hyphae design laboratory

What hyphae design laboratory does

Hyphae Design Laboratory is a privately held, mission-driven engineering and design firm founded in 2008 in West Oakland, California. The firm operates as both a multidisciplinary consulting practice and an incubation laboratory, employing approximately 11 people across three U.S. offices (Oakland, CA; Louisville, KY; Philadelphia, PA). Its consulting work spans architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, mechanical/industrial process design, and ecological engineering, delivered as project-based professional services with construction-phase values ranging from $25,000 to $50 million per engagement. Notable flagship projects include the 2.2-acre living roof at the California Academy of Sciences (2009), the 5,000-square-foot SFMOMA living wall with a 100% non-potable condensate irrigation system (2016), a 300,000-gallons-per-day greywater reuse and heat-recovery system at Two Bunch Palms resort (2018), the Broadway Master Plan in Louisville (2020), and the multi-year Green Heart clinical trial planting thousands of trees in South Louisville with the University of Louisville's Envirome Institute, NIH, the Nature Conservancy, and Washington University.

The firm's incubation arm has produced a portfolio of mission-aligned products and spin-outs, including the PPlanter ecological public-sanitation prototype (versions 1.0, 2.0, 3.0), the Pprophet public-restroom art installation for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Pooplet composting parklet, the Block By Block Living Innovation Zone, and a long-running joint venture called Urban Biofilter with the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP). Its newest offering, the Ecosystem Health Design Tool, is a beta-stage digital platform funded by an NSF Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant that combines LIDAR-based environmental sensing with computer-vision semantic segmentation on streetscape imagery to quantify how urban ecosystems support human health.

Hyphae generates revenue through professional services fees paid by a mix of government agencies (Louisville Metro Government, City of Berkeley, City of San Francisco), nonprofit and cultural institutions (SFMOMA, California Academy of Sciences, Esalen Institute, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts), universities and research institutes (University of Louisville, UC Berkeley, UCSD, Washington University), private enterprises (Two Bunch Palms, Belcampo, NRG, OMSS), community organizations (WOEIP, NOMTL-CBD, ARLA), and individual high-end residential clients. Pricing is project-based and not publicly disclosed, with engagements initiated via direct contact, referral, or Calendly booking. Non-dilutive grant capital (NSF SBIR) supplements fee revenue and funds incubation-stage technology development. No venture capital or private equity investors are disclosed, and no revenue figure has been publicly reported.

Name

hyphae design laboratory

Legal name

Hyphae Design Laboratory

Website

https://hyphae.net

Company type

Private

Founded year

2008

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Hyphae Design Laboratory is a privately held, mission-driven engineering firm and incubation laboratory founded in 2008 in Oakland, California, delivering multidisciplinary ecological design and consulting services — including living roofs, living walls, greywater reuse, master planning, and public sanitation — to governments, cultural institutions, universities, and community organizations across the U.S.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Ecological Engineering and Landscape Architecture Consulting

NAICS

Landscape Architectural Services (54132), Environmental Consulting Services (541620)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Industrial Instruments For Measurement, Display, And Control (3823)

akta.pro primary industry

Landscape Architecture & Site Design (BPAHAKAC)

akta.pro secondary industry

Environmental Monitoring & Cleanroom Testing (GMP) (HLAGADAL)

Keywords

• Ecological engineering services
• Landscape architecture consulting
• Green infrastructure design
• Urban planning consulting
• Environmental justice consulting

Headquarters

HQ city

Oakland

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Consulting & Design Services: Project-based professional services across architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, landscape design, healthcare, and industrial processes; project phase values range from $25,000 to $50 million in construction. Acts as consultant, lead designer, or fills specific consultant roles. Funded by private corporations, individuals, government agencies, and philanthropy.
2. Incubation & Technology Development: Internal R&D funded initiatives that develop novel materials, processes, software, hardware products, and material science innovations (e.g., PPlanter, PProphet, Pooplet, Ecosystem Health Design Tool); sometimes spun out as standalone initiatives or joint ventures.
3. Pro-bono & internally funded work: Urban sanitation strategy work has been funded internally by Hyphae and its employees working pro-bono for nearly 20 years; functions as quasi-R&D and community impact investment that builds reputation and pipelines consulting engagements.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels8 records

Core offering

Hyphae Design Laboratory is a multidisciplinary consulting firm and incubation laboratory that delivers ecological engineering, landscape architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, and industrial-process design services across residential, commercial, institutional, hospitality, and public-sector projects (project phase values from $25,000 to $50 million). Through its incubation arm, the firm also invents and spins out novel sanitation hardware (PPlanter, Pooplet, Pprophet), placemaking installations (Block By Block), research initiatives (Urban Biofilter, Green Heart, Green for Good), and an NSF SBIR-funded digital platform — the Ecosystem Health Design Tool — that uses LIDAR and computer vision to quantify how urban ecosystems support human health.

Product overview

Hyphae Design Laboratory is a mission-driven engineering firm that operates as a consulting firm plus an incubation laboratory, structured around three intertwined offerings. The Consulting arm delivers architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, urban planning, and industrial-process design across residential, commercial, institutional, hospitality, and municipal/public space projects ($25K–$50M), including landmark works such as the California Academy of Sciences Living Roof, the SFMOMA Living Wall, the Two Bunch Palms greywater reuse system, the San Francisco Residence's "blue roof," the Oakland Gateway (OMSS) site plan, and the Broadway Master Plan. The Incubation Laboratory invents novel materials, processes, and technologies that spawn spin-outs — including the PPlanter (versions 1.0/2.0/3.0), the Pooplet, and the Pprophet sanitation art installation — and feeds long-term Hyphae Initiatives such as Block By Block, Urban Biofilter (a non-profit joint venture with WOEIP), Green for Good, Green Heart, the Tenderloin Toilet Masterplan, and the Berkeley WASH Assessment. The newest platform is the Ecosystem Health Design Tool (in beta), built with NSF SBIR funding, which uses LIDAR backpack sensing and computer vision/semantic segmentation on streetscape imagery to quantify how urban ecosystems support human health — the connective digital product that the firm's consulting and incubation work ultimately powers.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Urban Biofilter: West Oakland based non-profit (and joint venture with WOEIP) that works to advocate, research, and design for environmental improvements. Founded by Hyphae Founding Principal Brent Bucknum.
• Pprophet
• PPlanter
• Green Heart
• Green for Good

Products and services

• Hyphae Consulting Services Multidisciplinary engineering, architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering, and urban planning consulting across residential, commercial, institutional, hospitality, and municipal/public-space projects. Project scales range from $25,000 to $50 million in construction phase value, spanning site-level building systems up to neighborhood and city-scale green infrastructure.
• Hyphae Incubation Laboratory Internal R&D arm that invents novel materials, processes, and technologies by scaling up scientific research and scaling down global earth systems to city/neighborhood/block/building-scale interventions. Produces software, hardware, and material-science innovations that feed spin-out initiatives.
• Ecosystem Health Design Tool (Beta) Beta-stage digital platform that provides detailed, localized environmental metrics quantifying how urban ecosystems support human health and surrounding infrastructure. Built with National Science Foundation SBIR funding; uses LIDAR backpack equipment and computer vision/semantic segmentation on streetscape imagery (RGB photographs) to empower environmental justice communities, healthcare providers, researchers, urban planners, and public-health agencies.
• PPlanter Ecological public toilet/urinal/sink/planter that fits in a single parking space (parklet-scale). Designed for both men and women, the system uses a sink supplied with hand-washing water and channels human waste to be reused as nutrients for plants rather than flushed into the sewer system. Available in Versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.
• Pprophet Functional public restroom art installation that translates how society thinks about waste by reinventing it as nutrients. Originally developed for Bay Area Now 8 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; built outside the museum and available to all citizens as an operational public restroom.
• Pooplet Contained, mobile composting toilet design developed as Hyphae's reimagining of the parklet — a public-service parklet rather than a commercially oriented one. The project was the impetus for San Francisco's "Pit Stop" program.
• Block By Block San Francisco's third Living Innovation Zone — a temporary kinetic installation composed of blocks of milled urban timber and illuminated plastic. Designed as a truly public space (in contrast to the privatized Parklet model), it was the first opportunity for public seating along Market Street since the City removed all benches in the 1990s, and it served as the hub for Light Up Central Market.
• Urban Biofilter West Oakland-based non-profit (joint venture with WOEIP) that advocates, researches, and designs vegetation-based pollution-mitigation strategies. Founded by Hyphae's Founding Principal Brent Bucknum alongside WOEIP community leaders Margaret Gordon and Brian Beveridge.
• Green Heart Multi-year, controlled community-based clinical trial testing whether dramatically increasing vegetation (planting thousands of trees, grasses, vines, shrubs) in South Louisville neighborhoods positively impacts cardiovascular health of approximately 700 participants over a five-year study. Hyphae contributed the planting design alongside the University of Louisville's Envirome Institute, The Nature Conservancy, NIH, and Washington University.
• Green for Good Pilot research project in partnership with Louisville Metro Government's Office of Sustainability, Institute for Healthy Air Water and Soil, University of Louisville, and Washington University in St. Louis. A vegetated biofilter was installed at St. Margaret Mary School to reduce student and staff exposure to traffic-related air pollutants; air and biomonitoring showed particulate pollution 60% lower immediately behind the biofilter and higher circulating angiogenic cell levels among 60 students and 24 adult participants after planting.
• Tenderloin Toilet Masterplan Neighborhood-scale sanitation masterplan for San Francisco's Tenderloin, produced in collaboration with the North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District. Maps the strategic placement of public restroom units such as the PPlanter within parking spaces to provide neighborhood-wide public sanitation coverage.
• Berkeley WASH Assessment Citywide public sanitation masterplan contracted by the City of Berkeley in 2019; an integrated multi-prong strategy for managing and maintaining sanitation services, modeled on the Tenderloin Toilet Masterplan approach.

Quantifiable outcome

• 60% reduction in particulate pollution immediately behind the biofilter (Green for Good, Louisville)
• +7 more outcomes

Named customers29 records

Segments8 records

Ideal customer profiles7 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

18 partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerLong-term (over a decade) joint venture called Urban Biofilter with community leaders Ms. Margaret Gordon and Brian Beveridge, who co-founded WOEIP in 2000. WOEIP provides leadership, community organizing, policy development, and advocacy; Hyphae contributes design, engineering, research, and innovation. The partnership has shaped much of Hyphae's mission and work.
• University of Louisville's Envirome InstituteflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-investigator on the multi-year Green Heart clinical trial assessing whether dramatically increasing vegetation in South Louisville improves cardiovascular health for 700 participants. Combines academic research with Hyphae's planting design and ecological engineering.
• The Nature Conservancy (TNC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner on the Green Heart Project — providing conservation expertise and supporting the planting of thousands of trees in South Louisville neighborhoods.
• Washington University in St. LouiscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerResearch partner on the Green Heart Project and the earlier Green for Good initiative — contributing health-monitoring and clinical research capacity.
• Louisville Metro Government's Office of SustainabilitycoreImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerPublic-sector partner on the Green for Good initiative at St. Margaret Mary School in Louisville — contracted Hyphae to install a vegetated buffer (biofilter) to reduce student exposure to traffic air pollution.
• Institute for Healthy Air, Water and SoilcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-partner on Green for Good with Hyphae and Louisville Metro Government, contributing environmental-condition and human-health risk assessment expertise.
• Gresham SmithcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNational architecture firm leading the Broadway Master Plan team in Louisville, KY; Hyphae leads the environmental-health framework, ecological-services integration, and multimodal complete-street design within the team.
• Habitat HorticulturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-design partner on the SFMOMA living wall (5,000 s.f., 30' x 100') within the museum expansion designed by Snohetta. Habitat Horticulture brings living-wall horticultural expertise while Hyphae designs the irrigation and control system.
• SnøhettacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerArchitect of record for the SFMOMA expansion; engaged Hyphae + Habitat Horticulture as living-wall sub-consultants for the museum's ecological design features.
• Rana Creek Living ArchitecturecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerLiving roof design firm that engaged Hyphae's founding principal Brent Bucknum to design the 2.2-acre living roof for the California Academy of Sciences; project team also included Renzo Piano, SWA, and ARUP.
• The North of Market/Tenderloin Community Benefit District (NOMTL-CBD)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCommunity partner on the PPlanter campaign to improve public-bathroom access in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood; co-developed the PPlanter v1.0 through community testing.
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerInvited Hyphae to create the PProphet installation for Bay Area Now 8, YBCA's eighth triennial of Bay Area contemporary art; PProphet was a functional public restroom placed outside the museum and available to all citizens.
• Accelerate Resistance LA (ARLA)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCommunity partner on the Depave LA study analyzing pavement use and environmental risks (heat, flooding, tree canopy) across Los Angeles County.
• Art Garden DesignminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-design partner with Hyphae on the Prescott Greening project in West Oakland; jointly designed and will oversee planting of 10- to 12-foot-tall dense tree barriers along Frontage Road near I-880 that will eventually grow to 40 feet.
• Port of San FranciscominorGTM or Marketing PartnerJointly hosted the Pier 27 Challenge with GOOD Magazine challenging Hyphae to envision a hyper-sustainable Pier 27 + 29 (completed 2011).
• Renzo Piano Building WorkshopminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerArchitect of record for California Academy of Sciences; project team member alongside SWA, ARUP, and Rana Creek on the 2.2-acre living roof.
• SWA GroupminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerLandscape architect of record on the California Academy of Sciences living roof project team (completed 2009).
• ARUPminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerMEP engineering partner on the California Academy of Sciences living roof project team (completed 2009).

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Rana Creek Living Architecture: Monterey-based living architecture and ecological design firm. Directly comparable — Hyphae designed the California Academy of Sciences living roof on behalf of Rana Creek, and both firms share the living-roof / ecological-engineering niche.
• SCAPE Landscape Architecture: NYC-based landscape architecture and urban ecology practice. Comparable mission-driven, ecologically focused multidisciplinary firm working on waterfront, urban resilience, and public-space projects at similar scale to Hyphae's flagship commissions.
• James Corner Field Operations: High-design landscape architecture and urban design firm known for ecological urbanism (e.g., High Line). Comparable in that it integrates ecology, data-driven design, and large-scale public-realm commissions like Hyphae.
• OLIN: Philadelphia-based landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm. Comparable multidisciplinary practice working at the intersection of ecology, public space, and urban infrastructure.
• SWA Group: National landscape architecture, urban design, and planning firm. Collaborated with Hyphae on the California Academy of Sciences living roof and shares overlapping large-scale ecological master-planning expertise.
• Andropogon Associates: Philadelphia-based ecological landscape architecture firm. Comparable in mission-driven ecological design emphasis, with similar scale and multidisciplinary systems-thinking approach to Hyphae.
• Habitat Horticulture: Living wall and biophilic design specialist. Co-developed the SFMOMA living wall with Hyphae and operates in the same signature-living-infrastructure niche.
• Sasaki: Integrated planning, landscape architecture, and urban design practice. Comparable in combining ecology, planning, and large-scale master-planning with multidisciplinary collaboration similar to Hyphae.

Broad incumbents

• Snøhetta: Global architecture and landscape architecture firm. Comparable on flagship commissions (Snøhetta was architect of record for the SFMOMA expansion that engaged Hyphae), but broader portfolio and substantially larger scale.
• AECOM: Global infrastructure and environmental services firm with a large landscape architecture and urban design practice. Comparable on the green-infrastructure / environmental-engineering side of municipal projects, but at vastly greater scale.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xtwitter.com/HyphaeDesign
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@HyphaeDesignLaboratory
• Facebookfacebook.com/Hyphae-Design-Laboratory-188832974557023
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/hyphae-design-laboratory
• Instagraminstagram.com/hyphaedesignlab

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles11 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors1 record

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about hyphae design laboratory