The Mission of Terreform ONE

Terreform ONE [Open Network Ecology] is a nonprofit architecture and urban design research-based consulting group.  We endeavor to combat the extinction of all planetary species through pioneering acts of design. Our projects aim to illuminate the environmental possibilities of cities and landscapes across the globe.

We operate as an interdisciplinary lab of specialists advancing the practice of socio-ecological design. The group cultivates resilience through innovations in building, transportation, infrastructure, water, food, waste treatment, air quality, and energy.

Our collaborative process includes speculating about the ways in which emerging technologies will impact future urban generations and local biodiversity. As an organization, we strive to create inclusive spaces and systems that manifest environmental and social justice for all beings.

Design Against Extinction

Terreform ONE is Hiring - Fellowship Jobs Open!

Terreform ONE Fellowships

Description

You are invited to submit an application for the highly selective six-month research and design fellowship program sponsored by the RNR Family Foundation. Ideas and products from the fellowship will be integrated into a large-scale installation for the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Triennial. Each design fellow will be given the opportunity to utilize a diverse array of advanced fabrication/rapid prototyping techniques to examine socio-ecological theory and species habitat quality. Our overall intent is to end extinction by all means possible on this fragile planet. Hosted by Terreform ONE in the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s premiere New Lab maker village, it is an interdisciplinary platform to engage divergent ideas about urban systems and the environment.

Skills + Qualifications

We are looking for architects/landscape architects/industrial designers who are impassioned, intellectually rigorous, and highly flexible with outstanding skills in one or more of the following areas:

·       Environmental Science, Ecology, or Conservation Theory

·       Physical Modeling and Prototyping

·       Rendering, Visualization or Animation

·       Coding/Programming or VR/MR

Compensation

The fellows will be awarded a monthly stipend for the entirety of the program.

Schedule

The fellowship is divided into two three-month phases with the research phase commencing in October through December. After the holiday break, we will reconvene in January for the prototyping phase which runs until April. The program is structured to give the fellows the autonomy to follow research trajectories that lead them outside the studio into places such as the wood/machine shop, architectural archives, bio-hacking laboratories and more.

To Apply

Send a CV, portfolio of relevant work (3MB maximum), and cover letter to info@terreform.org. Your cover letter should express your unique talents and how you plan to impact this interdisciplinary research group, e.g. specialist fabrication skill, coding or programming language, designing in virtual reality platforms, and etc.

Select applicants will be interviewed via in-person or skype. No phone calls, please!

About

Terreform ONE is a nonprofit architecture, urban design, research, and consulting group that promotes smart design in cities. Through our projects and outreach efforts, we aim to illuminate the environmental possibilities of cities across the globe. 

Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Building in New York City with Terreform ONE

The Monarch Sanctuary (Lepidoptera terrarium) will be eight stories of new commercial construction in Nolita, NYC. Programmatically, the building space will mostly contain retail and office life. Yet central to its purpose is serving as a breeding ground and sanctuary for the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). It is a pioneering building – one that aims to be ecologically generous, weaving butterfly conservation strategies into its design through the integration of monarch habitat in its façades, roof, and atrium. Not just a building envelope, the edifice is a new biome of coexistence for people, plants, and butterflies.

The monarch butterfly of North America is a threatened species. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Services is currently assessing whether the monarch needs to be granted “endangered species” status, while the monarch population erodes due to the combined forces of agricultural pesticides and habitat loss. Monarchs are a delicate presence in New York City, migrating each year from Mexico and Florida to the city’s precious green spaces to lay their eggs on the milkweed plant.

This project will vitally serve as a large-scale Lepidoptera terrarium. It will bolster the monarch’s presence in the city through two strategies: open plantings of milkweed and nectar flowers on the roof, rear façade, and terrace will provide breeding ground and habitat for wild monarchs, while enclosed colonies in the atrium and street side double-skin façade will grow monarch population. The insects will be periodically released to join the wild population, enhancing overall species population numbers.

Our connection the community of NYC is essential. The prime location will attract attention and educate the public on Monarch extinction. It has a total area of 30,000 square feet and is to be located in the heart of Nolita, between Soho and the burgeoning art district along the Bowery, and a few blocks west of the New Museum. The site is just around the corner from the Storefront for Art and Architecture and currently exists as two plots occupied by small residential buildings, which will be combined into a single property.

Although it is a relatively small commercial building by New York standards, the building will present a striking public face and a powerful argument in favor of a diversity of life forms in the city. It will face Petrosino Square, a small triangular paved public park, named after a fallen NYPD lieutenant. The façade of the Monarch Sanctuary building will add a lush vertical surface to the edge of the square.

The double-skin street façade, with a diagrid structure infilled glass at the outer layer and with “pillows” of EFTE foil at the inner layer, encloses a careful climate - controlled space, 3’ deep and 7 stories tall. This “vertical meadow,” the terrarium proper, serves as an incubator and safe haven for Monarchs in all seasons. It contains suspended milkweed vines and flowering plants to nourish the butterflies at each stage of their life cycle. Hydrogel bubbles on the EFTE help maintain optimal humidity levels, and sacs of algae help purify the air and the building wastewater. Solar panels on the roof provide renewable energy to assist in the powering the facilities. 

Other features of the project are equally in service of the insects. LED screens at the street level provide magnified live views of the caterpillars and butterflies in the vertical meadow, which also connects to a multi-story atrium adjacent to the circulation core. Interior partitions are constructed from mycelium, and additional planting at the ceiling enhances the interior atmosphere and building biome. Hovering around the building, a few butterfly-shaped drones take readings and maps of the immediate microclimate. They return every few minutes to recharge, and their combined real-time data works to maintain the butterfly health.

The building is intended to serve as an object lesson in enhancing the urban environment with green technologies, including plant life and other creatures, in designing for other species, and in conveying images of new possibilities for the urban environment. This project alone will not save the Monarch but it will crucially raise awareness about our much-loved insect residents.

Client: Kenmare Square LLC. Jackie Jangana, and Andrew Kriss.
Team: Terreform ONE.
Principal: Mitchell Joachim.
Project Management: Vivan Kuan.
Designers: Christian Hubert, Nicholas Gervasi, Maria Aiolova, Anna Bokov, Kristina Goncharov, Yucel Guven, Zhan Xu, Larissa Belcic, Shahira Hammad, Deniz Onder, James Leonard, Zack Saunders, Xinye Lin, Sabrina Naumovski, Daniel S. Castaño, Aidan Nelson, Aleksandr Plotkin, Kristian Knorr, Sophie Falkeis, Rita Wang, Michael Brittenham.
Tech Consultant: Anouk Wipprecht.
Sponsors: BASF, Intel, RNR Foundation.

Copyright © 2018 All Rights Reserved 
Monarch Sanctuary™ Patent Pending. 

Architect's Newspaper with New Lab and Terreform ONE

The Architect's Newspaper: "Brooklyn’s New Lab goes big with a tech hub for urban entrepreneurs".
https://archpaper.com/2018/04/new-lab-goes-big-with-tech-hub-entrepreneurs/

The Butterfly Drone 3D Print with Terreform ONE

Terreform ONE and Anouk Wipprecht

Mitchell Joachim and Michael Silver, XXL-XS: New Directions in Ecological Design, Actar publishers

Mitchell Joachim and Michael Silver. XXL-XS: New Directions in Ecological Design, ACTAR Publishers.

Architecture must not only be functionally green, but its formal, conceptual and physical properties also need to constitute a novel and integrated living material system, one that can flourish within the larger world around it. 

XXL-XS represents the emerging discipline of ecological design by assembling a wide range of innovators with diverse interests. Geo-engineering, synthetic biology, construction site co-robotics, low-energy fabrication, up-cycling waste, minimally invasive design, living materials, and molecular self-assembly are just a few of the important advances explored in the book. At one extreme are massive public works, at the other, micro to nano-sized interventions that can have equally profound impacts on our world. From terraforming to bio-manufacturing, a whole new generation of designers is proposing unique ways of confronting the difficult challenges ahead. In this way design becomes a totality of relationships that affects all disciplines, which can no-longer be thought of as self-contained fields, each handled separately by narrowly focused specialists. Globalization demands a restructuring of the profession, as we know it. This requires a new breed of generalists who can work across fields and engage research on multiple sites around the globe. Today we need planetary designers versed in the craft of integral design.

Our thesis is therefore both global and performative in scope. We need an architecture that is more than just a constellation of bio-picturesque images, digitally generated surface effects, and conventional materials. We seek a holistic architecture that uses the best techniques to connect directly with existing natural systems while creating a renewed ecology that can sustain itself well into the future. Along these lines, many of the projects featured in this book simply abandon the old tropes and construction processes of the past by creating numerous green alternatives that proliferate along unexpected pathways.

Foreword by Michelle Addington and project contributions by Lateral Office, Mason White, Lola Sheppard, BIG, Bjarke Ingels, Kai-Uwe Bergmann, Rachel Armstrong, Clouds AO, Terreform ONE, Maria Aiolova, Nurhan Gokturk, Vivian Kuan, Andrew Maynard, Magnus Larsson, Vincent Callebaut, Michael Van Valkenburgh, Melanie Fessel, Höweler + Yoon, B+U, Eric Howeler, Hugh Broughton, Bittertang, Antonio Torres, Pneumastudio, Chris Perry, Cathryn Dwyre, Pablo Garcia, Split Studio, Jason Vigneri-Beane, Doug Jackson, Mark Neveu, Kokkugia, Roland Snooks, Future Cities Lab, Ferdinand Ludwig, François Roche, Studio KCA, Marcin Jakubowski, The Living, Chris Woebken, Zbigniew Oksiuta, ecoLogicStudio, Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto, Philip Beesley, Jenny Sabin, Phil Ross, Oliver Medvedik, Greg Lynn, Aurora Robson, Carlo Ratti, Rhett Russo, Ginger Krieg-Dosier, Rust Belt Robotics, Evan Douglis, Markus Kayser, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Oron Catts, Ionat Zurr, Skylar Tibbits, Zuloark, Martina Decker, Peter Yeadon and Genspace.
Featured Essays: Lydia Kallipoliti Jason Bellows, Stephen Cassell, David Catling, AUDC Kazys Varnelis, Natalie Jeremijenko, Graham Burnett, Jessica Green, Anna Dyson, Nina Tandon, Anil Netravali, Alex Felson, Ioanna Theocharopoulou. 
Cover Design: berger + stadel + walsh


SEE INSIDE:
https://issuu.com/actar/docs/xxl-xs

ORDER HERE:
https://www.amazon.com/XXL-XS-New-Directions-Ecological-Design/dp/1940291879

Terreform Trademark

The Terreform ONE trademark is registered and all rights are reserved.  All content included on this blog and website www.terreform.org (including, without limitation, the trademark of Terreform, logos, graphics, text, photos, designs, icons, images, and data) is the property of Terreform ONE, and as such is protected by international and US copyright and other intellectual property laws.  The trademarks, logos, service marks and trade names of Terreform ONE and our affiliates may not be used without our written permission.  Any person or group caught using our trademark or similar deviation without authorization will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Special Thank You to Our Sponsors and Supporters of Terreform ONE

Thank you: Intel, LafargeHolcim Foundation, RNR Foundation, AIA, BASF, Zumtobel, NYU Gallatin, Architect Magazine, EOS, Venice Architecture Biennale, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, IAAC, Architizer, New Museum, CIEE, Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, New Lab, Home Depot Foundation, e-architect, eVolo, Die Angewandte, Inhabitat.

Terreform ONE Prize Winning Project in the LafargeHolcim Sustainable Construction Awards

Terreform ONE Project Entry 2017 for North America: Winners of the LafargeHolcim Awards 2017. Cricket Shelter in New York, Modular edible insect farm.
“Exuberant architectural expression calling attention to the possibilities of insect farming”. Cricket Shelter is an urban farming system and temporary shelter that minimizes the ecological footprint of protein-rich food production. It is a well-established fact that industrialized animal agriculture accounts for one-fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions, and with global demand for meat projected to double between 2000 and 2050, the industry’s space requirements constitute one of the most significant drivers of deforestation in the world. This project proposes an alternative: with 1 % of the greenhouse gas emissions and requiring 0.001 % of the land to produce the same amount of protein annually as cattle farming, environmental destruction need no longer be the consequence of ensuring our food supply.
https://www.lafargeholcim-foundation.org/projects/cricket-shelter

Job Opening: Architect and Designer at Terreform ONE

Terreform ONE architectural research in Brooklyn, New York is one of the world's foremost experimentalist practices of urban interventions. Our studios are located in the celebrated prototyping and co-manufacturing facility, New Lab. We are looking for impassioned, intellectually rigorous, highly flexible candidates with outstanding skills in the following areas:

·       Architectural Design

·       Project Management

·       Physical Modeling, 3D Printing

·       Ecological/ Biotech Expertise

·       Rendering/ Visualization and Animation

This is a full-time paid position at a monthly rate. The opportunity and compensation are commensurate based on your experience, contribution, and creation of value. Position(s) are available and must be filled immediately.

To apply for Architect and Designer: send CV and work samples: terreform at gmail dot com. Portfolios must be limited to 3 MB or less. Only digital applications will be considered.

www.terreform.org

Caddisfly Larvae Case Architecture Research

Terreform ONE Team: Mitchell Joachim (PI), Shi Zhang, Matt Mitchell, Taili Zhuang, Ana Toledano, Molly Ritmiller, Liana Grobstein, Michael Chambers, Jade Manbodh, Effie Mbrow.

Liveware: Veg Spacesuit - Research at Terreform ONE

LIVEWARE: Veg Spacesuit - work on growing structures from woody plants into specific spatial geometries for local environments. 

Terreform ONE Team: Mitchell Joachim (PI), Matt Mitchell, Taili Zhuang, Mat Sokol, Jamal Combs, Chenoe Hart, Seb Fathi, Che Puntes, Molly Ritmiller, Liana Grobstein, Ana Toledano, Shi Zhang, Jade Manbodh, Effie Mbrow.

Soft Root Aeroponic Chamber 
As a continuation of the research into growing soft roots for use in living structural applications, we intend to design and fabricate a lightweight, modular alternative to the aeroponic system constructed with Treenovations in June 2016. Conceptualized as an individual ‘spacesuit’ for each plant, this apparatus generates and maintains a precisely conditioned adaptable environment in which growth can be promoted, monitored and controlled. Utilizing more sophisticated materials and technologies enable this system to become a transportable and deployable solution for growing programmable architectures on-site, as well as a smart monitoring device linked to an online database of life cycle analyses – aiming to iterate, discover and optimize the environmental conditions for maximally accelerated root growth over generations of plants. The eventual aim is to develop a living structural system, from which entire architectures can be ‘grown-to-order’; pleaching the individual trees to form a composite structure.

Data Capture
The LIVEWARE functions as a data capture environment, recording the plant’s biometrics as it develops as well as the input parameters for growth. Over many iterations of this process, a comparative feedback process builds an understanding of the causal relationship between input parameters and the resulting health, form and growth speed of the plant. This phenotypical knowledge will enable us to push the limits of root growth speed, the primary prohibitive factor in developing practical structures made from living biomaterial.
A visual output alongside a common graphical data display on a web page devoted to the documentation of this project would provide an open platform for publishing the results from the lab. This could be programmed, embedded tech automatically recording, analyzing and publishing the data to the web in real time, plotting the progress of each plant in the system.

Data Output:
·       CO2 Level (Canopy)
·       Humidity (Root Chamber)
·       Temperature (Root Chamber + Canopy )
·       Solution pH / Chemical Constitution
·       Net Weight
·       Growth Time
·       Photograph (Plan, Diameter)
·       Photograph (Elevation, Height)
·       Biological Samples
·       Incident Light Conditions
Indicates parameter over which system provides complete control.
Controllable Input Parameters (Basic):
·       Solution pH / Chemical Constitution
·       Incident Light
Directionality, Photoperiod, Intensity, Spectrum
·       Mister Phasing
·       Auxin Application

Phenotype Development
Through precise control of the environmental parameters inside the ‘space suit’, a degree of formal variation will be achievable through their manipulation. This can be considered as a form of ‘auto-espalier’, programmable tree-shaping for which no human intervention or maintenance is required. The parameters are merely adapted in response to the growth feedback from previous iterations until a desired canopy form can be reliably achieved. For example, tightly controlled, localized exposure to light will enable the system to direct the directional tendency of each leaf’s growth. This could be supplemented with the topical application of auxins to stimulate further cell division in the desired locations.
These ‘designed’ phenotypes can then begin to assume the role of architectural elements in the bio-constructions which result from their agglomeration, bearing the disposition of either a column, a series of mullions, a portal, a gable and so forth.

Expressive Exhibition
For our first prototype of this ‘veg suit’ will be imagined and constructed as an expressive, even sculptural piece which seeks to playfully express the temporal shifts and events arising from the operation of the system as it maintains the environmental conditions for the plant. Trigger events such as mister operation, air pump operation, threshold breaches and time phase may all result in a visual, auditory or another sensory expression, such that the system constitutes a responsive envelope. The goal of this is to engage and communicate to an observer the mode of operation of the system itself. This extends to visible metrics, programmed LEDs, inflatable sacs which translate the movement of air and water through the system into a performance.

Programmable Architectural Assemblage
The eventual conceptual goal of this research lies in a modular, adaptable bio-unit, designed to grow pre-configured bio-architectures using a common, infinitely replicable system. The geometry of the eventual architecture is defined by the arrangement of these units, which have a high degree of formal reconfigurability. Every composition, however, adheres to a principal set of geometric logics, defined foundationally by the scale of the human and the limits of the biological ability of the plants.

Temporal Phasing
This principle dictates the system in its prototypical composition is an architecture in itself, from the moment of its deployment through to its maturation into a living structure independent from artificial support.
The system also fulfills a number of functions with different periods of applicability relative to the life cycles of the plants.

1.     Initial Environmental Control
This refers to the period during which the plant is fully reliant on the aeroponic system. It is growing roots at an accelerated rate, yet to attain its desired form and length.

2.     Structural Support
This refers to the period after which the plant has achieved the desired root length and canopy form, but before the lignification process renders itself supporting, or mutually supporting if pleached in a group. During this phase, the long, pliable taproot is exposed to the air, and the lower 10% is planted in soil (either at grade or at a predetermined level). As the ‘planted’ portion of the root is now surrounded by soil, the tactile stimuli encourage it to divide, bifurcating to yield many individual root tips. This begins the process of lignification, though it may take years before the exposed root attains sufficient mass to support itself, and hence a guiding ‘scaffold’ provides auxiliary support. At this time, the system’s life-support components are completely or partially removed, depending on the circumstance, leaving the plant to develop under natural conditions. In some cases, it may be desirable to continue to precisely control the growth of the canopy while the roots are left to develop naturally.

3.     Supplementary Life Support
This refers to an interstitial period during which the root tip, having been planted, may have insufficient water uptake potential to support the canopy. In this case, supplementary aeroponic functionality may be maintained and phased out gradually.

4.     Self-Supporting Living Bio-Architecture
This refers to the period after which the plants are self-sustaining and self-supporting, fulfilling their intended programmatic functions as a living bio-architecture.

Structural / Technical / Material
Seeing as the majority of the weight of the structure is contained in the water circulation system, in a suspended system this mass ought to be positioned closest to the point of suspension – with the lightweight life-support elements hanging below this structure. The distribution of water weight can be seen as a means to adapt or transform the structure as needed based on

1.     Expandable Canopy Space – Soft vs. rigid elements, mode of expansion.
2.     Extensible Root Chamber, material, mode?
3.     Mister reservoir, better transmission efficiency, use of gravity.
4.     Lighting fixture design.
5.     Backing canvas/light reflector configuration.
6.     LED integration.

Seoul Biennale: Imminent Commons - The Debates at New Lab with Terreform ONE #Actar

Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism: Imminent Commons 
The Debates Part I: 

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Beatriz Colomina, David Benjamin, Jesse Le Cavelier, Keller Easterling, Laura Kurgan, Maider Llaguno, Mark Wigley, Martino Stierli, Mitchell Joachim.

Wed. June 28th, 6:30 - 8:30 PM @ New Lab, Brooklyn NY.

Live, urban commons Seoul
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017 focuses on issues and proposals, not on authors and works. Centered on the themes of Nine Commons, the Seoul Biennale is organized along two major sections: exhibitions installed during the Biennale period and the public programs during the corresponding year. The exhibitions consist of nine Commons, Commoning Cities and Live Projects. Public Programs include International Studios, Film and Video Program, Workshops, Lectures, Common Library and Tour Program which offer a communicative platform for visitors.

Seoul is a grand laboratory for the imminent commons. Since its foundation more than 600 hundred years ago, Seoul has been a dynamic site of the commons, where politics and economy intertwined with the design of wind and water. It is a metropolis that maintains the spirit, methods, productivity, and spaces of the commons. In 2012, embarking on new policies of horizontal governance, sustainability, community based design, and economic equality, the Seoul Metropolitan Government proclaimed its vision as a City of Commons. Breaking open the gallery walls, the Seoul Biennale activates an urban constellation of urban sites, and citizen activity towards three live projects: Production City, Urban Foodshed, and Walking the Commons.

Book launch events
A book titled Seoul Biennale 2017: Imminent Commons, which works as a theoretical basis of the whole Biennale, will be published prior to the biennale. Co-organized by urbanNext, affiliated book launch events and think-tank programs will be held in New York and other cities. The event in New York will take place at New Lab, with one of the co-directors Alejandro Zaera-Polo and many of the authors of the book including Mitchell Joachim.

Mitchell Joachim and Christian Hubert. "The End of Waste? Towards a Socio-Ecological Commons," Imminent Commons: Urban Questions for the Near Future, Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Hyungmin Pai (eds.), Actar, 2017, pp. 318 - 333.

http://seoulbiennale.org/

http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/135629/seoul-biennale-of-architecture-and-urbanism-2017/

Human-Powered Gym Boat in Paris w/ Terreform ONE

HUMAN-POWERED RIVER GYM: Soft Floating Micro-Island Gyms on Waterway Paths
Original Project Credits: Mitchell Joachim and Douglas Joachim.
Design Partner Team: Carlo Ratti Associati.

Our concept encapsulates a new typology for the contemporary urban gym. It is intended to challenge our innate proprioceptive and multi-planer locomotive abilities while synchronously altering the surroundings. A simple transfer of workout vigor supplies a given city with needed supplemental transport and amenities. Work-out on your commute to work.
http://www.pcmag.com/news/350451/human-powered-gym-boat-provides-seine-ic-views