Shneel Malik – interview:
‘I’m a crazy optimist. I know that the right opportunity comes at the right time’
Architect and bio-designer Shneel Malik discusses bio-algae, eco-aesthetics, artisans pioneering ecological waste-water treatment, and the next steps for her award-winning Indus project
“Water pollution is one of the largest contributors to climate change and the largest environmental cause of death in the world,” so begins the Youtube clip introducing the architect turned bio-designer Shneel Malik’s Indus project, which has been awarded the 2021 Arts Foundation Prize for Materials Innovation. This elegant design proposes applying handmade, locally produced ceramic tiles to the exterior wall of a building, their carefully contoured grooves filled with bio-algae that clean waste water as it passes over their surface from a top-mounted dispenser, to be recirculated into the factory from the trough at its base.