What if you could send a text message to the fishes and find out first-hand how they’re doing? U R SO FINNY, LOL! Sound crazy? Of course, this is just crazy enough to be true.

The Amphibious Architecture project aims to remind us that the water is more than just a pretty reflective surface, it is a habitat that is a “teeming body that’s alive with organisms whose health affects our health while our activities affect their health.

From September 17 through November 7th, two sites along the East and the Bronx Rivers in New York will be installed with a network of floating interactive buoys with sensors below water and light emitting diodes (LEDs) above the water. The sensors monitor water quality and the presence of aquatic life. THe LEDs repond to the sensors, giving above-surface humans a visual cue as to what’s going on below.

Now, the texting part: an SMS interface allows “homo-citizens” to text-message the fish and receive real-time information about the river, and hopefully, spark a larger public interest and dialogue about local waterways. (You’ll get a message back that looks something like, Underwater it is now quiet. The last fish swam by 17 minutes ago. D O level is 7.6 mg/L which is mg/L average.

The project was commissioned for the Architectural League of New York’s exhibition Toward the Sentient City and was developed by xClinic Environmental Health Clinic at New York University and the Living Architecture Lab at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.