Activated Water
Professional Proposal, 2024
This research combines a stormwater treatment system and sculptural installation operating between two apartment complexes. Water will be captured naturally by the apparatus’s arms and filtered down through a system of tubes coated in activated carbon, a substance able to adsorb toxins from water before it enters the building’s interior water filtration system.
This research supports the ongoing work of Our Carbon, a company utilizing carbon capture to re-introduce it to supply chains as a de-activated carbon pigment. This research will also support ongoing research at the New York City Wastewater Treatment Department.
Instead of employing activated carbon as a net coating to passively adsorb toxins from rainwater, activated carbon works best as a purification substance if the target element is being forced through it. Due to this constraint, I expanded the design beyond a netting built for rainwater capture to include funnels that rainwater is forced through and then incorporated into the buildings water system for in-unit use. This green infrastructure offers existing buildings a retrofit design that integrates stormwater into it’s water system helping to mitigate water-waste, acidic run-off and flooding.
Nature-Based Noise Mitigation as Public Infrastructure
Personal Project, 2024
An installation situated in a public park consisting of a metallic exterior with mycelium-based netting offering residents a bio-designed public noise respite. The structure is accompanied by a water basin. The water acts in complement to the structures reflective surface.
Mitigating Urban Sound Waves
Academic Project, 2023
Noise pollution plagues urban residents, oftentimes the extent of which is unbeknownst to them. It’s an environmental hazard particularly for residents who live in close proximity to large transportation infrastructure such as highway overpasses, subway lines, airports and emergency vehicle routes. It’s affects range from putting people at higher risk for cardiovascular disease to ringing in the ear or a loss of hearing earlier in life. My project’s goal was to mitigate public noise pollution by making areas of sound respite accessible to all residents.
This project proposes a bio-designed approach to public noise pollution within urban environments, particularly New York City. I selected forms of ambient noise as my primary type of sound to mitigate. The primary sources of ambient noise I studied are the low hum of airplanes, buses and subways.
The approach is a bio-based structural intervention. The applications utilize naturally derived polymers for building materials. The materials employed are layers of mycelium brick, varieties of mycelium mixed with recycled cardboard substrates and cork, a naturally highly sound absorbent material. Due to their porosity, these materials offer numerous pathways for sound to travel through and dissipate.
"The science of secondhand noise, a modern airborne pollutant, may be at the same stage as the science of secondhand smoke 60 years ago.”
– Francesca Dominici, Professor of Biostatistics and Research Associate at Harvard School of Public Health
Wall and Ceiling Models-
Responses to Moisture Levels and Sound Wave Behavior:
Bio-based sound proofing for residents walking beneath subway and highway overpasses.
Mycelium-based sound mitigating art installations for public parks:
NEXT STEPS
Testing the resilience of bio-based material in each environment:
potential microbial growth
proper moisture regulation
maintenance
conditions of building performance
