Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Debuts at San Francisco Exhibition

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, a project designed by CCA faculty Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, is featured in the exhibition Designing Material Innovation, which runs from September 28 to December 23 at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. The project is a prototype for a new kind of resilient coastal infrastructure: floating breakwaters that incorporate an ecologically optimized fiber-reinforced polymer composite substrate to mitigate wave action and contribute to marine diversity.

Designing Material Innovation, an exhibition and symposium organized by Jonathan Massey, exhibits five full-scale architectural prototypes and pavilions that exemplify new approaches to material, fabrication, and design. Created through collaborations between architects and industry partners, these works combine technological innovation in materials research and fabrication with aesthetic and ethical approaches to form and appearance. The exhibition is designed by Clark Thenhaus / Endemic and, in addition to the Float Lab, features projects by T+E+A+M, APTUM Architecture, Matter Design, and Matsys. 

The Float Lab project is a partnership with the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Kreysler & Associates, a global leader in composites manufacturing. It builds upon three years of research and proof-of-concept prototypes that have been installed and monitored underwater for their ecological performance. The exhibition runs through December 2017, and the Float Lab will be deployed in the San Francisco Bay in 2018.

Public Sediment Team Selected for Resilient By Design

Public Sediment, which includes Buoyant Ecologies faculty Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, has been chosen as one of ten teams to participate in Resilient By Design’s Bay Area Challenge. The challenge is a collaborative research and design project that brings together local residents, public officials and local, national and international experts to develop innovative solutions to the issues brought on by climate change that our region faces today. Over the course of the next year, engineers, architects, designers and other experts will work with local community members to identify critical areas throughout San Francisco’s Bay Area in order to provide solutions to the region’s sea level rise, severe storms, flooding and earthquakes.

The result will be 10 new implementable projects that offer an imaginative and collaborative approach to resilience. Public Sediment is led by SCAPE Landscape Architecture, a winner of the New York City Rebuild By Design competition. The team is a multidisciplinary collaboration that views sediment as a core building block of resilience in San Francisco Bay. In addition to SCAPE and the Buoyant Ecologies group, team members include the Dredge Research Collaborative, Arcadis, TS Studio, the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology and Design, and the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

Buoyant Ecologies Community Outreach Presents at Oakland City Hall

On May 1, students from Oakland's Skyline High School presented their design proposals for ecological enhancements at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in Oakland. This spring, CCA faculty member Margaret Ikeda has been leading a collaborative pilot project in collaboration with Oakland Unified School District and Y-PLAN at the UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools, and with financial support from the Port of Oakland's Community Investment program. The project consists of a "plug-in" curriculum module in which 85 high school students participate in ecological design exercises that build upon the Buoyant Ecologies research at CCA's Architecture Division. This work is taking place at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, a recreational area developed by the Port of Oakland as a public resource dedicated to environmental research and education. The students presented their final projects to an audience of legislators and community representatives. 

Two Buoyant Ecologies Students Recognized by AIA

Master of Architecture students Madeline Cunningham and Taylor Metcalf from the fall 2016 Buoyant Ecologies studio have been announced as winners of the AIA COTE Top Ten for Students awards.

The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE), in partnership with Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), selected the recipients of the national awards. The competition challenged students to submit projects that use a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems, and technology to provide architectural solutions that protect and enhance the environment.

The Buoyant Ecologies advanced Integrated Building Design studio, led by CCA faculty Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, is part of an ongoing research partnership between CCA, Autodesk's Pier 9 Workshop, Kreysler & Associates, and the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. The research is focused on developing innovative material approaches to resilient waterfront structures in the San Francisco Bay. 

The selected project, SubOrdinate by Madeline Cunningham and Taylor Metcalf, proposes a new ecological research and education center for Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in the Port of Oakland. From the jury citation: "This innovative project pushes thinking in resilient design by taking a new approach to sea level rise: not by fighting it, but working with it. The attitude is animal-centric and non-confrontational and shows how architecture can adapt to an environment rather than control it. The students also consider the longevity of the project by showing a 100-year progression. The exploration of improving the relationship between nature and built environment is a complicated topic that is resolved impressively."

Buoyant Ecologies Research Exhibited at ACADIA 2016

The Buoyant Ecologies research into optimized ecological substrates led by Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, was featured in "Posthuman Frontiers: Data, Designers, and Cognitive Machines" — the juried exhibition accompanying the 2016 conference of the Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), hosted this year by University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. The opening reception for the exhibition was held on Thursday, October 27 at the Liberty Research Annex Gallery in Ann Arbor. 

Buoyant Ecologies Students Participate in Resilience Workshop

On October 5, students from two CCA Advanced Studios conducted a workshop and discussion on resilient design with visiting students from the University of Pennsylvania. The Win/Win studio led by Janette Kim and the Buoyant Ecologies studio led by Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones joined students from the Bay Area Resilient Transportation studio led by Kai-Uwe Bergmann and Matthijs Bouw to share research and discuss different approaches to the challenges of climate change and sea level rise.

Four Buoyant Ecologies Students Win National Recognition

Master of Architecture students Rafael Berges, Jared Clifton, Vaama Joshi, and Shirin Monshipouri from the fall 2015 Buoyant Ecologies studio have been announced as winners of the AIA COTE Top Ten for Students awards.

The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE), in partnership with Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), selected the recipients of the national awards. The competition challenged students to submit projects that use a thoroughly integrated approach to architecture, natural systems, and technology to provide architectural solutions that protect and enhance the environment.

The Buoyant Ecologies advanced Integrated Building Design studio, led by CCA faculty Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, is part of an ongoing research partnership between CCA, Autodesk's Pier 9 Workshop, Kreysler & Associates, and the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. The research is focused on developing innovative material approaches to resilient waterfront structures in the San Francisco Bay. 

The selected projects, Augmented Tides by Rafael Berges and Jared Clifton, and Inverted Ecologies by Vaama Joshi and Shirin Monshipouri, propose new ecological research and education centers for Middle Harbor Shoreline Park in the Port of Oakland. Augmented Tides proposes a system of "tidal columns": a field of floating platforms that foster a variety of tidal wetland habitats above and below the water, always in flux with changing water levels. Inverted Ecologies proposes a large subterranean space, capped with a highly performative vaulted structure that incorporates plantings, aquaculture, and water recycling infrastructure as educational features of the building.

Buoyant Ecologies Exhibition Opens at Autodesk Gallery

On March 31, the Buoyant Ecologies exhibition opened at the Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco. The exhibition displays the work by students from the fall 2014 CCA Architecture Integrated Studio taught by faculty Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones. The studio explored speculative proposals for a floating expansion of Autodesk's state-of-the-art Pier 9 Workshop along San Francisco's Embarcadero waterfront. The opening event included short talks by CCA Dean of Architecture Jonathan Massey, project leaders Marcus/Ikeda/Jones, Noah Weinstein and J. Sassaman of Autodesk, ecology research partner John Oliver of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and fabrication research partner Bill Kreysler of Kreysler & Associates. 

The exhibition will be up until May 1; see the Gallery website for hours. For more information on the ongoing Buoyant Ecologies studio research, see this link.