This chapter describes the innovative design and fabrication of a complex reef system for Sydney Harbour, Australia. The Bio-Shelters project is an ongoing collaborative investigation into the application of computational design and Industry 4.0 hybrid technologies to create site-specific artificial reefs. The location of the artificial reefs is Blackwattle Bay in Sydney Harbour. The Bay has been used for heavy industry for over 100 years, resulting in polluted water and severely damaged natural marine ecosystems. The chapter discusses the design approach to the Bio-Shelters, the marine species targeted, the iterative computational design, and sustainable material investigations that took place during the development. The authors then detail the hybrid fabrication processes using laser-cut steel waffle structures and shotcrete surface treatments. The chapter concludes with the current status of the ongoing project and defines the next steps using robotic fabrication.
TopIntroduction
The Bio-Shelters project started in 2016 and is an ongoing investigation into the application of computational design and Industry 4.0 hybrid technologies to create customised, site-specific artificial reefs. The developed bio-reef is intended for Blackwattle Bay in Sydney Harbour where more than 50% of the shoreline has been hardened by coastal defences such as seawalls which have a severe negative impact on native ecosystems (Dafforn et al., 2015). The bay is an urbanised estuary used by heavy industry, tourism and residents. The water quality is poor and polluted with microplastics and high levels of heavy metals (Dafforn et al., 2015; Montoya, 2015).
With the development of a new Sydney Fish Market on the Bay, the local NSW government has mandated improving the water quality as an essential remit of the developers. Through a process of consultation and collaboration with marine biologists, it was determined that building artificial reefs would be an efficient way to clean the water, promote biodiversity and increase environmental consciousness to the visitors and tourists. The intended site of the artificial reef, in the following called ‘Bio-Shelters’, is under the wharf and along the water foreshore (as a landscape architecture feature) of the Fish Markets at Blackwattle Bay. This location has complex and limiting constraints including restricted natural light, and very few artificial reefs fixture points. These constraints make the site unsuitable for more simple solutions that use a repeated 2-dimensional textured surface. A more complex structure is imperative as meanwhile, to be effective and foster adoption by indigenous marine species and ecosystem engineers, the design solution must be highly customised with multiple, complex surfaces to maximise exposure to natural light. Blackwattle Bay being determined as the location for the Bio-Shelter project, the research team went on to develop three-dimensional objects that meet its characteristics. In consequence the project team aimed to design solutions that:
- 1.
Are site-specific, by using data from marine biologists and environmental scientists about the site and by adapting to the background landscape.
- 2.
avoid repetition of same parts and instead present local variety appropriate to the intended species, also the local sea tide levels and sun exposure.
- 3.
extend automation through a scripted process, so that variations for different placements be produced by minor adjustments of the model and the data inputs.
- 4.
present consistency throughout the process, so that the design methods are linked with research in materials and fabrication techniques that are compatible with the site’s requirements and benefit from the team’s expertise in diverse areas.
TopBackground
Existing types of artificial reefs predominantly either rely on simple two-dimensional objects with one textured surface, or on repetitive three-dimensional structures submerged into the water intended for various sites with special topographies and climatic features. Some of the projects address the seafloor while others have focused on populated harbour infrastructure such as seawalls.
The design and material composition of artificial reefs can be quite diverse. For example, projects such as those by Reef Design Lab (Reef Design Lab, n.d.) use concrete blocks, stable tables, pipes and more to grow coral. The Living Seawall Project was founded by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science in collaboration with the Reef Design Lab to improve the ecological sustainability of new and existing foreshore developments to ensure the future of marine life (Sydney Institute of Marine Science, n.d.). The Living Seawall Project was originally located in the Sydney Harbour Basin and is now applied globally (Ibid). One notable project from this collaboration was the Volvo living seawall which developed 2.5D tiles that had a surface pattern aimed to mimic the root structure of a mangrove tree, native to Australia (Volvo, n.d.).