Seabrick

There are two major problems that our submission aims to solve. The first is the climate impact the construction industry is responsible for. Production of concrete alone is responsible for up to 9% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.This cannot be allowed to continue unabated if we wish to leave a clean and healthy environment to the next generation or even in our lifetimes. Another problem that our project aims to tackle focuses on the social aspects of climate change. More than 10% of the global population live in regions that are less than 10 metre above sea level. As sea levels rise, these coastal communities are increasingly at risk of being forced to find solutions for their predicament whether that is floating homes, breakwaters, or land reclamation. Seabrick will be able to contribute towards mitigating and solving these problems.

SeaBricks are floating, interlocking blocks made of kelp, cast in a compression mold and covered by an impermeable shell. The whole project of SeaBrick was initially designed around the concept of a buoyant material to supplement and replace the current supplies of materials in use in floating architecture.The first portion of SeaBrick is the kelp core which will be mixed with a binder, compressed in a mold, and cured in an oven to create a light high strength material. Then the whole thing will be covered with a durable, benign polymer shell that will protect it and keep the material safe from external environmental forces. The second innovation is a 3D interlocking brick system designed for a high-force ocean environment. SeaBrick interlock horizontally to form an extremely strong but flexible mat, like chainmail. Layers of SeaBrick can be precisely stacked; like lego with hooked sides. Unlike Lego, which is based on a square pattern, Seabrick use a triangular pattern that allows a variety of shapes including triangles, hexagons, trapezoids and rhombi as well as squares and rectangles.Individual bricks are rigid. However, assemblies of bricks incorporate spacing and have meta-characteristics including flexibility and shock absorption. 

Our initial target community for Seabrick will be coastal communities. Seabrick was designed around the feature of buoyancy because we saw a gap in the marketplace for providers of floating infrastructure. We will supplement and replace traditional materials such as floating concrete and metal pontoons. This will provide much greater access to floating housing than ever before, as well as a means to construct other marine structures such as farms, power platforms, breakwaters and floating islands. Seabrick will be able to bring a sustainable and cost effective alternative thus increasing the availability of housing space and decreasing costs in overcrowded waterside cities around the world.

 Our team is well positioned to deliver this solution in many ways. Because we  are located on the coast of British Columbia, we have easy access to the raw materials necessary for the proper development of our project. In addition, our organization holds ties to several First Nations communities along the coastline of British Columbia, most notable with the Heiltsuk community in Bella Bella who we have partnered with.We have received BC Government funding, along with the Construction Foundation of BC, to conduct a feasibility study into the establishment of a SeaBrick manufacturing facility in their community. The University of British Columbia is another resource that will help us in our journey to make Seabrick a reality. For the past year, we have been working with the UBC Material Engineering Department and a team of 6 students who are conducting a Capstone project to optimize the strength of the kelp composite.

We have already created several high strength samples and molds as well as models of the interlocking bricks.

At the moment we are still working to bring our idea towards a full pilot project. 

We hope that, besides the funding we will receive from Solve, success in this challenge will allow us to expand our market and visibility. The only way we can achieve tour intended impact is with the help and support of talented people and with resources all around the world and we hope to use this opportunity to reach out and raise awareness from partners who have the means to do that.

Seabrick is innovative because it will allow us to use a material that has been under utilized and even regarded as a nuisance and repurpose it into something that is of vital importance to communities all over the world. With the testing that we have done, we have not needed complicated equipment to produce these samples and are confident that with the right expertise and resources available that it can be replicated worldwide and utilized anywhere close to the oceans. If this is the case it could revolutionize the way we regard the feasibility of floating architecture and the limitless potential it could hold for all of us.

In the next year, we aim to finish the development of a final composition of Seabrick. We will begin kelp harvesting and the production of the first batch of Seabricks from a proposed facility in Bella Bella with the cooperation of the Heiltsuk First Nation. Within the next 5 we aim to begin full scale production at this and to licence out production to other manufacturers that would be interested in producing our product.

We will be using the amount of seaweed harvested and carbon sequestered as basic indicators to measure our progress besides the material strength and composition of the Seabrick materials.

Seabrick will bring about change from production to utilization. The impact we aim to achieve starts with the collection of seaweed which will be done through either cultivation or clearing up sargassum blooms that have plagued coastlines around the world. The processing of this biomass into our product will sequester carbon from the environment by sealing it away semi-permanently. Finally using the product will provide architects and construction companies with an alternative to traditional construction materials that will be cheaper, more sustainable, and easily utilized in marine architecture and other applications.

The core technology we will use for Seabrick is the process of binding, compressing, and curing seaweeds to maximize their strength in construction applications as well as the use of a bio-plastic shell to keep the interior safe from the effects of the environment.

As well as the diversity we already represent in our own team, we are partnering with the Heiltsuk first Nation in order to promote cooperation and development in these communities.

We will be producing and selling Seabrick as an alternative to traditional materials used in construction such as concrete in both aquatic and land based applications first by producing them through our own production plant then through licensed producers as demand increases. In addition, we will be able to collect tax credits for sequestering carbon and clearing sargassum from contaminated beaches. This will make it an even more cost competitive alternative for other materials currently in use thus making it attractive for potential buyers. 

We intend to cover the initial period through a combination of government grants, pre sales of our product(we have already raised 100k in pre sales so far), and raising investment capital. Once the product is fully developed we will receive income primarily from the sales of our production of Seabricks as well as licensing fees for other interested parties to produce their own.

So far we have raised $110k through private pre-sales of SeaBrick as well as $100k from the BC Government (in partnership with the Construction Foundation of BC and the Heiltsuk First Nation) We have also received in-kind support from the University of British Columbia Materials Engineering Department through their Capstone program.