Manini Banerjee

   

Systems Designer & Research Engineer making environmental complexity legible and actionable. 



COMPUTATIONAL ECOLOGY: 
BIOPOD Co.
ECOLOGY · INFRASTRUCTURE · SYSTEMS
Designing deployable ecological infrastructure for wetland restoration based on environmental research.
Ecological AI 
PREDICTION · INTERFACE · DATA  
 A Decision-Support System for Targeted Ecosystem Restoration.
Algorithmic Morphogenesis
BIO-COMPUTATION · DATA MATERIALIZATION
inscribing real-time human neurological data (EEG) into living algal morphology using phototactic actuation


HARDWARE & INTERFACES: 
Threads

EDGE ML  ·  HARDWARE  ·  TEXTILES
Sentient Surfaces + Edge ML on Textiles. Human-AI Symbiosis through Ubiquitous Computing.
S(kin)-orb
HAPTICS · BIOSENSING · AFFECTIVE COMP.  A bio-digital interface translating electromyographic (EMG) signals into haptic feedback for remote affective communication.
Vermiform

COMPONENT · SOFT ROBOTICS · WEARABLE
Bio-mimetic architectures for wearable computing. 

Chito-bot
BIOCOMPOSITES · TRANSIENT ELECTRONICS 
Investigating material compliance and structural integrity in bio-composite hexapods.



STRATEGIC SYSTEMS: 
PFV

MOBILITY  ·  ECOLOGY  ·  SYSTEMS

Autonomous Mobility as Urban Bio-Infrastructure.
Aero
SENSING · MATERIALS · DATA  
Developing robotic material systems for localized air-quality sensing and pollutant sequestration through embedded environmental intelligence.
Bio - intelligence
COPMUTATION · SYSTEMS ·  BIOLOGY 
Exploring biological computation as an alternative model for system intelligence and control.


Archive 

© 2019-2026 Manini Banerjee

The Biopod Collective

bi·o·pod

Restoring wetlands, enhancing biodiversity, and purifying water
without synthetic organisms, electricity, or chemicals



PROBLEM
Urban landscapes are biologically degraded and chemically polluted, while remediation approaches rely on energy-intensive or extractive technologies.

RESPONSE
BIOPOD is a modular floating wetland system using native plants, fungi, and biological material composites to remediate water while supporting biodiversity passively.










WHY
The BIOPOD system operates without electricity, chemicals, or synthetic organisms, making ecological restoration accessible, scalable, and community-maintainable.

LINKS

SUPPORT

• Supported by RISD’s  Inaugural Somerson Sustainability Innovation Fund (SSIF) grant

• Winners of the 2024 Terra Carta Design Lab Global Competition - awarded £100,000 by His Majesty King Charles III and Sir Jony Ive through the Sustainable Markets Initiative



















IMPACT  

•  AIA | ACSA Material Economies Conference 2023
•  Stormwater Innovation Exposition 2023 @ The Roger Williams Park
•  Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), through the project showcase at the Biodesign Challenge Summit 2023

Dezeen Magazine Feature
2024 Terra Carta Design Lab Winners
RISD TCDL competition winner 
The Brown Daily Herald Feature
RISD Media Feature


ROLE

Co-Founder, Bio-fabrication, Concept design, Grant Writing, Business Development, Microscopy, and Plant Biology

- Led systems design and ecological research translation
- Designed modular architecture and material systems
- Prototyped and fabricated deployable units  
- Conducted field testing and environmental observation
- Authored grant proposals and supported fundraising
- Coordinated community workshops and public deployment















TEAM

Avantika Velho (Co-founder) • Manini Banerjee (Co-Founder) •
Katia Zolotovsky • Skylar Perez • Malvika Agarwal  

6 BIOPOD modules were deployed in the Providence River for two months. 
They engaged 10,000+ people through WaterFire, a community event in Providence, and enabled community-led fabrication and maintenance.
 BIOPOD as a Living Infrastructure System.

BIOPOD is a decentralized ecological infrastructure that integrates biological remediation, community stewardship, and regenerative economic models to restore urban waterways without centralized energy or chemical inputs.  



Ecological Intelligence

BIOPOD is designed to enable ecological self-organization.
These ecosystem modules are designed to:
  1. Remediate water quality 
  2. Reintroduce vital fringe marshes into urban environments, and 
  3. Engage the public in citizen science. 

Each Biopod is designed to host biodiversity and to provide ecosystem services for
human and more-than-human societies and systems.


Integrating regenerative, nature-based solutions in urban landscapes is crucial for mitigating the impact of historical pollution and promoting sustainable coexistence.

Bioremediation within each Wetland Biopod involves two main processes: 
  1. Phyto-remediation (root systems purify water through fungi, bacteria, and other microorganisms)  
  2. Mycoremediation (mycelial fibres detoxify, harbouring enzymes that digest harmful compounds)

It's crucial to understand that the pods are living machines - not a single intelligent machine but rather an assemblage of minds; all relating and inter-relating and adapting to one another in complex and ever-shifting ways. They consist of various species working together and exhibit life processes such as growth, reproduction, and, most importantly, metabolism. 


During this metabolic process, some organisms secrete digestive enzymes that break down complex chains of toxins. This enzymatic degradation is essential for environmental detoxification, as it breaks down complex chains of toxins into smaller, more digestible fragments.

The diversity of organisms within the pods enables them to address a broad spectrum of waterborne toxins and pollutants. Some of these organisms accumulate, and others digest. For more complex chains, the system works together so that accumulation enables long-term digestion. This adaptability and resilience make the Biopods effective living machines for improving water quality and ecosystem remediation.

Each Wetland Biopod module consists of a buoyant mat embedded with biogenic matter.

The deployment of modular permaculture-style ecosystems is beginning to restore the environment in a more meaningful way than traditional monocultural reforestation efforts, as it mirrors the biological complexities found in nature.

The Biopods start as individual aggregated wetlands that come together to form larger tessellated pods. Over time, the porous mycelium boat fosters root interconnections. The mycelium boat decomposes at the rate at which the roots interconnect, allowing for the re-fringing of once-present wetlands.


The Biopod system is designed for flexibility and allows for localized fabrication and installation at various sites, including Urban, Suburban, Rural, and Polluted wetlands. 

The material lifecycle mirrors the ecological lifecycle it supports.

Light, SEM, and Compound Microscopy highlights from in and around the Biopods. We found a lot of promise in these initial tests, which is why we are excited to deploy the pods in additional water bodies and bring more people closer to this technology so they can take charge of their water health and ecosystem resilience.

A Filamentous & Decentralized Business Model
BIOPOD treats governance as an ecological process: distributed, adaptive, and sustained through many interconnected actors.


Initial fabrication was intentionally public and participatory. Community workshops were used to grow and source biogenic materials, embedding local knowledge and stewardship directly into the system from the outset. Deployment followed the same logic: BIOPODs were launched into the Providence River in collaboration with WaterFire Providence® during the 2023 Clear Currents WaterFire Festival, a community paddling event celebrating improved water quality that engaged over 10,000 participants. Kayakers assisted in deployment, while a living BIOPOD installation and information booth invited public feedback and observation.

Rather than treating outreach as an endpoint, BIOPOD uses circulation as a governance mechanism. The system has since moved through multiple contexts: industry, research, design, and public education, each setting contributing new constraints, critiques, and adaptations. These included professional review at the Stormwater Innovation Expo, peer dissemination through ACSA|AIA, climate-tech validation during New York Climate Week, and continued knowledge transfer through educational forums such as the Cambridge Science Carnival, the Wyss Institute for Biological Engineering, and Better World by Design.

In this way, BIOPOD operates less like a static product and more like a living infrastructure protocol: modular, repairable, and sustained through community participation. Stewardship, feedback, and replication are distributed across people, places, and institutions, mirroring the filamentous ecological systems upon which the project itself is built.





What’s Coming Next: Biopod Hotspots

Biopod Hotspots are locally anchored nodes where fabrication, ecological cultivation, deployment, and learning occur in parallel. Each hotspot operates independently while contributing to a shared body of knowledge, methods, and environmental outcomes.

This approach allows BIOPOD to remain open and robust, capable of adapting to local ecological, cultural, and regulatory conditions without relying on centralized manufacturing or ownership.Design Principles for Growth

Modular ≠ Franchised
BIOPOD modules are designed to be locally fabricated and repaired, not licensed or standardized into fixed templates. Each deployment evolves in response to its environment rather than enforcing uniform replication.

Replication ≠ Mass Production
Growth occurs through knowledge transfer and process replication, not through centralized mass production. Designs, methodologies, and ecological insights propagate, while material execution remains site-specific.

Growth Through Ecosystems
Value is created through local stewardship, education, and ecological performance, rather than through extractive scaling or proprietary control. Communities are collaborators and caretakers, not end users.