California College of the Arts’ Architecture Division announces new Academic Alliance with the Autodesk Technology Centers

April 15, 2021

California College of the Arts’ acclaimed Architecture Division is pleased to announce a new Academic Alliance with the Autodesk Technology Centers beginning in spring 2021. Through the Academic Alliance, Autodesk Technology Centers will work with the Architectural Ecologies Lab (AEL) and the Digital Craft Lab (DCL), two of CCA Architecture’s four teaching and research labs, to provide opportunities for CCA students to join Autodesk Technology Center’s Outsight Network and leverage the associated workshops and studios under the supervision of the AEL and DCL lab directors.

On Friday, April 16, at 12 pm PT, CCA Architecture and Autodesk Technology Centers will co-present a panel discussion, “The Future of Learning: Industry and Academia Convergence,” to launch the new Academic Alliance. The panel discussion—which includes Keith Krumwiede, CCA’s dean of Architecture; Sophia Zelov, development lead at Autodesk Technology Centers; and Rick Rundell, senior director at Autodesk Technology Centers—will consider the future of learning with best practice examples from CCA’s Architectural Ecologies Lab & Digital Craft Lab projects hosted at the Autodesk Technology Center in San Francisco. The panel will be moderated by AEL director Margaret Ikeda and DCL director Negar Kalantar.

The Academic Alliance further cements Autodesk Technology Centers’ ongoing work with CCA Architecture. Since 2014, Autodesk Technology Centers have hosted CCA design research ranging from the AEL Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab breakwater project and Presidio Culvert Reef oyster restoration project, to the DCL research projects speculating on the design of Future Factories and the National Science Foundation Grant on developing Wave Tunable Materials for Complex Freeform Structures.

During 2019 and 2020, the Technology Center in San Francisco offered an opportunity to forty DCL Architecture and Interior Design students of tranSTUDIO at CCA to work in the state-of-the-art facility as residents in the Autodesk Technology Centers Outsight Network, providing a change in the way students learn, think, and make innovative designs.

The Academic Alliance builds upon this advanced design research to formalize opportunities for CCA students whose interests align with the Architecture Ecologies Lab or Digital Craft Lab. In the past year, the Outsight Network has expanded to have a global online presence; resident teams now represent over 20 different countries and have access to a diverse and innovative community and subject matter expertise through digital platforms. The Academic Alliance creates a unique opportunity for the CCA Architecture Division to host and collaborate with scholars from international academic institutions while they are pursuing research within the Outsight Network, and for interested students in the Master of Advanced Architecture Design program—CCA Architecture’s one-year interdisciplinary post-professional degree program tailored for advanced students and mid-career professionals—to integrate their area of research with support from both the physical and digital resources of the Autodesk Technology Centers.

Roberts and ECOPOESIS Awarded Al-Balad Artist Residency

March 2, 2021

In 2020, Leslie Carol Roberts and The Ecopoesis Project were invited to be part of the Al Balad arts residency program in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is the first international artists’ residency hosted by Saudi Arabia. Both Saudi and international artists were selected for the residencies, which take place over six weeks.

Al Balad is Jeddah’s historic district, known for its traditional architecture, the hallmarks of which are coral construction and intricate wooden doors and windows. The old town is known for its traditional architecture and houses paneled with intricate wooden windows and doors. Former houses have been turned into heritage sites, such as the Rubat Al Khuniji, a 207-year-old guesthouse where the residents will work.

Roberts, with her Ecopoesis collaborators Adam Marcus and Christopher Falliers, proposed the installation of a small dome as a tool for activating space and intimate conversations about the realities and feelings—grief, fear, melancholy, wonder, humility—around the climate emergency and individual and collective creative responses. The dome will be draped with fabrics, using local materials and aesthetics, to further integrate the structure into its environment. Events will be programmed for the dome, including food sharing and recordings of environmental sound and short personal essays about local ecologies.

While the Covid-19 pandemic has delayed project implementation, the residency program launched online in November 2020 and plans to be in place in late 2021.

AEL Presidio Crissy Marsh Project Featured in "Consider The Oyster" Exhibit In San Francisco

February 26, 2021

Natural Discourse & Levy Art + Architecture present
Consider the Oyster: Art, Science & Culture
A storefront window exhibit at Levy Art + Architecture 2501 Bryant St, San Francisco
Join us on February 27th from 5 to 8 for a safe, streetside opening at 2501 Bryant St
Opens this Saturday February 27 from 5 to 8

Join us as we consider pinhole cameras inside oyster shells, native oyster restoration at the Presidio and oyster farming and feasting in Tomales Bay. Participating artists and scientists: Taylor Griffith, David Janesko, Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones, Chris Kallmyer, Gwendolyn Meyer and Jonathan Young.

David Janesko’s poetic series of pinhole cameras Forest/Oyster was the initial inspiration for the exhibit. Delicate images of the forest surrounding the Willapa Bay in Oregon are imprinted on the inside the oyster shells. Jonathan Young, wildlife ecologist at the Presidio, provided us with concrete oyster reef balls and computer designed oyster panels by Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones of Architectural Ecologies Lab. These objects are part of a native oyster restoration project at the new Quarter Master Reach tidal wetland at the Presidio. Taylor Griffith’s Heard Above, a 19 minute video was filmed at Quarter Master Reach and will be projected every weekend from dusk to 9 pm. From ecology to oyster farming and culinary delights, Chris Kallmyer will be showing Consider the Oyster a two channel video about the last year of the Drake’s Bay Oyster company and we have series of Gwendolyn Meyer’s photos from her beautiful book Oyster Culture.

Healthy oyster reefs are a proven way to effectively reduce water pollution and improve the marine environment. While other bivalves also possess the ingenious ability to clean water while flushing out pollutants as they feed, none are simultaneous symbols of feasting, as is the oyster. Gwendolyn Meyer

Natural Discourse is collaborating with Levy Art + Architecture to consider this wondrous bi-valve. The art gallery will be visible from the street where anyone can view it, 24 hours a day, beginning at 2501 Bryant St, San Francisco.

Many thanks to Emmanuel Coup, Gene Grealish, Heidi Gregory at Tomales Bay Oyster Co and Ross Levy and his staff for support of this exhibit.

Natural Discourse is an ongoing series of symposia, publications and site-specific art installations that explore the connections between art, culture, science and site.

Natural Discourse is curated by Shirley Alexandra Watts

Roberts and Falliers Keynote Ecological Arts Therapies Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia

September 1, 2020

On August 8, 2020, Professors Leslie Carol Roberts and Chris Falliers delivered a keynote presentation for the The First International Conference for Ecological Arts Therapies, via Zoom in St. Petersburg, Russia. As part of the keynote, Roberts and Falliers (with Adam Marcus, co-founders of The Ecopoesis Project) presented How We Hear Now, a collaborative artwork launched on Earth Day, 2020.

The conference theme “Ecological/Earth-Based Arts Therapies: International and Multi-Cultural Perspectives" aligned with the ambitions and framework of The Ecopoesis Project. In their talk, Roberts and Falliers discussed how the project generates knowledge and interdisciplinary forms of practice and pedagogy around questions of ecologies that challenge disciplinary norms. They discussed the genesis of the project, its first two iterations: the 2019 gathering of invited guests from across disciplines and How We Hear Now, the 2020 sound and art installation responding to the ecology of pandemic.

An excerpt from the presentation:

Our hope is to build a work that is a tonic towards healing obliviousness—obliviousness to our shared circumstances, which includes nonhumans, from the penguins to the coral to the bivalves that cluster on floating substrate. By creating assemblies where we can be vulnerable, we press forward towards a condition of susceptibility towards ideas for how to change and heal things on Planet Earth. And Earth needs this sort of tenderness now, after hundreds of years of human-lead exploitation. And we propose that the meandering path there comes in allowing grief, sadness, joy, melancholy, weirdness, hilarity, humility to weave together.

As artists, designers, and writers, we are attuned to how things are and then we push this attunement towards a collaborative. In this, we are collectors of ideas rather than self-tasked towards generating “original ideas.”

We argue that design and art and writing can gather a collective of voices to consider—even try to understand—complex emotions associated with the climate emergency, like grief and love. That is, we invite participants to have more naked reactions to the realities of these times. So much of ecological conversation has been dominated by doomsday philosophizing and corporate-speak, both of which often point to humans as the “problem.” But what if instead we use awareness and art to look tenderly and with desire at our shared reality of living together with nonhumans in a climate emergency? In 2020, we focused on what it felt like to experience local and nonlocal ecologies within a time of pandemic, such an extreme form of environmental isolation.

ECOPOESIS Project Launches 'How We Hear Now'

August 6, 2020

The ECOPOEISIS Project is pleased to launch How We Hear Now, a new collaborative, participatory artwork conceived and executed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on environmental perception.

How We Hear Now invites participants to engage in audible changes in their environments—to record and transmit how, as humans moved into isolation, nonhuman ecologies have grown noticeably more audible during the COVID–19 pandemic’s shelter-in-place orders. Each participant constructed a sound recording of their environment on April 22, 2020, the fiftieth anniversary Earth Day, and provided a description of ecological or cultural factors. The audio recordings and environmental descriptions are compiled into a layered stream of sound and text, a visual and aural landscape of ecological observations collected during this unique time. The individual contributions meld together with a visualization of seismic data collected on April 22, representing the concurrent geological sound occurring at a planetary scale.

To learn more about How We Hear Now and see excerpts of the artwork, see this link.

Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Featured on ABC7 Evening News

July 17, 2020

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab project was recently featured in a story on ABC7 Evening News, by Dan Ashley and Tim Didion. AEL directors Margaret Ikeda, Evan Jones, and Adam Marcus were interviewed on site for the story, discussing how the Float Lab’s research might inform how cities adapt to climate change and sea level rise.

Link: 'Upside down floating reef' in the San Francisco Bay could change ecology of shoreline, experts hope.

AEL Presents Research and Studio Work to Gdansk University in Poland

July 9, 2020

Margaret Ikeda and Evan Jones were invited to present an overview of the Architectural Ecologies Lab research to Master of Architecture students at Gdansk University of Technology during the first week in July by Professor Lucyna Nyka, the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, and head of the Department of Urban Architecture and Waterscapes. In three sessions, Margaret and Evan presented work ranging from the Float Lab to speculative work from the Buoyant Ecologies Maldives studio work and Living Pod. Gdansk, as a major Port for Poland, with three main tributaries entering its bay, has interesting overlaps with the San Francisco Bay, offering possibilities for future collaborations between the two colleges.

AEL Partners with Presidio Trust on Native Oyster Habitat Restoration

May 28, 2020

AEL directors Evan Jones and Margaret Ikeda have been working for the past year with the Presidio Trust and the National Park Service on innovative ecological substrates for native oyster habitat restoration at the newly expanded wetlands at Quartermaster Reach / Crissy Marsh. The team includes research fellow and CCA M.Arch alum Sean Cunningham, the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, Kreysler & Associates, and support from Autodesk’s Technology Center, San Francisco.

This past year, the team has deployed a series of floating substrate prototypes to test ways to recruit Olympia oyster larvae and encourage their growth in the marsh. This work has informed the design of larger scale, custom-contoured composite panels, which will be installed later this summer as a permanent liners for new culverts that run beneath Mason Street.

For more information on the project, see this news post from the Presidio’s blog.

Buoyant Ecologies Students Selected for 2020 ACSA / AIA COTE Top Ten

May 21, 2020

Bachelor of Architecture students Jingyi Emma Luo and Cera Yeo from the fall 2019 Buoyant Blueprint studio have been announced as winners of the AIA COTE Top Ten for Students Design Competition.

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 recognizes ten exceptional studio projects that demonstrate designs moving towards carbon-neutral operation through creative and innovative integration of design strategies such as daylighting, passive heating and cooling, materials, water, energy generation, and sustainable systems. The program 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.

Jurors included Elgin Cleckley (University of Virginia), Carly Coulson (COULSON), Michael Horan (Clemson University), Tom Kundig (Olson Kundig), and Adrian Parr (University of Texas at Arlington).

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

The selected project, Waterline by Jingyi Emma Luo and Cera Yeo, proposes a strategy for architectural adaptation to climate change for low-lying islands. Sited in the Maldives, the project integrates a mangrove nursery and advanced water recycling systems into a phased plan for a self-sustaining floating community. From the jury citation: "Waterline is a powerful sustainable design solution with cultural foundation. The project details provide a level of excitement and thoughtfulness, which is stunning at first glance that never loses that level of interest throughout the details. The well-executed renderings and details present a realistic design that creates a fantastical sense of place and compelling construction technology.”

Buoyant Ecologies Students Named Finalists in Kiribati Floating Houses Competition

March 23, 2020

Two teams of Bachelor of Architecture students from the fall 2019 Buoyant Ecologies Blueprint studio have been named as finalists in the Kiribati Floating Houses Competition. The competition invited participants to speculate on forms of floating housing for Kiribati, an island nation located in the central Pacific Ocean that is increasingly vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise.

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

The two CCA student teams selected as finalists are: City^2, by Jiaqi Cao, Jiaqi Deng, and Yuchen Li; and Kiribati Floating Community, by Jingyi Emma Luo and Cera Yeo. Congratulations to the students on this achievement!

Adam Marcus Presents at Columbia University GSAPP

February 12, 2020

On February 7, Adam Marcus presented the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab project at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, as part of a panel featuring recipients of the 2019-2020 GSAPP Incubator Prize.

Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Wins ACSA Faculty Design Award

February 3, 2020

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, a project designed by AEL directors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones in collaboration with partners at the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Kreysler & Associates, has been recognized by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) with a Faculty Design Award as part of the 2020 Architectural Education Awards program. The Float Lab is a pilot for a floating breakwater, recently launched in San Francisco Bay for a three-year deployment as a floating research laboratory developing new material approaches to resilience and climate adaptation.

Each year, ACSA honors architectural educators for exemplary work in areas such as building design, community collaborations, scholarship, and service. Award winners inspire and challenge students, contribute to the profession’s knowledge base, and extend their work beyond the borders of academy into practice and the public sector. The Faculty Design Awards provide a venue for work that advances the reflective nature of practice and teaching by recognizing and encouraging outstanding work in architecture and related environmental design fields as a critical endeavor.

Jurors for this year’s Faculty Design Awards were Rania Ghosn (MIT Architecture), Courtney Crosson (University of Arizona), and Jennifer Bonner (Harvard University).

Previous recognition of the Float Lab includes a 2019 AIA Innovation Award, an Editor’s Choice in the 2019 Architect’s Newspaper Best of Design Awards, the 2019 CCA Impact Award, the 2019-2020 GSAPP Incubator Prize, a 2018 Architect magazine R+D Award, and selection for the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s Catalyst Program in 2017.

Link: 2020 Architectural Education Award Winners

Public Sediment for Alameda Creek Recognized by ASLA with 2019 Honor Award

December 16, 2019

The Public Sediment team (which includes AEL directors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones) has won a 2019 Honor Award in Analysis and Planning from the American Society of Landscape Architects. The project was developed within the framework of the Resilient By Design Bay Area Challenge, a year-long research and design initiative exploring new design approaches to sea level rise and climate change, and recently received $31.4 million of implementation funding from the State of California.

The team’s proposal is based on the premise that sea level rise adaptation must happen upstream. Low sediment supply and bayland drowning represents a slow but devastating scale of loss that threatens ecosystems, recreational landscapes, and places hundreds of thousands of residents and the region’s critical drinking water, energy, and transportation systems at risk. To creatively adapt to this challenge, the team has focused on bringing back sediment to the Bay. The Architectural Ecologies Lab led the development of a central component of the proposal, the Living Levee. The Living Levee is a multibenefit strategy for revetment design that integrates ecological principles within an interlocking concrete module that helps limit erosion and support the surrounding ecosystem.

The Public Sediment team is led by SCAPE Landscape Architecture and includes Arcadis, The Dredge Research Collaborative, TS Studio, UC Davis Department of Human Ecology and Design, Cy Keener, and Architectural Ecologies Lab. See this link for more info on the project.

Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Recognized by Architect's Newspaper Best of Design Awards

December 5, 2019

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, a project designed by AEL directors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones in collaboration with partners at the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Kreysler & Associates, has been recognized by the Architect’s Newspaper as an Editor’s Choice in the 2019 Best of Design Awards, for the Research category. The Float Lab is a pilot for a floating breakwater, recently launched in San Francisco Bay for a three-year deployment as a floating research laboratory developing new material approaches to resilience and climate adaptation.

Margaret Ikeda Presents at ACSA Administrators Conference in New Orleans

November 18, 2019

On November 9, Margaret Ikeda presented the Buoyant Ecologies research at the 2019 ACSA Administrators Conference “UNCERTAINTY” at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. Margaret presented as part of the panel “Water Scarcity, Flood, and Climate Change,” organized by Dr. Adrian Parr, Dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Margaret Ikeda Presents Research in Warsaw, Poland

November 8, 2019

On October 14-16, Margaret Ikeda presented the Buoyant Ecologies research as one of the Plenary Speakers at the International Conference on Amphibious Architecture, Design and Engineering at Warsaw University of Technology in Poland.

Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Wins AIA Innovation Award

October 17, 2019

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, a project designed by AEL directors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones in collaboration with partners at the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and Kreysler & Associates, has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects with a 2019 Innovation Award. The Float Lab is a pilot for a floating breakwater, recently launched in San Francisco Bay for a three-year deployment as a floating research laboratory developing new material approaches to resilience and climate adaptation.

The AIA Innovation Awards recognize the exemplary use and implementation of innovative technologies and progressive practices among architects and designers, collaborators, and clients. Recipients include the most technologically advanced and forward-thinking projects by architects practicing internationally.

Jurors for this years awards program included Anthony Hauck (Hypar AEC), Phillip Bernstein, FAIA, (Yale University School of Architecture), Desiree Mackey (GEI Consultants), Sera Maloney (The Foth Companies), and Natasha Luthra (Jacobs).

In their award statement, the jury referred to the Float Lab as “a terrific project that combines pedagogy, sustainability, design technology, practice, and fabrication. This is the future architecture should be building—integration with and enhancement of the natural environment."

Link: Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab wins 2019 AIA Innovation Award

Architectural Ecologies Lab Team Leads Research Trip to the Maldives

October 15, 2019

Interdisciplinary Cohort Explores Radical Alternatives through Field Work and Public Engagement.

What better way to spend an ecological summer break than investigating the effects of climate change in the highly impacted Maldives? An interdisciplinary team from the Architectural Ecologies Lab did just that. This past July, three California College of the Arts faculty from the Architectural Ecologies Lab joined two scientists for a two-week field trip to the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean of 1,200 small coral islands, 200 of which are are human-inhabited.

The Maldives face immediate and urgent impacts of sea-level rise caused by climate change, including disastrous, recent coral bleaching due to ocean warming. CCA faculty Margaret Ikeda, Evan Jones, and Leslie Carol Roberts joined Dr. John Oliver of the Benthic Lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the biologist Jo Guerrero on a visit to numerous islands, conducting field work and sharing research and design work by California College of the Arts faculty and students interrogating ecological changes and how we might mediate the effects through varied approaches.

Professors Ikeda and Jones lead the Buoyant Ecologies Maldives integrated architecture studio, which began work in 2017 to develop speculative proposals for floating communities in the Maldives. Professor Roberts co-directs the Ecopoesis Project, an interdisciplinary initiative of the AEL and CCA’s MFA in Writing Program, exploring how we use language to grasp and process life, human and non-human, in the sixth extinction.

The team’s research brief included field work and interviews to better map and understand the complex island culture, politics, economies, infrastructure, and marine ecology. The team left with optimism about future collaborations and strategies for partnerships this fall semester and beyond.

Highlights:

An evening lecture and panel discussion at The Maldives National University (MNU) with more than 150 attendees, including former president and climate activist President Mohamed Nasheed; Dr. Mohamed Latheef, the Chancellor of MNU, and Dr. Shazla Mohamed, Dean of Engineering, Science and Technology (home of the architecture department).
Professors Ikeda and Jones were invited guest reviewers at MNU for the final studio presentation for a fourth-year undergraduate studio, which explored the planning and development of a community over water.
A two-day exhibition in Male’ (the capital city) of Buoyant Ecologies Maldives studio work, followed the talks. This work had previously been exhibited at the Hubbell Gallery at CCA in February, 2019 (curated by CCA faculty member Michael Bogan) and at the Benthic Lab Open House in April, 2019. This event was an opportunity to meet with the public and discuss the studio projects on exhibit. Many people attended, including representatives from government agencies who were curious about both the adaptive design approaches and the incorporation of sustainable systems. These initial meetings have cultivated relationships with a new constituency who have become an essential resource for this fall’s Buoyant Ecologies Maldives studio, currently underway at CCA.
Professor Roberts led a series of Ecopoesis dialogues with Maldivian students and visitors to the exhibition, interviewing them and discussing local perspectives on how climate change impacts economic, social, and ecological dimensions of daily life.
The island of Dhangethi, the site of the Buoyant Ecologies Maldives studio, was the main focal point of the trip. After a three-hour speed boat trip in heavy monsoon seas, the team spent three days meeting with island residents, learning about the local infrastructure, understanding the island’s hydrology, and recording thoughts on climate. Most of their time was spent on the water, including snorkelling with the majestic whale shark, observing the marine eco-tourism industry, and talking to local divers. The biologists, both divers, explored an adjacent marine sanctuary, and documented the shallow and deep lagoons that skirt the island of Dhangethi. Dhangethi, with a population of 500, is looking to grow its tourist economy. The implications of a heavier human footprint on water use and effluent were explored and discussed with local leaders.
To better understand the Maldives economy, which is based on high-end, foreign-funded resorts and tourism, the team visited the Conrad (Hilton) Resort, home to a famed underwater restaurant and representative of the industry. The Conrad biologists explained the hotel’s coral restoration scheme and took the AEL into the waters for a closer view.. The next stop was the Banyan Tree Resort, a global hotel group based in Singapore. Banyan Tree has a reputation for serious commitment to marine biology research. Their resident marine biologist, Steve Newman, has more than two decades of dive work and research around coral and marine life in the Maldives. In addition, he is on a government panel that looks at how to better manage eco-tourism across the country. Connected to a research university in the UK, the Banyan Tree routinely hosts PhD students conducting research about the local ecologies. The hotel is also one of the only marine biology labs in the country. The AEL team saw documented extensive coral bleaching on this warmer inner island atoll and observed how sharks and other reef species were adapting. Oliver continues discussions with the biologist at Banyan Tree lab about possible research collaborations in the coming years.

Isha Fathmath, a 2018 Buoyant Ecologies Maldives student, 2019 CCA M.Arch graduate, and principal of Doric MV architecture based in the capital Male’ with local partner Layana Mohamed, coordinated all the public events and was invaluable to navigating the islands from a local perspective.

There is more to come with both ECOPOESIS and the Buoyant Ecologies team. Roberts and her CCA ECOPOESIS colleague Christopher Falliers are teaching a semester-long graduate seminar ECOPOESIS. This interdisciplinary course looks at embodied messaging around climate change, engaging in form-making and language to articulate climate change and the feelings of the sixth extinction. The Buoyant Ecologies team is incorporating the feedback of all their new partners into a third design studio, titled “A Blueprint for Resilience,” and has been working remotely with an MNU architecture studio sharing ideas around innovative technologies, cultural traditions and ecological adaptations.

Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab Featured in Dezeen

October 1, 2019

The Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, a project led by AEL directors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, is featured in an article in influential architecture and design magazine Dezeen.

Link: “Float Lab designed to serve as new kind of architecture for climate adaptation” by Jenna McKnight in Dezeen

Community Event Celebrates the Launch of Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab

September 27, 2019

During a weekend of worldwide climate protests and California Coastal Cleanup Day, leaders from California College of the Arts (CCA), Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Port of Oakland representatives, and community members gathered on Saturday, September 21, to commemorate the launch of the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab in Oakland’s Middle Harbor. This innovative floating research station offers a first-of-its-kind approach to addressing the effects of climate change to be deployed in the San Francisco Bay. The event was organized by the Architectural Ecologies Lab in partnership with CCA Architecture Division and project funder CCA Center for Impact.

Led by CCA architecture faculty and AEL directors Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, the Float Lab builds upon five years of applied research at CCA and merges expertise of architects and designers, advanced digital fabrication manufacturers, and marine ecologists. It is engineered to serve as a breakwater to reduce coastal erosion and also be a habitat for marine life in order to increase marine biodiversity. The Float Lab will be used as an educational tool in fulfillment of Middle Harbor Shoreline Park’s mission to be a place for learning about local history, natural environment, maritime activities, and stewardship for the environment.

The Float Lab launch celebration kicked off with a jazzy, New Orleans–style ceremonial procession performed by the Edna Brewer Middle School Band. The band led over 100 guests down to Port View Park, where the festivities and remarks took place. In the crowd were City of Oakland and Port of Oakland leaders, fifth grade students from Prescott School in West Oakland, musicians from Edna Brewer Middle School in Oakland, multiple community members, and CCA leadership and faculty, as well as current and former CCA students involved with the development of the Buoyant Ecologies research. The celebratory procession lead guests to Port View Park, where the community picnic joyfully commenced with food, refreshments, DIY kites, and coloring book activities as they viewed the Float Lab doing its work in the bay. The event even featured specialty 3D-printed Float Lab-shaped cakes, created by culinary artist and CCA M.Arch alum Carlos Sabogal.

The distinguished speakers then gathered for remarks. Speaking at the event were (in order): JD Beltran, director of CCA Center for Impact, Amy Tharpe, director of Social Responsibility, Port of Oakland; Adam Marcus, Margaret Ikeda, and Evan Jones, CCA Architecture faculty and Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab project leaders; Stephen Beal, CCA president; Keith Krumwiede, CCA dean of Architecture; fifth grade students from Prescott School; Brad McCrea, director of Regulatory Program, San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission; and Richard Sinkoff, director of Environmental Programs and Planning, Port of Oakland; and Libby Schaaf, Mayor of Oakland.

Four students from educator Connie Zunino’s fifth grade class at Prescott School in West Oakland gave a special presentation about Tanaids, a small crustacean native to the bay. The students displayed a colorful, papier-mâché representation of a Tanaid while stating scientific facts delivered in rhyming poetic verse.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf concluded the remarks. Wearing her California Coastal Cleanup T-shirt and green Oakland Proud ball cap, Mayor Schaaf delivered impassioned remarks about the importance of offering innovative solutions to climate change and expressed her commitment to environmental stewardship, especially for future generations: “What’s so exciting about the Float Lab is this is not just a scientific laboratory, this is a show of power from our students—our students at CCA, our students in the Oakland Unified School District—and just know that you have an entire community here in the city of Oakland cheering you on, telling you how important this work is, and telling you to use this information for good, for change.” She then shared the ceremonial ribbon-cutting moment with one of the fifth grade students from Prescott School.

“The challenges around environmental issues are just enormous, and we’re so proud of the work that our faculty and students have done to begin to address this,” said CCA President Stephen Beal. “The founder of CCA, Frederick Meyer, believed that the best thing was to take young creative people and to connect them to the complexities of social, political, and economic life. And that’s been at the heart of CCA for 112 years. Never has that been more important than it is today.”