Image Credit : Volvo Australia
Project Overview
The Living Seawall consists of fifty 3D-printed tiles that have been designed to mimic the root structure of mangrove trees. They have been retrofitted to an existing seawall to help improve marine biodiversity and water quality.
Organisation
Volvo/Sydney Institute of Marine Science/North Sydney Council/Reef Design Lab
Team
A/Prof Mel Bishop
Dr Katherine Dafforn
Dr Mariana Mayer Pinto
Dr Maria Vozzo
Alex Goad
David Lennon
Nick Connor
Project Context
One garbage truck of plastic enters the world’s oceans every minute, and more than half of Sydney’s shoreline is artificial. Rich, vibrant habitats have been replaced with seawalls and degraded by plastic pollution.
There’s so much plastic in the ocean that scientists say it’s simply not feasible to remove it all. Tearing down seawalls isn’t viable either. Solving environmental issues requires modern, divergent thinking.
Project Innovation
Each 3d-printed tile features tiny nooks and crannies that give marine life a place to live and hide, just as they would in a natural mangrove ecosystem. This attracts filter-feeding organisms that absorb and filter out pollutants, such as particulate matter and heavy metals.
Within a week of installation oysters, molluscs, and filter-feeding organisms begin colonising the Living Seawall, helping to combat the effects of urbanisation and pollution in waterways.
Living Seawall flips a harmful structure into a marine habitat and presents a unique opportunity to research which specific designs and geometries are the best to support the ecosystems in our oceans.
Sustainability
The team began monitoring each site prior to tile installation and will continue monitoring the Living Seawalls tiles every 6 months for at least the first two years after habitat tiles are installed.
With the help of Honours, Masters and PhD students, the team is assessing community development from microbes to fish. They are also paying special attention to the rates of colonisation on each tile type by non-native species.
In addition to quantifying biodiversity and community development, the team is collaborating with researchers from the University of Sydney who use cutting edge habitat mapping techniques to measure the physical change in habitat over time.
Social and Community-Oriented Design - Object
Social design applies a design methodology and intervention to tighten the social fabric that holds us together. Addressing issues of social inequality, such as poverty or social isolation, social design is the pathway to a more just and sustainable society. Community-oriented design is a human-centered and participatory design practice that emphasises the betterment of local communities through the improvement of public facilities, equipment, identity and experience.
The object category celebrates creative and innovative design for an object or product. Consideration is given according to the design context and need, design innovation and the application of human centred design principles.
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