Archinect - News

Scientists are developing a 'digestive' building material that cleans wastewater and produces electricity

2016-08-08T13:28:00-04:00

“The best way to describe what we’re trying to create is a ‘biomechanical cow’s stomach’,” said Rachel Armstrong, coordinator of the Living Architecture (LIAR) research project. LIAR's aim is to develop a building block material that uses living microorganisms to clean wastewater, glean useful resources from sunlight, and even generate electricity.

To do this, the researchers are programming synthetic microorganisms, and inserting them into a microbial fuel cell (MFC), which is then placed inside ceramic blocks. The MFCs are effectively alive, and produce positive and negative charges, which allows them to be programmed in such a way to emulate the different metabolic stages of a cow's stomach.

In combination, the blocks could be used to form 'bioreactor walls', which could then help offset a structure's carbon footprint by keeping waste processing and power generation in-house: "like a digestive system for your home or office," according to Armstrong. In one successful test case, res...

Dreaming of an architecture that could produce buildings with organs and physiologies

2013-09-26T13:08:00-04:00

Very immediately I’m working on the Persephone Project which is concerned with the design and implementation of a giant natural computer that will form the ‘living’ interior to a world-ship. It is going to be officially launched at the Starship Congress, in Dallas, from august the 15 of this year. I will also talk about Persephone further at Future Fest in the UK which runs over the weekend 28th to the 29th September.

Earlier this summer Alessia Andreotti spoke with Dr. Rachel Armstrong about living buildings, Venice’s foundations, millennial nature and how to improve our future. The two also discussed Dr. Armstrong's involvement in the Persephone Project, which is "charged with the design and implementation of a giant natural computer that will form the ‘living’ interior to the Icarus Interstellar worldship, which constitutes a kind of ‘space’ Nature".

As a bonus, over at Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster shared Rachel Armstrong’s August 15th presentation at Starship Congress, with his readers.

h/t Bruce Sterling