TED Fellows | Mitchell Joachim

Professional Role

Current Titles:

Architect, Professor

Current Organizations:

NYU, Terreform ONE,

Photos

Uploaded Photos

Videos

Mitchell Joachim: Don't build your home, grow it! View talk on TED.com »

Projects

URBANEERING BROOKLYN 2110
05/01/2010 – 05/09/2011
Our primary assertion for Brooklyn 2110 is that all necessities are provided inside its accessible physical borders. We have designed an intensified version of Brooklyn that supplies all vital needs for its population. In this city, food, water, air, energy, waste, mobility, and shelter are radically restructured to support life in every form.
Project Website »

SUPER DOCKING
03/14/2011 – 10/10/2011
This project continues to explore the possibilities of the architectural retrofit. On an urban industrial site in Brooklyn, New York, Super Docking imagines a self-sustained working waterfront as a center for clean industries that are incubators for new technologies. The designed landscape is adapted to local climate dynamics and is outfitted for a living infrastructure to seamlessly connect land and water. The project interfaces the historic dry-docks, which are retrofitted into five distinct research and production facilities; massive 3D digital prototyping/ scanning, replicable test beds for studies in limnology and restorative ecology, freight delivery of raw materials and finished goods, automated shipbuilding, and phytoremediation barges for CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow) issues.
Project Website »

SOFT CAR: LAMB
03/15/2006 – 05/17/2006
Each wheel operates autonomously and intelligently and the motion of the wheels is controlled and coordinated by sophisticated software. Concentrating mechanical functions in the wheel provides extraordinary freedom to rethink car body materials. Omni-directional wheels grip lightweight rails to interface with building skins. An integrated facade tall building cluster with SOFT car rails and wind energy bridges.
Project Website »

RAPID RE(F)USE
01/18/2009 – 06/18/2010
New York City is disposing of 38,000 tons of waste per day. Most of this discarded material ended up in Fresh Kills landfill before it closed. The Rapid Re(f)use project supposes an extended New York reconstituted from its own landfill material. Our concept remakes the city by utilizing the trash at Fresh Kills. With our method, we can remake seven entirely new Manhattan islands at full scale. Automated robot 3d printers are modified to process trash and complete this task within decades. These robots are based on existing techniques commonly found in industrial waste compaction devices. Instead of machines that crush objects into cubes, these devices have jaws that make simple shape grammars for assembly. Different materials serve specified purposes; plastic for fenestration, organic compounds for temporary scaffolds, metals for primary structures, and etc. Eventually, the future city makes no distinction between waste and supply.
Project Website »

FAB TREE HAB
11/22/2003 – 05/09/2012
Fab Tree Hab Villege: 100% Living Habitat Prefabricated with Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) Reusable Scaffolds to Graft Trees into Shape.
Project Website »

Biography

Dr. Joachim is a leader in ecological design and urbanism and co-founder at Terreform ONE and ONE Lab. Mitchell is an Associate Professor at NYU and EGS in Switzerland. Previously he was the Frank Gehry Chair at University of Toronto and faculty at Pratt, Columbia, Syracuse, Washington, and Parsons. He was formerly an architect at Gehry Partners, and Pei Cobb Freed. He is a TED Senior Fellow and has been awarded fellowships with Moshe Safdie and Martin Society for Sustainability, MIT. He won the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity, History Channel and Infiniti Award for City of the Future, and Time Magazine Best Invention with MIT Smart Cities. His project, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published. He was chosen by Wired magazine for "The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To." Rolling Stone magazine honored Mitchell in "The 100 People Who Are Changing America." Popular Science magazine has featured his work as a visionary for "The Future of the Environment". Dwell magazine selected him for "The Now 99" in 2012.