Cet étudiant en design souhaite nous pousser à la culture et à la consommation d’algues

Hyunseok An est un étudiant en design industriel de la Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Avec son projet éThe Coral », il propose aux foyers du futur de cultiver, récolter et consommer les algues au quotidien. Un projet qui se matérialise sous la forme d’un système de culture murale de micro-algues dans des containers muraux et transparents, permettant de visualiser la prolifération des organismes. Un choix par ailleurs très esthétique puisque ces mini-fermes se présentent sous forme d’une mosaïque en camaïeu de vert.

Les algues sont des aliments peu usités qui contiennent pourtant une quantité considérable de nutriments. Sources de calcium, fer, vitamines A, C et K, potassium, sélénium, magnésium, iode, et vitamine B12, ces algues comestibles sont présentées sous la forme d’une sorte de calendrier mural. « The Coral » se compose de 16 emplacements de cellules, contenant chacune 2 grammes d’algues.

The Coral: home algae farming from Hyun Seok An on Vimeo.

Sur ce projet, la designer expliquait : « Algae play a critical role in the sustainability of human life and our ecosystem. Algae are some of the most efficient CO2 scrubbers in the air, with ten times greater CO2 fixation than terrestrial plants. The 1974 UN World Food Conference deemed algae ‘the most ideal food for mankind,’ and NASA uses algae as dietary supplements on long-term space missions because of the rich, well-balanced nutritional content. Even so, however, we may not fully enjoy algae’s outstanding benefits in our everyday lives. Rather, we tend to dismiss it, associating it with negative feelings: mossy, slimy, gross. This isn’t strange, because we usually see algae in unpleasant situations—stagnant water, with a nauseous smell like pond scum—and these contexts influence our perception of algae as distasteful. Because of this emotional rejection, we might underestimate algae’s values, try to eliminate it from our everyday lives, and thus lose the potential benefit to our health and our environment. The Coral is an indoor micro-algae farm designed to rebuild a relationship with algae in our everyday lives. This wall-mounted bioreactor proposes a daily ritual for algae consumption through home algae farming activities. Each culture cell in the four-by-four grid wall frame contains around 2 grams of algae when it turns dark green—the recommended daily intake amount. The 16 cells in the farm enable us to grow and eat algae every day because one cell has a biweekly cycle to replenish after harvesting. »