PhD candidate Ofer Asaf, Associate Professor Aaron Sprecher and their research team have been granted the “Winner of the Year in Universal Design” award from the jury of the highly competitive Design Educates Awards international competition. The jury included some of the most celebrated architects and designers of our times, including Toyo Ito, Achim Menges, and Benedetta Tagliabue. The awarded project entitled TREE SEEK stems from the learning of ancient agricultural practices in the Negev desert to create plant-supporting microclimates in harsh environment. This age-old wisdom is reenacted using advanced computational and fabrication technologies to optimize the growth of trees. TREE SEEK is an ongoing doctoral research project conducted at the Material Topology Research Lab at the Technion and Tree Lab at Weizmann Institute of Science. https://gallery.designeducates.com/projects/2678