Outside an atoll, just south of the capital of Maldives, Malé, researchers are testing a way to capture sand in strategic locations: cultivate islands, rebuild beaches and protect coastal communities from the increase in sea level. Swim 10 minutes in the in the in’Bobleofinolhu lagoon and you will find the ramp ring, an unusual structure composed of six hard skin geotextile bladder. These submerged bags, part of a recent effort called growing islands, form a couple of parentheses separated by 90 meters (about 300 feet).
The bags, each of about two meters high, were deployed in December 2024, and in February, the underwater images showed that the sand had climbed approximately one and a half meter on the surface of each one, which demonstrates how passive structures can quickly replace the beaches and, in time, build a solid base for new lands. “There is only one ton of sand there. It really looks good,” says Skylar Tibbits, architect and founder of the MIT Self -Assembly Laboratory, which is developing the project in association with the Climate Technology Company based in Malé Invena.
The self -assembly laboratory designs material technologies that can be programmed to transform or “self -assemble” in the air or under water, exploiting natural forces such as severity, wind, waves and sunlight. Their creations include wood fiber leaves that are formed in three -dimensional structures when they splashed with water, which researchers expect them to be used for flat package furniture without tools.
The growth of the islands is your company on a larger scale so far. Since 2017, the project has deployed 10 experiments in the Maldives, testing different materials, locations and strategies, including inflatable structures and mesh networks. The ramp ring is many times larger than previous implementations and aims to overcome its greatest limitation.
In the Maldives, the direction of the currents changes with the stations. Past experiments have been able to capture only a seasonal flow, which means that they are inactive during the months of the year. On the contrary, the ramp ring is “omnidirectional”, capturing sand throughout the year. “It is basically a large ring, a great loop, and it does not matter which monsors season and what wave address, accumulates sand in the same area,” says Tibbits.
