Hasta La Ideas

Sea urchins, mussels and crabs are among the marine creatures that are expected to take up residence in a floating structure in the San Francisco Bay that was created by a multidisciplinary team at the California College of the Arts.

The structure – formally called the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab – is currently moored in Oakland’s Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, where it will remain for three years.

Serving as both a research platform and demonstration project, the structure was created by a team of artists, designers and architects from the California College of the Arts (CCA). The project was spearheaded by the university’s Architectural Ecologies Lab, which is led by architecture professors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones.

The diverse team worked in concert with scientists from Benthic Lab and the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, along with experts at the Port of Oakland.

The Float Lab will test solutions for enhancing marine habitat and alleviating coastal erosion. The floating structure acts as a breakwater, which typically consists of piles of rocks placed alongside a shoreline. Breakwaters help block waves and make the water calmer.

“The Float Lab, a cutting-edge prototype for an ecologically productive floating breakwater, merges expertise from design, advanced digital manufacturing and marine ecology to imagine a new kind of architecture for climate adaptation,” the team said in a project description.

The structure measures approximately 14 feet by 8 feet (4.2 metres by 2.4 metres).

The hull is made of ecologically optimised, fibre-reinforced polymer composite and weighs 500 pounds (227 kilograms). Inside the hull are 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of concrete ballasts, which help ensure proper buoyancy.

The Float Lab’s shape was determined by the varying habitat needs for sea creatures. Species that have settled on earlier prototypes include bryozoans, tube worms, sponges, crabs, nudibranchs, crustaceans, oysters, mussels and sea urchins.

The upper portion has peaks and valleys, allowing tidal pools to form. The underside also has varying topographies to make it suitable for different types of invertebrates. Plankton and other nutrients flow into underwater “fish apartments”, helping foster ecological diversity.

“The substrate is designed to create a range of scales of habitats for marine invertebrates, creating small pockets of space that protect smaller creatures from predators,” the team said. “This strengthens the food chain and increases biodiversity.”

“In large masses, this biological growth can help attenuate wave action and reduce coastal erosion – one of the primary impacts of climate change and sea-level rise,” they added.

To help with the formation of tidal pools atop the hull, the structure has a small irrigation pump that collects seawater and channels it to the mounds. The water then trickles down and collects in pools.

“The irrigation pump is on a timer and circulates several minutes every hour during the day,” the team continued.

To keep the interior free or water and condensation, the structure has two bilge pumps, which are commonly used on small vessels. The pumps are activated when water is detected by float switches.

The pumps are powered by batteries inside the hull. The batteries, in turn, are charged by solar panels.

The team plans to install monitoring devices in the coming months, including temperature and turbidity sensors.

The Float Lab is the “first prototype of its kind” to receive permits from both federal and local regulators. The project earned approval from the US Army Corps of Engineers and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

The structure has already won several accolades, including a Catalyst award from the Buckminster Fuller Institute and an Incubator Prize from Columbia University‘s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Other projects that aim to create habitat for marine creatures include the Pier 35 “eco park” in Manhattan by Shop and Ken Smith, which features a rocky beach designed for mussels.

Photography is by Joshua Eufinger, Mike Campos, and the Architectural Ecologies Lab.

Project credits:

Project leaders: Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, Evan Jones
Design team: Taylor Metcalf, Georine Pierre, Jared Clifton
Marine ecology: Benthic Lab, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (John Oliver, Kamille Hammerstrom, Daniel Gossard)
Fabrication: Kreysler & Associates (Bill Kreysler, Josh Zabel)
Maintenance and deployment consultant: DC Marine (Dean Christian)
Naval architecture and engineering: Tri-Coastal Marine (Andrew Davis)
Deployment team, Port of Oakland: Bill Morrison, Donald Ockrassa, Kevin Nekimken, Sean Wheels, Greg Skeen
Administrative support: Dustin Smith, Amanda Schwerin, Karina O’Neill, Laura Ng, Sarah Lowe, JD Beltran, Wes Miller, Tracy Tanner
Project sponsors: Miranda Leonard, Kreysler & Associates, Ashland Reactive Polymers, Autodesk Workshop at Pier 9, Port of Oakland, CCA Center for Impact

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What we want:
Creativity (this is product development)
Brainstorming/Conceptualizing (think outside the box)
Specification Documentation (it has to be done)
Sketching/Rendering (white boards used frequently)
Researching (Google isn’t the only resource)
Proof of Concept/Prototyping (doesn’t have to be pretty)
Packaging (guru)
Analyzing – updating current product or adding to, you must know your numbers

What you need:

Bachelor’s Degree in Design (but of course)
Ability to multitask (able to wear many hats and change them frequently)
Mad Adobe CS skills (will make your life easier)
0 – 5 years of related experience
Able to hold their own in a diverse group of people (enough said)
Enjoy using SolidWorks (it’s a way of life)
Able to convey ideas quickly (see white boards above)
Understanding of time management (yes we do want it yesterday)
A passion for Fitness and Martial Arts would be a plus! (it is who we are)

View the full design job here

Members of the Royal Institute of British Architects, including a past president, have signed a letter calling for UK prime minister Boris Johnson‘s honorable fellowship to be taken away.

Former president of the Royal Institute of British Architect (RIBA) Angela Brady has called for Johnson to be stripped of the honorary title, while immediate past president Ben Derbyshire said a discussion on the matter was “inevitable”.

Johnson was made an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA in 2011 for making an “enormous contribution” to architecture during his eight-year tenure as the mayor of London.

As mayor he was involved with several high profile architecture and design projects, including a redesign of the London Routemaster buses by Thomas Heatherwick, the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower, London’s cycle sharing scheme and the Emirates Air Line cable car.

Calls to strip the title came after the British Supreme Court found Johnson’s suspension of parliament to be unlawful. The court also ruled that his advice to the Queen to prorogue parliament was unlawful.

Prime minister’s behaviour breaks RIBA code

“Honesty”, along with “integrity and competence” are the three key tenants of the RIBA code of professional conduct.  Johnson is not bound by the code, but RIBA members have claimed his actions has bought the institution into disrepute.

“Discussion ⁦‪@RIBA‬⁩ council next week on the appropriateness of Boris Johnson’s Honorary Fellowship is inevitable,” tweeted Derbyshire.

“After last night’s Commons debate its clear his behaviour fails to meet the standards in our new Code of Conduct for members. Sadly this does not apply to Hon. posts.”

Johnson came under fire for his language when parliament reconvened, where he dismissed an MP’s fears about the language used around Brexit leading to violence as “humbug”.

Letter against Johnson signed by British architects

A letter calling for the honour to be stripped from the prime minister will be presented at the next RIBA council meeting on Wednesday 2 October.

“Unequivocally he does not meet the professions code of conduct,” tweeted architect Walter Menteth, who organised the campaign.

Former RIBA Honours Committee panellist Sarah Wigglesworth, who was part of the team that awarded Johnson the membership in the first place, is one of the letter’s signatories. RIBA co-vice president for students and associates Simeon Shtebunaev has also signed the letter.

Peter Barber, Charles Holland and Piers Taylor are among the signatories, along with Dezeen Awards 2019 judge and London Eye architect Julia Barfield. Dean of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture and Dezeen Day speaker Harriet Harriss has also signed the letter.

RIBA promises to remain “apolitical” in judgement

As well as the unlawful suspension of parliament, the letter notes “reported comments widely construed as denigrating to women and ethnic minorities ” from the prime minister and “matters of propriety and conflict of interest” in its case for removing the honorary title.

Johnson is currently under investigation from the Greater London Authority over his failed Garden Bridge project. He has also been referred to a police watchdog over accusations of misconduct regarding favours granted to a businesswoman while he was mayor.

“We are aware of the concerns that have been raised,” a spokesperson for the RIBA told Dezeen.

“As a charity and professional body, we uphold standards whilst also remaining apolitical,” they added.

“There is a process for considering the revocation of any honorary award and any assessment would remain confidential at least until a decision has been reached.”

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Swedish studios Asante Architecture & Design and Lönnqvist & Vanamo Architects have collaborated with local workers to create a self-sufficient orphanage in Kingori, Tanzania.

Designed as a home for 25 orphans, the Econef Children’s Center was created by the Swedish studios, along with Architects Without Borders Sweden and Engineers Without Borders Sweden for Econef – a Swedish-Tanzanian NGO that aims to prove the lives of orphans.

The compound in northern, rural Tanzania is made up of a group of brick buildings containing bedrooms, classrooms and a kitchen, arranged around two courtyards.

Asante Architecture & Design and Lönnqvist & Vanamo Architects designed the Econef Children’s Center to be a self-sufficient as possible to reduce Econef’s reliance on private donations.

“To help achieve our goal the new buildings are planned to be ecologically and economically sustainable and largely maintenance-free,” explained Frida Öster, co-founder of Asante Architecture & Design.

The children’s centre has solar panels to create electricity, rainwater harvesting systems to collect water and a biogas plant to produce cooking gas for use in the kitchen.

Surrounding the buildings are plantations that will be used to grow food for the children, as well as areas for livestock.

“Our goal has been to create environment that is safe, functional, and sustainable; provide spaces for the needs, desires and dreams; with consideration of local climate, resources, building techniques and materials,” Öster told Dezeen.

Econef Children’s Center has been built using local materials with techniques that use locally available skills, to minimise the construction and transportation costs. This will also reduce the maintenance costs.

Walls have been built with traditional local burnt bricks, while the roof is made of corrugated steel supported on a wooden frame. A gap for airflow between the roof and the room’s ceilings is covered with sisal poles to prevent birds entering and nesting.

“The buildings are inspired by vernacular architecture in the area, following the methods of local building tradition, while introducing a simple yet innovative typology in the region,” said Öster.

“Making the most of limited means, we wanted to create something beautiful,” she continued. “The skills of local builders are integral to the sustainable house typologies adapted to the northern Tanzanian climatical, cultural and economical conditions.”

Other architect-designed orphanages include a concrete compound in Djibouti created for the charity SOS Children’s Villages International by Urko Sanchez Architects and a Habitat for Orphan Girls designed by ZAV Architects in Khansar, Iran

Photography is by Robin Hayes.

Project credits:

Lead architects: Carolina Wikström, Frida Öster (Asante Architecture&Design), Pilvi Vanamo (Lönnqvist Vanamo Architects)
Design team: Lukas Bidö (Asante Architecture&Design / Architects Without Borders Sweden), Jockum Beckeld (A-Direkt)
Client: Econef Tanzania
Engineering: Cornelis Oskamp
Landscape: Anna Valman, Julia Vilkenas, Johanna Ardland Bojvall, Hanne Nilsson
Collaborators: ECONEF, Architects Without Borders Sweden, Engineers Without Borders Sweden

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Consumers could change the colour of their cars, shoes, clothes or other belongings at will, using a new light-responsive ink from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dubbed PhotoChromeleon, the “reprogrammable ink” gives objects the ability to change colour and pattern when exposed to light of certain wavelengths.

The change is reversible and repeatable – users could update their items every day, if they wished – and the colour would stay fast in ordinary settings.

PhotoChromeleon is the invention of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Its researchers believe the ink could help reduce waste by reducing the demand for new goods.

“Countless resources could be preserved”

People could update older items once they tired of their original colour, and manufacturers could cut down on overproduction.

“This special type of dye could enable a whole myriad of customisation options that could improve manufacturing efficiency and reduce overall waste,” said CSAIL postdoctoral researcher Yuhua Jin, lead author on a paper about the project presented at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.

“By giving users the autonomy to individualise their items, countless resources could be preserved, and the opportunities to creatively change your favourite possessions are boundless,” added MIT professor Stefanie Mueller.

The CSAIL team invented both the ink and the user interface for processing designs and patterns onto objects.

The ink is actually a mixture of three photochromic dyes – cyan, magenta and yellow – that is evenly sprayed over an object.

Meanwhile, the digital interface allows users to apply a pattern of their choosing or creation onto a 3D model of the object.

Colours programmed using a projector and erased by UV

To merge the two, the user places the object in a box rigged with a projector, whose different wavelengths of light will eliminate different colours in the dye.

For instance, blue light is mostly absorbed by yellow dye, so the yellow dye is deactivated, leaving only magenta and cyan — a blue colour.

To erase the design, an ultraviolet light shines to return all the colours to their full saturation.

A video created by the lab shows them placing a shoe, a phone case, a toy car and a toy chameleon in the box to print them with patterns ranging from flames and florals to abstract geometries and high-resolution photography.

Financial backing for the project came from Ford Motor Company, which expressed interest in the potential benefits of the ink in the automotive industry.

“This ink could reduce the number of steps required for producing a multicolor part, or improve the durability of the colour from weathering or UV degradation,” said Alper Kiziltas, technical specialist of sustainable and emerging materials at Ford Motor Co. “One day, we might even be able to personalise our vehicles on a whim.”

The CSAIL team’s next step will be to expand the colour palette possible with PhotoChromeleon by collaborating with material scientists.

MIT’s CSAIL focuses on computing and artificial intelligence, with more than 900 researchers. Its previous projects include the soft robotic swimming fish SoFi and ColorMod, a direct precursor to PhotoChromeleon.

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