MIT’s Self Assembly Lab and Maldives-based Invena have unveiled Growing Islands, a provocative underwater structural system that redirects wave energy and sand accumulation flows to build new islands and help rebuild existing beaches ravaged by rising sea levels.

The decidedly low-tech scheme deploys a series of submerged concrete ramps to create turbulent eddies along the ocean floor that can generate the conditions necessary for sediment deposit. Over time, the designers argue, sediment will build up enough to potentially offset some of the effects of rising sea levels on island and coastal environments. 

In a statement announcing the project, MIT researchers said, "We are designing, building, and deploying, submersible devices that, based simply on their geometry and orientation, can function as adaptable artificial reefs." 

The Self-Assembly Lab is housed within MIT's Department of Architecture in the school's International Design Center. The lab, which is focused on developing new materials and fabrication approaches, has previously engaged in research involving 4-D Printing, rapid liquid printing, programmable carbon fiber technologies, and balloon-based self-assembly systems, among other approaches.

The first field test of the Growing Islands approach has been underway since February 2019. The researchers have plans to install at least one more test before the end of the year.