Anya Freeman — founder and CEO of South Florida-based KindDesigns, the company behind 3D printed coastal infrastructure system Living Seawalls — isn’t a marine scientist. She’s not a structural engineer. She’s an attorney by trade, though she quit her practice to launch her business. But, Freeman said, her lack of a technical background was ultimately what allowed her to innovate in an industry that hadn’t seen much change in over 100 years. “I wasn’t limited by any previous education. I didn’t know what the rules were,” she says.
Freeman’s outsider’s perspective allowed her to see things differently, to operate beyond the established system in a world of pure problem solving. The problem she sought to address: the devastating effects on marine life of seawalls, which have become increasingly necessary as seas rise and catastrophic storms continue to batter the coastline. According to a 2019 report from the Center for Climate Integrity, Florida will need 9,243 miles of seawalls by 2040 in order to combat chronic flooding caused by rising sea levels. This spells major trouble for living marine ecosystems built around mangrove roots. Though seawalls help protect private property and shield human-built infrastructure, they’re harmful to marine ecosystems. Marine organisms struggle to adhere to their concrete surfaces, and they wind up creating a barren, sterile marine environment wherever they go in.
The first concrete seawalls were installed in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. For more than 100 years, seawalls looked more or less the same. They were made in the same style, with the same materials, and ultimately generated the same disastrous results for marine ecosystems. Freeman suspected there must be a better way — a strong, durable seawall system that was also kind to the marine environment. When she couldn’t find an existing solution, she set out to create her own. She brought together experts in engineering, design, materials and 3D printing, assembling her dream team to create something that had never been created before. “I considered the who before the how,” she says. That’s how she was able to produce something in a space where she didn’t have previous experience at the time.
Most good ideas seem obvious in hindsight, and this one, in particular, seems so dramatically obvious — such a perfect solution to the seawall problem — that it’s a wonder no one had considered making it before. The design behind the company’s flagship product, Living Seawalls, uses biomimicry to copy existing marine habitats. In coastline Florida, that means mangrove roots, which shelter fish, crustaceans and mollusks, among other organisms. The Living Seawalls from KindDesigns are structurally identical to precast concrete seawall systems, made from nontoxic concrete and produced by a 3D printer, but shaped to fit nature. “We’re building habitats instead of destroying them,” Freeman says.
But do they work? The answer, said Freeman, is a resounding yes. KindDesigns has partnered with researchers at Florida International University who dive to visit Living Seawall projects each month. The divers report promising results: pioneer algae completely covering one wall just 30 days after installation; grazing algae on another wall, feeding manatees; the appearance of tube worms, which provide food and shelter to other marine organisms; and the very first Living Seawall now covered in more than 1,000 oysters, all attached naturally, each of them filtering up to 50 gallons of seawater a day. “They have far, far exceeded our wildest dreams,” Freeman says.
Of course, not everyone with an innovative idea makes the leap to becoming an innovator. And fewer still see their idea to completion, including a successful company and finalist for the Edison Awards. What sets Freeman apart?
“I’ve always had this mentality,” she says. “I’d rather go for something big than play it safe. This was going to be my path since I set foot in America.” Freeman emigrated from Ukraine to Israel and ultimately to the United States. “My family still in Ukraine and Israel has not had the opportunity to build. They’re focused on getting food on the table and getting through the day without being killed. To be in America and to have this freedom and opportunity in peace and safety — for me not to aim for something massive would be an incredible injustice.”
