Constructed Ecologies will investigate the design and deployment of habitats to benefit marine animals like the native oysters, pacific herring and blue mussels along the edges of the San Francisco sea wall. Currently, these hard surfaces are not optimized for marine animal communities; they are engineered to protect human communities. Can we rethink this hierarchy by integrating coastal infrastructure and marine life in a way that teaches us about the interconnectedness of systems that can ultimately benefit the city and its inhabitants? To answer these questions we will continue to collaborate with ecologists and digital design and fabrication specialists. We will also expand our area of research to focus on ecologically safe materials for ocean application and the integration of sensors to record, inform and represent ecological phenomena that help us to promote complex ecologies.

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