My final project was really a chance for me to combine two of my passions and skills, seaweed and architectural drafting, and explore the exciting world of sustainable materials. As I am a training architect or landscape architect, I thought it would be a great opportunity to research the possibilities that seaweed can provide, especially in terms of being a bio-based construction material with high carbon storage. I thought about creating a seaweed education centre first, but I realized that starting off small is the way to go as I had to research what was even possible to build with seaweed, and whether seaweeds have the desired properties to make them a green alternative to man-made artificial construction materials like cement and bricks- which contribute enormously to global warming and annual emissions from humans. Therefore I decided to focus on creating a design for a sustainable “Seaweed Emergency Shelter,” as I felt that this would be a good starting point to really test and probe whether seaweed is a suitable, cost-efficient material.
My goal- which I succeeded- was to create a more comfortable, and most importantly, greener emergency shelter than the “Better Shelter” which I had identified as a leading product in the market but lacking many things in my opinion as made from plastic mostly. I was, therefore, in contact with both seaweed researchers and emergency shelter designers who helped me with questions along my journey to creating the Seaweed Shelter. David Thalen from Better Shelter and Kathryn Larsen, an independent seaweed researcher from Denmark helped me with questions and gave me feedback with my design proposal- they both supported me greatly and thought my concept was a very interesting one, and one they would be happy to support further. I also had a trained architect, Jean Phifer, look over my designs and give me feedback.
I came up with my Shipping Pallet Seaweed Insulation module, in response to David Thalen’s advice that time and building material constraints are the biggest hurdles for emergency shelters. I combined a bioplastic with hemp to create hard insulation panel boards following a Youtube recipe. Shipping pallets are very suitable as structural support, especially as available easily and cheaply globally.
My biggest challenge was creating a concept that is still very much in the early phases of research internationally and thus I had difficulty researching what seaweeds are suitable for construction. Also as I was in NYC I was limited to conceptual thinking and planning and was unable to build anything physically. However, now I can say that I have a good idea of the material potential and I will definitely like to use it in future architecture projects, both aesthetically and functionally.
I feel that I succeeded with my goal of a green emergency shelter concept. Another big success for me was discovering a seaweed community that I had no idea existed, both of seaweed artists and scientists, which I am now a part of after setting up a seaweed shelter Instagram account- now with over 50 followers.
My next step is to build a simple prototype using the shipping pallets, and test to see how durable a simple 6 sided structure would be, and how good of an insulator.
I can say for certainty that we are indeed on the verge of a seaweed revolution, not just in terms of creating seaweed for eating and energy, but also in the world of architecture, seaweed will be a green material of the future. I am very excited to be part of this wave of discovery and will continue to explore and build seaweed architecture.