BY ZACH MORTICE
The Living Filtration System. Illustration by Living Filtration System.
It?s the habitat that most determines the health of any ecosystem, but it?s largely invisible to the naked eye. The soil under your feet, if it?s healthy, is filled with all manner of micro-organisms, bacteria, and fungi that break down organic matter into fresh dirt loaded with nutrients, and nourish the plants growing there. Soil is the building block for all healthy biomes, and a critical concern for all landscape architects. It?s also a finite resource that?s been continually degraded and polluted. But recent Biomimicry Institute design competitions are pitching two products that rehabilitate soil as the best way to strengthen the food cycle. Last month, team BioNurse, representing the Ceres Regional Center for Fruit and Vegetable Innovation in Chile, won the first-ever $100,000 Ray C. Anderson ?Ray of Hope Prize? for BioPatch, a disk and dome made of organic material (like corn husks) that provides shelter for seedlings, eventually rehabilitating soil as it decomposes. In September, a team of landscape architecture students and recent grads from the University of Oregon won the $10,000 Living Product Prize for a Living Filtration System, which filters and retains fertilizer nutrients in agricultural fields, preventing them from polluting waterways. The BioNurse team?s BioPatch mimics the domed geometry of the hardy yareta, common to the Andes. The team engineered a biodegradable, ...