Symbios

Description

Marine biodiversity is under severe pressure. Climate change and increasing human interference are threatening marine ecosystems worldwide. As the global population grows, so does the pressure to use the ocean more intensively for agriculture – especially for food production. This sentence repeated ‘food production’; one instance removed. This thesis asks: How can humans and nature share this space of the ocean in the future? And how can we avoid repeating the mistakes of conventional agriculture in the ocean?

The result is Symbios – a buoy system for seaweed farming in Northern Europe. The modular setup consists of a central mother buoy, several daughter buoys, and an IoT-based monitoring device. Through partial harvesting and automated movement between water depths, Symbios enables year-round seaweed cultivation for farmers while providing a stable, continuous habitat for marine ecosystems. Automation and digital monitoring reduce costly trips to the farm and minimize disruption to surrounding marine life.