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A research team out of the University of Virginia (UVA) has developed a new innovative and sustainable approach to building that utilizes the power of 3D printing to create structures made of soil implanted with seeds. The team consists of Ji Ma, an assistant professor of materials science... View full entry
While most of these buildings are constructed out of more traditional materials like cement, brick, drywall, and plywood, forward-thinking architects and members of the construction industry have increasingly been turning to natural materials as an alternative for the future. Due to its ability to sequester carbon, hemp has landed itself at the forefront of the conversation about natural building. — Topic A
Hemp’s high tensile strength, pliability, and strength-to-weight ratio are increasingly valuable in the manufacture and design of products like fiberboard and even a new concrete alternative. The recent COP26 conference in Glasgow featured the speculative 'Urban Sequoia' design from SOM... View full entry
Prometheus Materials, a Colorado-based developer of zero-carbon building materials, has announced the securing of $8 million in funding from investors including Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, The Autodesk Foundation, and the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund. The funds form part of an effort by... View full entry
London-based architecture studio Bureau de Change and Lulu Harrison, a postgraduate student in Central Saint Martins' Material Futures program, have collaborated to create a series of cladding tiles made from glass using mussel shells. Their work explores alternatives to the processed and... View full entry
The University of Virginia (UVA) campus has become the showground for an array of creative structures built from natural materials. The Biomaterial Building Exposition (Bio-Build Expo for short) was organized by the university’s architecture school and showcases the possibilities of organic... View full entry
With COP26 entering its final day in Glasgow, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have used the event to unveil their vision to transform the built environment into a network for absorbing carbon. Titled 'Urban Sequoia,' the project is centered on the concept of “forests” of buildings which sequester... View full entry
A study conducted by Javier Fernandez and colleagues from Singapore University of Technology and Design provides research that the bioinspired material, chitin, would be a viable building material for Mars inhabitation and tool production. Fernandez shares with Universe... View full entry
Waste from construction and demolition sites accounts for approximately 15-30% of all landfill content in the United States. According to NASA's estimates, more than 500 million tons of often non-biodegradable building materials containing carcinogens and other toxins are sent off to the junkyard... View full entry
Our current built environment squanders too much fresh water and other vital resources, and tips too many poisonous substances into our surroundings. To develop a more sustainable relationship with the natural world, we need to allow chemical exchanges that take place within our living spaces, and between the inside and the outside. We need to embrace permeability. — Aeon
Professor of experimental architecture, Rachel Armstrong, endorses a renewed symbiotic relationship between the built and the natural worlds and explains the benefits of permeability with the help of recent technological developments in the field of biodesign, such as mycotecture, algaetecture... View full entry
The company argues that organic waste would ameliorate rising levels of waste and shortfalls of raw material, as well as providing industry with cheap, low carbon materials. — Global Construction Review
Beyond being delicious, peanuts, rice, bananas, potatoes and mushrooms have something else in common—they are all being proposed by Arup group as potential building materials in their new report titled "The Urban Bio-Loop." THE BIOLOOP Nature becomes an endless source of feedstock for... View full entry
To most people, mushrooms are a food source. To mycologist (mushroom scientist) Philip Ross, fungi are much, much more. In fact, Ross is most passionate about mushrooms’ ability to be used for building materials and it is this is what he primarily focuses his attention on. Recently, the mycologists figured out how to make bricks from growing fungi that are super-strong and water-, mold- and fire resistant. — Truth Theory
Referred to as "mycotecture," the mushroom bricks originally were embraced by the art world, but increasingly are being considered for other structural uses. Stronger and cooler-looking than concrete, the above fungi-brick structure is held together using chopsticks. View full entry
"[...] In this project, we're using a living organism as a factory. So the living organism of mycellium, or hyphae, which is basically a mushroom root, basically makes our bricks for us. It grows our bricks in about five days with no energy required, almost no carbon emissions, and it's using basically waste— agricultural byproducts, chopped up cornstalks. This mushroom root fuses together this biomass and makes solid bricks which we can kind of tune to be different properties." — The Creators Project
Here are a few more photos of Hy-Fi, the locally-sourced, virtually waste-less biostructure by The Living, which just debuted in the courtyard of MoMA PS1. Photos by Andrew Nunes. In the video below, David Benjamin talks with The Creators Project about building the structure from agricultural... View full entry
In the past few weeks, the Buckminster Fuller Institute has been introducing numerous finalist entries for the sixth annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge [...].
Today now, the BFI announced the overall challenge winner: Ecovative, a Green Island, NY-based materials science company that has developed a new class of home-compostable bio-plastics based on living organisms, mushroom mycelia — a high-performing, environmentally responsible alternative to traditional plastic materials.
— bustler.net
The 'mushroom material' inventors, Eben Bayer, Gavin McIntyre, and the Ecovative Team, will be awarded the $100,000 cash prize at a ceremony at Cooper Union in New York City on November 18, 2013. Previously: Announcing the 2013 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Finalists View full entry
