Yfalos-Artificial Reef Design
Generative Design of Artificial Reef structures
Yfalos is a project that examines how circular design strategies combined with computational design methods and digital fabrication techniques can be used to produce solutions for the design and construction of artificial reef structures, i.e. man-made structures that are designed to mimic some of the characteristics of a natural reef. Advantages of artificial reef creation include but is not limited to: increase of marine life biodiversity in coastal areas with featureless bottoms by creating habitats for different marine and stimulation of local economies by drawing more divers’ tourism as well as preventing illegal fishing (i.e. trowelling).
Topotheque Design Studio was commissioned by the Seastainable Ventures company to research and experiment with different geometric configurations in order to provide know-how on the design, fabrication and the deployment of such structures The collaboration was established under “Interreg” a program funded by the European Union with the objective to enable small scale companies to implement innovative solutions that support sustainable development by connecting them with companies that posses design expertise and work on the forefront of technology
The project focused on developing a file to factory workflow that allows the parametric design of building blocks that can vary in size and complexity but can be combined in different ways in order to create aggregate structures. Due to the fact that the construction site for an artificial reef can be any coastal area on the globe that faces degradation of its marine life, special emphasis was put on a) developing a bio-inspired design method which allows the adaptation of the form and texture based on the context (a requirement put forward by marine biologists) b) being able to fabricate the blocks with infrastructure and means that exist locally c) distilling the basic design parameters and creating a web-based platform/tool; that can generate different 3d aggregate structures based on specific circumstances, create fabrication files, and produce assembly instructions necessary to guide a group of fishermen and/or divers with no prior experience for constructing it. The first stage of the project which included developing the aforementioned workflow in close collaboration with the team from Seastainable Ventures and a interdisciplinary team of marine biologists and economists and validating it through the design,fabrication and testing of different module geometries has been completed successfully in 2020 and hoping to soon proceed with the full implementation of an artificial reef structure in the Mediterranean sea
Client:
Seastainable Ventures
Collaborators:
Fabrication&Prototyping : Fab Lab Ioannina
Funding Agency: Interreg
Underwater Deployment: DrafinSub
IOT Enclosure manufacturing: Subsea Solutions
- Type:
Design Research
- Size/Scale:
<500m
- Location:
Mediterranean Coast
- Status:
Completed
- Team:
Evangelos Pantazis, Iason Pantazis, Constantinos Schoinas, Seastainable ventures, Fablab Ioannina