Rhode Island School of Design Announces Shortlisted Finalists in the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Global Terra Carta Design Lab Competition

1. BIOPODS: Biopods are human-scale ecosystem modules designed to remediate water quality, reintroduce vital fringe marshes into urban environments and engage the public in citizen science.
2. FUTUREYARD: Revolutionizing our connection to earth, the community-focused FutureYard app simplifies regeneration and empowers people with access to green spaces to increase native biodiversity, soil health and carbon storage.
3. MAP COLLECTIVE: Map Collective provides a software solution for corporate and government sustainability and supply chain teams to automate supply chain transparency, sustainability metrics tracking and decarbonization planning, and procurement decisions using AI and data mining.
4. HOPPI: Hoppi is revolutionizing the toy industry by transforming brewery waste into 100% biodegradable, nontoxic toys, reducing the amount of plastic entering the environment and minimizing the toy industry’s carbon footprint.
5. SHAPESHFT: Aiming to reframe the conversation about plastics manufacturing and new materials development in the 21st century, SHAPESHFT uses discarded mixed plastics to create a usable artistic medium for producing public art, sculptures and research materials helping localized arts production.
6. SHELLF LIFE: Shellf Life transforms discarded mollusk shells into a groundbreaking biomaterial, offering a versatile, sustainable and aesthetically captivating alternative to conventional materials across diverse applications, fostering collaboration and redefining the relationship between the built environment and nature.
7. SOILLESS: Soilless is an affordable, sustainable, indoor garden system that empowers everyone to grow their own fresh, healthy and sustainable food.
8. SURPLUS: Surplus is a consolidated logistics platform revolutionizing the flows of surplus construction materials and addressing the critical issue of waste influx in the industry. By providing a peer-to-peer marketplace connecting buyers and sellers in real time, Surplus streamlines the process, allowing contractors to offload surplus materials efficiently.
9. WASTES HARMONIZE WORLDS: The building industry faces entropy with abandoned buildings contributing to urban decay. Only 12.2% of brick and clay tile waste is recycled, with most ending up in landfills. This project explores biocements for binding these construction and demolition wastes, creating recyclable materials that enhance comfort while preserving traditional characteristics and extending the history of clay from a new perspective.
10. WILD LIVES: Wild Lives is an interdisciplinary environmental education movement using trail cameras to encourage youth to actively observe, explore and connect to local ecosystems. As they gather footage of wildlife, students analyze their findings through creative map-making, scientific illustration and storytelling.

“The principles guiding the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Terra Carta Design Lab align beautifully with RISD’s priorities, particularly with our commitment to centering art and design as the pillars upholding a more sustainable world,” says RISD Provost Touba Ghadessi. “RISD students and recent alums are immersed in complex inquiries, framed by a justice-based approach that they deploy effectively on a daily basis: from biomimicry studies in the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab, to NSF-funded research projects proposing regenerative and equitable futures, to collaborations with nonprofits and forward-thinking corporations. Our students and alums are, therefore, well positioned to grapple with deeply intricate and intersectional environmental issues such as climate change. This is what schools of art and design do. We imagine, we create, we envision new possibilities and we realize them.”

“At the Sustainable Markets Initiative we are accelerating a sustainable future through the collision of ideas and co-creation between the private sector and the next generation of global leaders, including our Design Lab finalists,”said Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, CEO of the Sustainable Markets Initiative. “Their work exemplifies what is possible when we put design, engineering, innovation, technology, art and global experience at the heart of systems-level change. At the SMI we are finding ways to connect industry, financial and country systems with the many innovations that are emerging around the world so that, together, we can scale solutions globally. As one people, sharing one planet and facing one common future, we have much to learn from this optimistic, multi-disciplinary and multi-generational approach that is embodied in the Terra Carta Design Lab.”

Sir Jony Ive, chancellor of the Royal College of Art and Terra Carta Design Lab Global judge added, “I am thrilled that the Terra Carta Design lab has gathered momentum this year to include four international design schools. The lab elevates the rigorous and imaginative ideas from all these students, and demonstrates the power and importance of multidisciplinary design and collaboration in meeting global challenges.”

The finalists and winners from the inaugural Design Lab launched in 2021 have since secured over £35m* in funding and have gone on to win further accolades including the Earthshot Prize.

Photos available here.