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SF Bay’s ‘Upside Down Floating Reef’ Could Change Ecology of Shoreline

The floating research lab in the Port of Oakland could help transform our shorelines through bio-architecture
By - posted 7/16/2020 No Comment

Thank you ABC7 for letting us know about an upside-down floating reef‘ in the San Francisco Bay.

The California College of the Arts launched the Buoyant Ecologies Float Lab, an award-winning, innovative floating breakwater structure engineered to be a habitat for native marine life in order to increase marine biodiversity and reduce coastal erosion.

The Float Lab, moored in the Port of Oakland’s Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, will float for 3 years and serve as a floating research station and an environmental demonstration project that interfaces with public education and community engagement efforts sponsored by the Port of the Oakland. 

The goal is to imagine a new kind of architecture for climate adaptation.

A year after its launch, creatures such as oysters, sea urchins and crabs have affixed themselves to the floating platform. The next step is to create vertical reefs and see if the sealife invertebrates branch over from column to column to create a sponge-like community.

Thereafter, architects will use the research to develop structures that can be incorporated all across the San Francisco Bay, including the shoreline upgrades planned for The Embarcadero and those already in progress at Crissy Field.