On November 19, Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones presented AEL research at the symposium “A Living Atlas: Community-sourced Design for Citizen Science” at the University of California, Davis. The presentation included an overview of AEL research projects, including the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, the Presidio Culvert Reef and the work with the Treasure Island Sailing Club’s “Sailing to Save the Sea” science education program. The latter involves an ongoing collaboration with Adam Larson from Stanford University’s Prakash Lab deploying their PlanktoScope to survey microscopic aquatic life. Larson also presented at the symposium, along with CCA student Yitian Ma (B.Arch 2022), who shared the “Living Pod” project developed in 2019 Constructed Ecologies class for the 2019 BioDesign Challenge. This project incorporated a floating PlanktoScope capable of autonomous monitoring of plankton and microplastics, which is being developed in conjunction with Adam Larson at the Autodesk Technology Center in San Francisco.
Architectural Ecologies Lab Team Presents at Biodesign Challenge 2021
On June 21, 2021 a three-student team from the Fall 2020 Constructed Ecologies class presented their project Urchigami at the 2021 BioDesign Challenge. This was the third consecutive year that the class, taught by Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones, entered the competition. The project explored folded shell designs and biocementation using calcium carbonate and living algae. The team consisted of Geetika Rohra (MArch’21), Nidhi Patel (BArch’21), and Lina Kudinar (MArch’21). Working in consultation with previous collaborators at UCSF microbiology labs and environmental engineering professor Dr. Varenyam Achal from Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the project was developed in the spring semester and featured on the SeaShift Collaborative website (seashift.org)