Material

Walnut, Linseed Oil

Dimensions

20 in (Width) x 36 in (Length) x 20 in (Height)

Description

In my experience, the naturally occurring crosses between otherwise separate fields, more like ecological edge effects than planned interdisciplinarity, are always happy accidents. For example, robotics and woodworking were never explicitly connected, but by engaging in those two fields in parallel, they were neighboring in my head. I designed this table under the influence of that relationship—the crossing between otherwise parallel lines of interest. Likewise, multiscale biological modeling and architecture gave rise to these protein earrings.

Another happy accident led me to build the aeroponic green wall pictured below. Knowing my background in woodwork and robotics, my environmental history teacher had asked me to design and build a grow-system for a kindergarten classroom at the Dalton School. My green wall unfortunately never found a home after the school was renovated, but in the process of researching, testing prototypes and building the final product, I became interested in the potential benefits and ills of technology in agriculture.

The green wall project inspired me to take a gap year before university. I spent the first half of that year working as an engineer at vertical farming startups in NYC and the second half working on organic farms in Europe. Afterwards, in a sequence of events worth telling in person, those experiences led me to study atmospheric physics in Elizabeth Moyer’s lab at UChicago.

I’ve named this table after the edge effect, which I think extends to many areas beyond ecology. Before building this table and the green wall, I understood the interdisciplinary approach on an intellectual level, yet the unplanned richness that stemmed from these projects is what helped me to put faith in that approach.