Jessica Griggs, careers editor
(Image: TED/Robert Leslie)
A researcher specialising in architecture and synthetic biology, Rachel Armstrong imagines a future with building materials that function as part of living systems. New Scientist caught up with her to talk about her new TED book, Living Architecture.
What is wrong with today’s architecture?
The issue with modern architecture is that it is imagined through the framework and technology of the machine. We even think of ourselves as machines. Machines are good at taking resources and making objects but they’re impenetrable to the environment and they are extremely wasteful.
Currently, the best our architecture can be is carbon-neutral. You are looking to nature to go one step further?
If we change our world view from being centred on machines to being centred on ecology, it starts to become a lot easier to imagine what kinds of technology might complement this approach. The natural world is full of examples: algae technology, the use of trees like baobabs as toilets and the living root bridges of Cherrapungi, north eastern India. But they don’t fit well into an urban environment and they don’t respond fast enough for the lifestyle we demand.
Are you advocating we go back to some bucolic agrarian-based existence?
Not at all - more like a symbiotic approach between nature and existing structures and technology.
What sort of technologies do you have in mind?
I have been looking at applying synthetic biology to environmental problems. There are two ways of doing this. One is to modify existing biology, such as algae, using extreme environmental techniques. The other is to build artificial cells by mixing ingredients. With colleagues at the Southern University of Denmark and the European Centre for Living Technology based in Venice, Italy, I have been looking into materials that exhibit some life-like properties. These “protocells” are droplets of oil into which we grind a mineral such as calcium chloride, or copper sulphate to make a paste. The oil acts like a slow-release container that lets go of the mineral over time. It’s a similar idea to the liposome technologies that are used in anti-aging creams.
In what way are they “life-like”?
In alkaline conditions, the oil and alkali produce soap which can be thought of as a metabolic process. This enables the protocells to move, respond to the acidity of their surroundings, interact with other protocells and produce microstructures. This is different to a straight forward chemical reaction as it doesn’t all happen at once. The oil droplets act as a slow release system.
How could you put these protocells to use?
If buildings were covered in a layer of them, they would act as a sort of smart paint, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When the building got wet the mineral salt would dissolve, react with the carbon dioxide in the rain and produce a deposit of mineral carbonate which would strengthen the bricks. So, carbon dioxide would be removed from the atmosphere and over time and the building would become more robust.
You’ve also talked about using these ideas to keep Venice above water. How would this work?
There’s an EU-funded project that is looking to raise the city by a foot over the next ten years. If you do that, you start to expose the woodpiles it is built on, which will then become vulnerable to corrosion. If we could add these mineral laden protocells to the waters surrounding the woodpiles, and engineer them so they move down into the crevices of and away from sunlight, they would deposit the mineral carbonate onto the surface and help protect the woodpiles. The excess oil could be removed using absorbent materials dragged behind the waste barges that currently navigate the waterways.
It sounds more like chemistry than synthetic biology.
Well, the definitions of life aren’t clear cut. I believe that life is a spectrum of activities, but yes we’re looking at the low end of the spectrum with the protocells. I see them as the starting point to help realise some of the ideas of living architecture, but who knows, as synthetic biology develops as a field, we may end up using “tools” that are more conventionally alive.
What other projects have you developed?
One that has actually been realised is the Hylozoic Ground installation shown at the Venice Biennale in 2010. For this, we enlarged the protocells and encased them in flasks, which were distributed throughout a lattice of small transparent acrylic meshwork designed by architect Philip Beesley and cybernetic engineer Rob Gorbet. The protocells performed like smell and taste receptors, sensing carbon dioxide produced by the people in the gallery. When carbon dioxide was present, the protocells changed from blue to green or pink to purple.
Hylozoic Ground (Image: Rachel Armstrong)
This sounds like the basis of one of the scenarios imagined in your book - that carbon dioxide sensitive biopolymers could be used to make emergency pods that people could shelter in during natural disasters.
Yes, the colour of the pod would signal to rescuers that the person inside was still alive.
You have written several science fiction books and a lot of the ideas in the TED book are pretty speculative. Do you think that it is the architect’s job to dream about what could be without being restrained by current scientific possibility?
In every practice there has to be room for thought experiments. What science doesn’t do is develop its thought experiments through visualisation like architecture does. We need to be speculative sometimes because it allows us to ask the what-if questions. The human imagination is the most powerful technology we’ve got.
Rachel Armstrong is senior lecturer at the University of Greenwich, London. Her new TED book, Living Architecture, is available for e-readers.