This Floating Desalination Megastructure is Designed to Combat California’s Water Shortages: “Most recently, the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) asked architects, artists and scientists to conceive sustainable infrastructure projects to improve Santa Monica’s water supply. The competition’s 4th-prize-winning team Bart//Bratke and studioDE developed a raft structure named “Foram” that illustrates the future of floating platforms in sustainable development.”

The Secrets of the Wood Wide Web: “The revelation of the Wood Wide Web’s existence, and the increased understanding of its functions, raises big questions—about where species begin and end; about whether a forest might be better imagined as a single superorganism, rather than a grouping of independent individualistic ones; and about what trading, sharing, or even friendship might mean among plants.”

Tujunga spreading grounds water project is launched: “Tujunga Spreading Grounds, a 150-acre tract of porous soil in the northeast San Fernando Valley, captures stormwater and allows the water to filter into a vast aquifer.”

One Step Closer to Walking and Biking from Canoga Park to Elysian Valley: “…the Mayor’s office has announced the selection of a design team that is tasked to figure out how to complete the Los Angeles River Valley Bike Path from Vanalden Avenue in Canoga Park to Forest Lawn Drive by Griffith Park. The Mayor’s Office has stated “once completed, the greenway will make it possible for Angelenos to walk and bike from Canoga Park to Elysian Valley.”

Solar-powered Pipe desalinizes 1.5 billion gallons of drinking water for California: “Designs like The Pipe demonstrate how the provision of public services like these can be knitted into every day life in a healthy, aesthetically-pleasing way. A finalist of the 2016 Land Art Generator Initiative design competition for Santa Monica Pier, the solar-powered plant deploys electromagnetic desalination to provide clean drinking water for the city and filters the resulting brine through on-board thermal baths before it is reintroduced to the Pacific Ocean.”