ARI MONTVILLE
My senior thesis "Verdant" was a winner of pratts social justice and sustainability award for its focus on reforestation.
Verdant is also featured on the short list for the Pratt material lab competition, for its distinguished exploration in material sustainability and material structure.
Overview
Class: Biocentric design | Industrial design
Problem: Forest regrowth can take approximately 80 Years depending on fire ecology and ecological impacts - Current human intervention, management, and amendments do not necessarily dictate ecosystem flourishment
Solution: a device that helps maintain soil composition and integrity while providing an amount of fuel for small animals, pollinators, and Initial ground cover. Primarily in assistance for reforestation, this device is meant to decompose at different over a 2-8 year range depending on compound mixture ratio.
Project Location: California | MMU Countie
Project Location based on temporal density distribution of fires over the time period of 1920-2019. includes Wild and human cause fires. For further research please reference full theses attached below
Design
Weather helps with initial exterior decomposition. from the top down the decomposition rate becomes less robust. this means that the mixture of compounds and other nutrients are the most dense towards the top of the model. for this to be so, the model had to have a higher ratio of soil nutrient based parts towards the bottom of the model while still maintaining a right amount of resources in the center of the model for smaller initial inhabitants.
MATERIAL TESTING
TOP LAYERS
BOTTOM LAYERS
All layers contain different variations of animal intervention materials. the final product can vary in layers depending on typograpghy of product depolyment. the final product has 26 seed variations with roughly 3,00 total seeds.
BINDING MATERIAL TESTING
TOP HALF
GYPSUM 62%
Mulch 12.5%
COIR 12.5%
CORN STARCH 12.5%
BOTTOM HALF
GYPSUM 12.5%
Mulch 25%
COIR 25%
CORN STARCH 62%
* The following mixture is to be used in conjunction with local clay or sediment to maintain ecology integrity.This results in slight color variation and physical integrity based on local typography
Water, microbial inoculants, Fertilizer, dirt clumps, old hay and wood are added to the above mixture compound as needed by ecosystem location. other materials all provide nutrients for microorganisms to maintain soil integrity. Gypsum provides stronger soil integrity and soil aeration.Coir helps with microbial growth and soil structure while corn starch helps with structure of model.
research in paper found that with proper airation and an abundance of nutrients plant growth can be accelerated thus impacting the time period small to medium size animals return back to forests. With the decomposition of the material facilitating in plant growth it exposes other materials that help prop up ecological recovery.
seeds varieties provide food and help facilitate in seed dispersal - sticks and other materials provide animals like birds with material to build habitats
Verdant is meant to be carryable for each hand but large enough for seed dispersal. The base is larger to provide more nutrients to near by plants , and soil composition. this size allows for easy transportation from vehicles to designated locations.
