Jellyfish House, Treasure Island, San Francisco model

A transformative prototype for reclaimed land, Jellyfish House was designed to take into account the particularities of Treasure Island, a former military base in the San Francisco Bay whose environmental hazards it addresses through a variety of means. By necessity, the proposed house does more than simply provide shelter; its exterior "skin" also absorbs and filters water, air, and UV light from the outside, merging technology into the building's very structure to adapt to its immediate environment. Solar panels, phase change materials, and sensor networks allow the skin to produce its own energy to insulate, heat, and cool the house automatically.

While the project is extremely technological, it does not rely on the digital. Rather, as the architects state, it "expands upon the notion of 'calm,' or ambient, technology, which suggests that the digital realm will ultimately recede to the background of our spaces and lived experience."

Jellyfish House was commissioned for the exhibition Open House: Architecture and Technology for Intelligent Living, organized by the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, in collaboration with the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The exhibition presented proposals for visions of how we might live in the future.