Architecture From Algae

17 November 2009 - 1:00pm

UCLA's cityLAB sponsored a competition to envision new ways public works projects could be used to improve the country's infrastructure. The winning idea: algae-based urban parks connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.

"The [algae] pontoons would attract carbon dioxide from cars and other vehicles and use them in bio-fuel production, and the areas containing the algae would be turned into a vast urban park that included wetlands, aquatic and avian habitats and recreational facilities like bike lanes and promenades. The proposal included a plan for implementation as a 'algal-architecture' corridor that follows the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel between Brooklyn, Governors Island, and Manhattan, along a route that the city's famous development czar Robert Moses proposed for cars in 1936."

Source: Fast Company, November 16, 2009
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All of that only scratches the surface of what's wrong with this study. The idea that complex urban development patterns and human behavior can be meaningfully studied according to one primary criteria — density — is wrong from the start.