The Land Art Generator Initiative 2016 has announced its winners, chosen among a large number of proposals from around the world. The three awards and all the finalists panels were presented during Greenbuild 2016 at the Los Angeles Convention Center on October 5th and 6th.

LAGI 2016 was an ideas competition to design a site-specific public artwork that, in addition to its conceptual beauty, has the ability to harness energy cleanly from nature and convert it into electricity and/or drinking water for the City. "Regatta H2O: Familiar Form, Chameleon Infrastructure" by Christopher Sjoberg and Ryo Saito has been the winner of the contest, proposing a set of 44 candles made from a high-tech mesh material that is capable of "harvesting" the usual Coastal fog to generate up to 112 million liters of drinkable water per year. Veins on the surface of the candles would serve as collectors of ambient humidity, funneling the collected water to a central mast, which would in turn pump the liquid to a set of storage containers on the shore.

The 2016 design site - Santa Monica City - offered participating teams the opportunity to utilize wave and tidal energies as well as wind, solar, and other technologies.

Now, more than ever, energy and water are intertwined. As California faces severe water shortages in the coming years, the amount of energy required for water production and transmission is sure to increase. For this reason the definition of sustainable infrastructure artwork is expanded to include proposals in 2016 that produce drinking water—either in addition to, or in place of—clean electricity.

LAGI 2016 fits well into the context of the ongoing efforts being made in Santa Monica to increase efficiency of water consumption and to harvest water sustainably. The Santa Monica Pier is currently investigating ways to drastically reduce the use of potable water on site, like the use of recycled seawater for toilet flushing, to take one example.

The City of Santa Monica has demonstrated the ability of sustainable infrastructures to provide an aesthetic and educational amenity for the community through its Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility (SMURFF), located just next to the Pier. Visitors to the facility can learn about stormwater runoff, water-borne particulates, filtration processes, and large-scale rainwater reuse at the facility, which treats an average of 500,000 gallons per day of urban runoff (and looks nice too).

Proposals to LAGI 2016 will serve to push the conversation even further and will provide new ideas for innovation. By elevating the vital urban systems that provide our energy and water to the level of public art, we can challenge those who would disapprove of these important infrastructures on aesthetic grounds, especially at sites that are cherished for their cultural value and identity (like the Santa Monica Pier Breakwater).

The jury, composed among others by California State Senator Ben Allen or Santa Monica Mayor Kevin McKeown along with different personalities from the world of arts and sustainability, resolved:

FIRST PLACE:
Regatta H2O: Familiar Form, Chameleon Infrastructure
Christopher Sjoberg, Ryo Saito
Team Location: Tokyo, Japan
Energy Technology: Aerostatic Flutter Wind Harvesting (WindBelt™)
Water Technology: Fog Harvesting Annual Capacity: 70 MWh (used on site) and 112 million liters of drinking water

SECOND PLACE:
Cetacea
Keegan Oneal, Sean Link, Caitlin Vanhauer, Colin Poranski
Team Location: Eugene, OR USA
Energy Technology: wave energy converter with linear alternator, Windbelt™, photovoltaic panels
Water Harvesting Technology: high efficiency reverse osmosis (HERO™ by Aquatech) for stormwater runoff treatment
Annual Capacity: 4,300 MWh (80% used to offset the energy demand of existing SMURRF facility and power HERO™ system 650 million liters of drinking water 

 
THIRD PLACE:
Paper Boats
Christopher Makrinos, Stephen Makrinos, Alexander Bishop
Team Location: Pittsburgh, USA
Energy Technology: concentrated photovoltaic (CPV), reflectors, Holographic Planar Concentrator™ (HPC) technology developed by Prism Solar Technologies
Annual Capacity: 2,400 MWh 

 
FINALISTS:
The Clear Orb
Jaesik Lim, Ahyoung Lee, Jaeyeol Kim, Taegu Lim
Team Location: Seoul, South Korea

Horizon Lines: the transparency of energy
Rebecca Borowiecki
Team Location: Boulder, USA

The Pipe
Abdolaziz Khalili, Puya Kalili, Laleh Javaheri, Iman Khalili, Kathy Kiany (Khalili Engineers)
Team Location: Vancouver, Canada

Aurora
Daniel Martin de los Rios, Fran Vilar Navarro (Pistach Office)
Team Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Big Beach Balloon
Matt Kuser
Team Location: Carmel, USA

Catching the Wave
Christina Vannelli, Liz Davidson, Matthew Madigan
Team Location: Hamilton, Ontario Canada

Cnidaria Halitus
John Eric Chung, Pablo La Roche, Danxi Zou, Jingyan Zhang, Tianyi Deng (CallisonRTKL)
Team Location: Los Angeles, USA

Breakwater Make Water
Elizabeth Anne Case
Team Location: Wallingford, UK

Kinetic Manifesto
Gauthier Durey, Eric Reid (Vagabond Atelier)
Team Location: Oslo, Norway

Subsurface
Ethan Stanley, Veronica Magner, Emmanuel Eshun
Team Location: Philadelphia (PA), USA

The Ocean Still: Lagrimas de Santa Monica
Courtney A. Goode, Michelle Arevalos Franco, Helen E. Kongsgaard, Stephanie Hsia, Nuith Morales
Team Location: Boston (MA), USA

Sun Towers
John Perry, Matteo Melioli, Ramone Dixon, Terie Harrison, Kristina Butkute (BLDA Architects), Tom Kordel, Sherleen Pang, Kostas Mastronikolaou (XCO2), Steven Scott Studio
Team Location: London, UK

Weightless Balloons
Aitor Almaraz, Sonia Vázquez-Díaz
Team Location: A Coruna, Spain

Big Balls
Jose Carlos de Silva, Leonardo de Silva, Rodrigo Marquez, Mateu-Puchades
Team Location: Malmö, Sweden

The Flying Steelhead of Santa Monica
Winfield Scott Balcom, Adom Balcom
Team Location: Ashland (OR), USA

ESTHER
Peter Coombe, Jennifer Sage, Eunkyoung Kim, Charlene Chai, Kaitlin Faherty (Sage and Coombe Architects)
Team Location: New York City, USA

Follies and Fog
Nik Klahre, Brooke Campbell-Johnston
Team Location: London, UK and Copenhagen, Denmark

Santa Monica Ocean's Breath
Fabio Azzato
Team Location: Florence, Italy

RING GARDEN
Alexandru Predonu
Team Location: Bucharest, Romania

Over the Sea
Louis Joanne, Anaelle Toquet Etesse, Elba Adriana Bravo, Maria Rojas Alcazar, Ronan Audebert
Team Location: Guadalajara, Mexico

Flowerpops
Augusto Audissoni, Silvia Cama, [zerozone], Elisabetta Lo Grasso, Elisa Tozzi, Nicolò Mossink
Team Location: Genoa, Italy

Noctilucales
Ricardo Avella, Andrés Tabora, Michael Henriksen, Carla Betancourt, Silvia Mercader, Laura Vera, Oriana De Lucia, Martin Von Bülow, Laura Vivas, Miguel Rosas (representing: Tabora + Tabora Landscape Architecture, ATA avella taller de arquitectura, WavePiston)
Team Location: Caracas, Venezuela

Light Drop
Antonio Maccá, Flavio Masi
Team Location: Padova, Italy

WAKE UP
Henry Moll, Mary Carroll-Coelho
Team Location: Philadelphia, USA
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