Hyphae is a consulting firm and incubation laboratory. We collaborate with communities, government, designers, and researchers to understand complex challenges and develop innovative, strategic solutions. We are always making new connections and embracing new challenges. Our vision is never limited by our immediate focus.
Our collaborations take many forms. We are often hired as a consultant, but we also initiate work internally. We invent novel technologies, we build long term partnerships to tackle complex challenges, we build joint ventures, and spin out initiatives. Our approach allows us to both make immediate change in the world and define the future of change. Our work is funded by private corporations, individuals, government agencies, and philanthropy. When needed, we work with our clients and partners to creatively find funding when needed.
Hyphae consults on projects across a wide range of scales and fields: architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, landscape design, healthcare, industrial processes, etc.
From residential, commercial, institutional, hospitality, and municipal/public space design, we design systems on both urban and rural scales, and manage the design phase of construction projects ranging from $25,000 to $50 million. Our clients include local and national architects, landscape architects, and engineers. Sometimes we initiate and lead the design and sometimes we fill specific consultant roles. On a site level, we design building systems, building integrated landscapes, functional site landscapes, and building architecture. On a larger scale, we design neighborhood and city systems from water and nutrient systems to neighborhood scale green infrastructure.
We also consult for industries for whom we design and innovate efficient, environmentally healthy production processes. And we work with public health and healthcare providers to design processes and products that facilitate proactive, holistic environmental healthcare.
Hyphae Design Laboratory is working with a national team led by Gresham Smith to develop a master plan for Broadway, one of Louisville’s most important east-west connectors and a c ...
Creating the 2.2 acre living roof on the California Academy of Sciences, situated in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, was a major collaborative effort. Acting on behalf of Montere ...
Hyphae is also working as the civil engineer and landscape architect for the development of Esalen's 70 unit worker housing complex. With half of worker housing being destroyed by ...
Hyphae Design Laboratory is working with the University of Louisville’s Envirome Institute, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), National Institute of Health (NIH), Washington University, ...
Louisville Metro Government’s Office of Sustainability and its partners embarked on an exciting project called Green for Good: to strategically unite interrelated sustainability ef ...
Hyphae Design Lab is the lead architect and landscape architect in designing a site plan for OMSS. Under the approved Master Plan for redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base ...
Hyphae Design Laboratory in collaboration with Habitat Horticulture are designing a 5000 s.f. living wall for the new SFMOMA expansion, designed by Snohetta. The living walls will ...
For a new residence on a very steep site on top of bedrock without infiltration, we were caught between a rock and a hard place, literally! With this difficult situation, we were a ...
The Harmony project is a renovation and adaptive re-use of a historic building in downtown Louisville into a living laboratory; the intent is to create a vibrant urban ecosystem wh ...
Two Bunch Palms is a historic hot springs in Southern California. Hyphae was hired to develop a Masterplan to renovate and significantly expand the aging resort and infrastructure...
Hyphae invents novel materials, processes, and technologies that improve human health and the health of earth’s systems.
We invent novel technologies to real-world problems by scaling up cutting-edge scientific research and scaling down global earth systems to city, neighborhood, block and building-scale interventions. These technologies include a range from software programs to hardware products and material science innovations. We also develop tools to better measure, model, and value the effects of these ecological, health-centric, multiple-benefit products.
We integrate research into all of our projects. What form this takes in a given project ranges significantly from research-informed design to formal research studies. This research approach often leads to the unexpected development of new technologies that branch off into new incubation projects.
Block by Block, San Francisco’s third Living Innovation Zone was a temporary kinetic installation composed of blocks of milled urban timber and illuminated plastic. The elemental f ...
Hyphae was asked by GOOD Magazine and the Port of San Francisco to envision a new life for Pier 27 + 29, an awkward shaped triangular pier that juts out beyond all other piers. The ...
We all poop and pee every day and therefore, our discarded excrement is also our great social equalizer. Now, in a time when San Francisco is so economically divided and the world ...
Founding principal of Hyphae, Brent Bucknum, also started a West Oakland based non-profit called Urban Biofilter (UB), which works to advocate, research, and design for a variety...
Hyphae develops unconventional partnerships in response to core environmental justice, public health, and urban infrastructure challenges.
Hyphae partners with community organizations, academics, local governments, public health departments, and healthcare professionals. While these partnerships sometimes form in response to a specific project, they also form in response to a challenge that is not being effectively addressed with conventional solutions. We then come together to collaboratively strategize, find funding, and build an effective process towards finding solutions. These partnerships often become long-term collaborations that continue to evolve with time and new opportunities.
Hyphae Design Laboratory is working with the University of Louisville’s Envirome Institute, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), National Institute of Health (NIH), Washington University, ...
Louisville Metro Government’s Office of Sustainability and its partners embarked on an exciting project called Green for Good: to strategically unite interrelated sustainability ef ...
Founding principal of Hyphae, Brent Bucknum, also started a West Oakland based non-profit called Urban Biofilter (UB), which works to advocate, research, and design for a variety...
