New South Wales Student and Graduate Awards
Congratulations to Martin Gaardboe and his project partner Robert Chan who were runners up for the New South Wales Student and Graduate Awards in the category of Digital Architecture. Their project was called PROTOTYPE: Reef CaCO3 and looked at the creation of a prototype structure that could be implemented in the Great Barrier Reef to help prevent the reef being lost from Global Warming and the government’s plans of creating new coal ports along the Queensland coast.
“The earth is changing. That much is unavoidable. The publication of data from May 2013 showing carbon levels surpassing 400 parts per million (UC San Diego 2013) – the highest ever in human history – is undisputed evidence that climate change is happening. The imminent threat of global warming, ocean acidification and recent government proposals to implement new coal ports along the Queensland coast is causing significant degradation of the Great Barrier Reef, posing the threat of its total destruction by 2050. “
”Through this project, we uncover a dialogue about the potential for a seascape architecture that forms a symbiotic relationship with the sea by creating a self-sufficient, self-forming coral reef ecosystem. This project explores the adaption of existing technology to propose a prototype structure in Sydney Harbour, with the potential to implement this new technology on a larger scale at the Great Barrier Reef upon its success.”