PORIFERA APTA

an adaptable urban organism

August 2016 - December 2016

Berlin, Germany

in collaboration with Shannon Earnest, Kira Evers, and Nicolas Gomez

Featured in the Second Nature Symposium at CLB Berlin

Porifera Apta is an adaptable urban organism designed to provide food and energy based on the required output from the surrounding community. As an urban farming structure, Porifera Apta provides sustainably grown food that does not compete for arable land, decreases transportation time and pollution, and promotes locally grown food. In addition, Porifera Apta plays an integral role in climate change adaptation in cities by mitigating carbon dioxide emissions and the urban heat island effect through carbon sequestration and evapotranspiration. The organism engages the community to promote participation in the growth of their own food while educating on algae production, aeroponic, and geoponic growing systems.

Porifera Apta was designed by a multidisciplinary team of architecture students and sustainability experts at the CIEE Global Institute in Berlin. With a wide range of expertise and parametric capabilities, the team was able to design an urban intervention that reacts to local environmental conditions and is backed by relevant data and in-depth scientific research regarding the future of urban food production.