School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Everbloom

Nika Eva Grusby, Tierani J Bryan, Carina Mia Cardon

Everbloom provides an eco-positive burial option for pets. Complete with flax linen, mycelium, and paper containing native seeds, the Everbloom blanket is designed to safely contain decomposition, reduce methane and CO2 emissions, and to support pollinators and native flora. Each blanket offers our pets a gentle return to the earth they loved to roam.

https://www.everbloom.site/

Artists of the Floating World

Nonfinalist Project

Giovanna Lazzarini, Javi Dou

Artists of the Floating World is a participatory outdoor art exhibit that engages the public with the bog ecosystem through a series of designed objects. Volo Bog is the most diverse ecosystem in Illinois and has long been overlooked. Its rich biodiversity produces a select set of unique plants and animals that have bizarre adaptations for living between water and land. Water in the bog is acidic, yielding a chemical reaction that preserves elements but also limits aquatic life. Spagnum moss, the dominating trait of this ecosystem, is a microworld. This event aims to hyperscale this micro-environment to highlight the otherworldlness of something close to home.

C.O.S.T.A. Puerto Rico

Nonfinalist Project

Devin Ramirez

C.O.S.T.A. Puerto Rico combats severe shoreline erosion and revitalizes marine ecosystems by deploying modular artificial reefs and coral fragmentation discs grown from Bacillus bacteria. Using local materials and utilizing the Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) pathway, these artificial reef structures are made of self-healing bio-concrete that can withstand hurricane-force water turbulence and break wave velocity. Engineered in revolutionary designs, these artificial reefs drastically mitigate coastal erosion by reducing wave impact by up to 90%, particularly safeguarding vulnerable, under-resourced municipalities. By populating the structures with coral species resilient to Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), C.O.S.T.A. Puerto Rico aims to, over time, restore lost biodiversity, protect critical coastlines, and empower local communities.

costapuertorico.squarespace.com

EVE Protocol Project

Nonfinalist Project

Peiyi (Vera) Hsu, Fia Kim

“EVE Protocol: Gestation Eligible” is a speculative design project imagining a future with a severe low birth rate crisis. In this scenario, reproduction is no longer just a private choice, but something the state measures and manages as part of national planning. At the center is the GEI (Gestation Eligibility Index), a fictional system that classifies people based on their reproductive potential. GEI scores affect areas like healthcare, insurance, jobs, workplace benefits, and social support. The project is less about pregnancy itself, and more about questioning what happens when bodies are judged by their “reproductive usefulness,” and who gets to decide that.

The Wandering Uterus

Nonfinalist Project

Sinbi Lee, Lucie Jacobs, Rachel Martin

The societal negligence of women’s anatomy and health is rooted in a long history of misogyny that is prevalent in the field of biology. We believe that the first step of advocating for the study of women’s health is to facilitate conversations around it. Our video game “Wandering Uterus” takes place in a speculative future where all the uteri are fleeting earth in protest of the ongoing misogyny in biology. The game uses irony and humor to draw attention to the lack of progression in women’s health.

OUTSTANDING INSTRUCTOR WINNER

Dr. Andrew Scarpelli is a Chicago science and art professor whose training is in microbiology and synthetic biology. He has been an instructor or judge at the Biodesign Challenge since 2016. He is cofounder and president of the community biolab ChiTownBio. He is greatly interested in expanding the utility of biotechnology into fields such as art and social justice.