How artificial reefs are restoring marine life with Alex Goad

For the duration of Every Living Thing at MPavilion, Reef Design Lab are taking to the pond to install one of their Modular Artificial Reef Structures—a tower of cascading nodules that’s designed to encourage the restoration of marine life impacted by dynamite fishing and climate change.
Ahead of the installation, we sat down with founder and industrial designer Alex Goad to explore the role of artificial reefs as targeted restoration tools, a smarter way of using concrete in the ocean, and his collaborations with leading marine science organisations to create a more sustainable future underwater.
Tell us about the evolution of MARS (Modular Artificial Reef System) and what kind of impact it’s having on marine restoration?
It’s essentially like Lego underwater. It’s a way of building up reef substrate using divers and swimmers instead of having to use barges and cranes. MARS came about from my graduate project at uni. I did an honours year in Industrial Design at Monash and was always really interested in the artificial structures that are put in the marine environment that then become these really productive ecosystems. For example, if you think about sunken ships like the Cerberus at Half Moon Bay, or any of our peer structures in Port Phillip Bay, these are all artificial structures that have been introduced and they’ve become these really effective marine ecosystems. You get kelp, sponges, all these amazing things growing on them. That’s what inspired me to start researching the field of artificial reefs.
Besides creating fish habitat and increasing fishery stocks, I started researching why artificial reefs exist. In a lot of areas of Southeast Asia, they have experienced a bit of dynamite fishing where, unfortunately, explosives are used so that it’s really easy to collect the fish but then the entire reef structure is destroyed. So there’s a need to rebuild that three dimensional structure which fish use as their habitat, and then that’s also that substrate for coral to grow on as well. So that was what really inspired MARS to become something that I thought was worthwhile creating, worthwhile pursuing. And recently, our MARS II system has been redesigned from the original concept to make it really cost effective to manufacture, like on location. But the benefit, the true benefit of the product, is how quickly it will disappear and be covered by growth and fuse back into the environment.
You have a background as an artist and sculptor as well as an industrial designer – how does this influence the work that you do at Reef Design Lab?
Before I started industrial design, I was doing a lot of sculpture and that’s what I was always really passionate about. I created the studio because I still wanted to do sculpture but wanted the work to have some utility. It was combining that love of sculpture, that love of design, my love of the marine environments and the key purpose of industrial design to create products that are accessible, that can be easily installed. I was interested in in those three things, sculpture design and the underwater world.
A big part of most of our work is designing these forms. We’ll start with a sketch, go to 3D modelling, then to 3D printing and various fabrication methods. But we like to control that whole production line and so, everyone who designs here understands that production process. That way they become better designers as well, and for me as well, that’s also something I’m really passionate about, is making. And I want to be involved in the making, not just designing. I really want to be in the in the workshop, building things, working with your hands. And that’s, again, what makes our studio really an interesting place to work, because you get to do so many hands-on things.
What do you see as the possibilities and limitations of artificial systems like MARS?
I think the real limit is where people assume that you could just rebuild entire reef ecosystems using artificial structures and constructed reefs–you absolutely can’t. It seems obvious to anyone who understands how large natural reef ecosystems are, but it can be a bit of a problem in the age of misinformation and how quickly misinformation can spread. Because this is such a niche area, not that many people understand what an artificial reef is. I think those are the main limitations, just understanding that it can’t be used endlessly.
But there are certainly a lot of opportunities, especially in areas where we’re already building in the marine environment. Areas where we’re building piers and sea walls that require wave break structures, that’s where I think there’s huge opportunity to incorporate some of this more aesthetic language in these structures that are in the public realm anyway, so why not make them beautiful? We have a great collaboration called Living Sea Walls with Sydney Institute of Marine Science and Macquarie University based in Sydney, where we design these living sea wall panels that are quite beautiful, and they’re designed to just go along sea walls to create habitat, but also look interesting.
Something I’m really passionate about is coastal protection as well. We did a great project with Geelong City Council recently where we created these large sculptural modules that were designed to be a wave break. These were designed to sit out from the shoreline and break up wave energy so that you don’t get continued erosion along our coasts. Traditionally, these structures might be made out of rocks or concrete blocks and that sort of thing. But if we need to construct them, why not make them look beautiful and have this multi benefit approach where you have this sculptural form, like public areas where you can snorkel and have, quite literally, an underwater garden which everyone can enjoy.
Like MPavilion 10 designed by Tadao Ando, MARS II is made using concrete. What is your take on this controversial material? How do you balance its functionality with concerns about its environmental impact?
I really don’t think it’s as controversial as people think because it’s a material that’s not going anywhere. We cannot replace the use of concrete and use of cements as a binder for various aggregates like mycelium for example, not at the scale that humanity needs the material.
There’s a lot of research that looks at supplementary cement materials that can lower that carbon footprint such as calcine clays and furnace slag. There’s still issues with sand and rock and quarrying and then the energy around that. I personally think that concrete is often used in really bulk form, whereas what we’re interested in is how we use the material. It’s one of the only materials that we can use underwater, in the marine environment that has a really long lifespan. There just aren’t other materials that are as cost effective that we can use. We can use ceramic, for example, but it’s not as cost effective as a concrete mix. So we are really limited to this material. But I often think that sometimes it’s often the use of the material–generally speaking, we use just too much of it.
If you look at the MARS product itself, it’s essentially a lattice which is one of the strongest shapes in geometry and uses the most minimal amount of material. One of the founding concepts of the MARS system is that it was this very hollow structure that uses not that much material at all. We can build quite a large structure that is maybe three meters cubed and it will only use about 1000 kilos of material. Ultimately, I think it’s more about not so much making concrete this evil material, but more looking at our use of it and using it in a smart way.
The MARS II system displayed in the pavilion will later be installed at Port Phillip Bay – can you tell us more about that project?
We’re going to do a test installation of the MARS system in the intertidal zone. So it’ll be really, really, really interesting because we’d be answering questions like, could this system also be used to break up wave energy in a temperate environment? Could this be used along low lying islands as a coastal protection device? Using this lattice, using minimal material, could this actually be beneficial for coastal protection? This will be with Geelong City Council and seeing how the structure goes as an artificial reef, as a coastal protection device and as another interesting thing for people to snorkel, and just another part of this underwater garden.
What do you hope visitors will take away from the installation at MPavilion?
It’ll be a great way to introduce people to this field of work. If you’re not familiar with this industry and the work people do to rebuild marine habitats, it’ll be a great conversation piece to start looking into this area of work and understand more about constructed reefs and human made reef structures. I hope people can start investigating, that it can inspire them to go for a snorkel in the bay and start looking underneath our piers and even seeing what we have in Port Phillip Bay. Our MARS structures are designed for tropical, coral reef environments but here in Port Phillip Bay where we have a more temperate environment, we have some of the most incredible things that grow underneath our piers, like sponges and seaweed–it really is an underwater garden that I hope more people can appreciate.
To find out more check out MARS II by Reef Design Lab a real-life artificial reef structure at MPavilion and Designing Habitats with Reef Design Lab to hear from Alex Goad of Reef Design Lab as he discusses their approach to designing ecological habitats for biodiversity.