www.rachelarmstrong.me | TEDUniversity 2009 talk: Living Buildings
Dr. RACHEL
All buildings today share something in common.
They are made using building techniques that date from Victorian times.
This results in a one way transfer of energy from the environment into our homes and cities through industrial processes and results in the production of inert objects from blueprints.
I believe that the only way to produce genuinely sustainable architecture is for our buildings to be connected to nature, not separated from it.
In order to do this we need to find the right kind of language.
Living systems are in constant dialogue with nature through sets of chemical reactions called metabolism, where one group of substances is transformed into another, by using or producing energy.
This is how living systems can sustainably make the most of local resources.
I am interested in developing Metabolic Materials for use in the built environment but these do not yet exist in architectural practice. So Im working with architect Neil Spiller at the Bartlett School of Architecture and collaborating with international scientists where we are taking a bottom up approach to these new materials.
In other words, we are building them from scratch.
We are working with chemist Martin Hanczyc from Denmark, who is interested in the transition from inert to living matter.
This is exactly the kind of change we are looking for when thinking about the built environment.
Martin uses a model system called a protocell, which is a little fatty bag, charged only with a chemical battery and no DNA. Yet the protocell conducts itself in a way that can only be described as living. Protocells can move around and sense their environment. They can also undergo complex physical behaviours, some of which have architectural properties. Such as, modification of the immediate environment, shedding a skin and the production of solids.
We are now working to develop the technology towards producing bottom up construction methods for architectural practice.
Some natural materials such as limestone, which is generated by the bottom up assembly fossilized shells of marine creatures, have been in use as building materials since ancient times.
So now imagine the material possibilities if the basic chemistry of limestone was speeded up using metabolic materials approach and was able to grow by producing its own artificial shells, like those we have found in the protocell system, on the surface of the rock. This material would now be able to grow and repair itself.
On a larger scale this kind of material would possess ecological potential such as the restoration of atolls and even to sustainably reclaim areas that are under stress from changing water levels.
An example of this is the historic city of Venice, which has a tempestuous relationship with the sea and its foundations are built upon wooden piles. We have suggested a new approach to reclaiming this city using the protocell technology.
These drawings demonstrate how we think it may be possible, through a series of incremental technological developments, to grow an artificial reef beneath this city.
We are currently engineering the protocells so that they can reliably produce a rock like substance, possibly using carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and weve already been doing some exploratory experiments this summer.
The protocells can interact with traditional building materials so that the solid they produce can be deposited around the wood, petrify the piles and turn the foundations of Venice into stone.
We are also interested in programming the technology so that it prefers shady areas to sunlight, so that the rock produced by the protocells will not be deposited in the canals. Martin has already observed that some species already move away from light and we will be testing this in more detail.
It will take years of tuning and monitoring the technology before it is ready to be tested on a case-by case basis where the most damaged or at risk houses in Venice need to be restored and which may be a decade or so away.
Gradually the protocells will generate an artificial reef-like structure under the foundations of Venice. This will provide a new habitat for local plants and animals that will connect the artificial reef with the natural marine ecology. Because the chemistry that underpins the metabolisms of living systems is everywhere, this new approach to constructing architecture would benefit developing countries as much as First World nations.
Metabolic Materials provide a new way of making buildings using a bottom up approach to construction and because they have some living properties they can be expected to produce a great range of forms and functions within the built environment. Eventually these architectures may be almost impossible to distinguish from natural ones!
Thank you to TED for the opportunity of this Fellowship, to you for your attention and to my sponsors and collaborators.
Rachel Armstrong | TEDUniversity Talk 2009
... Living Buildings
ARMSTRONG
MA [Cantab] BMBCh [Oxon]
Speculative drawings by architect Christian Kerrigan shows one potential application of Metabolic Materials in the future by the sustainable reclaimation of Venice through growing an artificial reef underneath the historic city using the protocell technology.
