The Vision
We started Leaf Island around a simple concept: If you replicate the leafy surface area of the pre-existing landscape along flat roofs, walls, streets and other surfaces of a city, you can reproduce the same climate conditions that existed prior to that city’s construction. Better still, you can do this without massive retrofits or removal of the built environment
Leaf Island is focused on the design and fabrication of biophysics-driven, scalable green infrastructure products that replicate resilient processes found in Nature.
Nature develops self-organizing assemblies. Leaf Island’s technologies collectively work in the same way, transforming the lifeless surfaces of the built environment. Cities already furnish us with an immense, near-empty palette of multiple man-made surfaces which we here take as an invitation to ‘build with nature’ upon multiple man-made surfaces. Our methods and technology allow environmental benefits of increased vegetation, regenerated wetlands, porous landscapes, and constructed aquifers to be scaled to the problems and flows of the city. Resulting environmental benefits are comparable to, and may even exceed those found in more natural settings.
Layering the built environment with natural systems opens pathways to increased energy efficiencies, restored natural coastlines and enhanced biodiversity of landscapes and waterways, powering the new green/blue wastes-into-resources economy in the process.
The Story of GaiaSoil™
Meet the Founding Team
Igor Bronz
Co-Founder, Head of Design
Igor Bronz develops the design and technical specifications of Leaf Island’s ecologically-regenerative green technologies. His thesis involves the development of mathematical models for calculating the stormwater uptake efficiency of green infrastructure projects. Igor earned his MS in Applied Geosciences with a focus on Geotechnical Engineering and Hydrogeology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Paul S. Mankiewicz
Co-Founder, Chief Scientist
Chief scientist and designer for our green technologies, Paul is a developmental plant biologist/ecologist, professor, green infrastructure pioneer, founder of The Gaia Institute. Dr. Mankiewicz has designed and built some of the first green roofs and swales in NYC, and has been instrumental in developing the framework for what constitutes effective green infrastructure throughout his academic discipline, professional career and from a policy perspective.
Joshua Harrison
Co-Founder, Strategic Partnerships
Overseeing Leaf Island strategy and scale as stakeholder facilitator, Joshua is a filmmaker, educator and co-director of the Center for the Force Majeure. Joshua Harrison’s work centers around bringing together artists, scientists, engineers, planners and visionaries to design regenerative systems and policies that address issues raised by global temperature rise at the scale that they present. The Center has active projects in the US, Sweden, Scotland and South Korea. In particular, Josh leads the Living Forest Project, a multidisciplinary group working with the US Forest Service, the State of California, local communities, business and policy leaders to build a systems approach to the fire and water crises in California. Living Forests is working to build the planning infrastructure for a wood-based circular economy in the dryland forest regions of the western United States.
Michael Fishman
Co-Founder, Client & Development Advisor
Urbanist and head of Leaf Island development, Michael is a strategic planning professional with 25 years of experience representing owners and operators of critical infrastructure. Fluent in community and stakeholder participation, he has managed interdisciplinary teams through design & construction of major capital programs from serving the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery to executing a Pedestrian Engineering Fellowship that resulted in the closure of Broadway to traffic in Times Square. Currently Professor of urban planning at NYU Schack Real Estate Institute, Michael earned his master’s degree in architecture from Tulane University in New Orleans.