering plants. Existing significant capital investments in large scale HVAC infrastructure within the greenhouses could be leveraged to increase overall production by as much as 30% in some cases. The ROI could be very lucrative to existing LPs and, in our opinion, an attractive value proposition in the marketplace to existing large scale LPs.

While local codes vary from province to province, initial architectural reviews confirm compliance with the Ontario building code and NFPA fire regulations. In some jurisdictions, provisions may be needed to sprinkler the indoor grow rooms, the addition of standpipes, fire hose racks, CO and smoke alarm systems, and possibly halon fire suppression equipment. Swissleaf will endeavor to exceed local code requirements where possible to ensure personnel
safety for all operations. Generally speaking, smart-domes are designed with sufficient egress exits for life safety, and minimal fire protection measures will be necessary as compared to expensive industrial buildings that require extensive and costly sprinkler systems.

Swissleaf has initiated design review discussions with local municipal fire departments togenerate feedback on general conformity to building and fire code regulations.

Separately attached modular buildings can be easily integrated into the main smart-dome structure as well, which achieves a cost-effective, sanitation friendly approach for personnel offices, lunchrooms, change rooms, washrooms, and site security. Having these facilities delineated from the smart-dome cultivation areas establishes key best practices SOPs under GPM guidelines provided by Health Canada and acts as an effective barrier to prevent the spread of diseases.

Swissleaf will continuously examine unique areas of the smart-dome structure and its integration into a cultivation facility for potential intellectual property registration. Several critical areas of the design have been identified for possible patent protection.