Connecting Buildings With Nature: LBMs and Biotech Provide New Material Possibilities for Architecture.

by Elen Jones

'Hy-Fi' designed by the Living
(image: Andrew Nunes)

Architects have always tried to encapsulate elements of the natural world as inspiration, sometimes imitating natural forms and often incorporating landscaped and ornamental features as part of an overall design. However, promising advances in biotechnology have brought new material opportunities with the potential to strengthen the connection between the built environment and the natural world beyond imitation. Bioengineered materials, which grow, produce energy and self-heal, form the ‘new frontier’ in biology and material science, paving the way for a new ‘Arch’- itype.

“The buildings and construction sector accounted for...39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing building materials and products.” ¹

It is a high but not entirely surprising figure, given the energy intensive processes used to produce cement, steel and glass. For this reason, the AEC industry must re-evaluate the use of staple building materials, as a critical step. Although these innovations are still far away from mainstream commercial use, ‘Living materials for the built environment’ is a rapidly expanding area of inquiry. New composites are not just developed to reduce carbon footprints or enhance the resource usage, but also to develop innovative properties and enhance carbon sequestration.

Living building materials (LBMs) contain microorganisms, which is what gives them their biological properties. Below are 3 examples of these LBMs:

Mycelium is one prolific area of inquiry for construction materials that can be grown. Materials based on mycelium have good insulation properties, are fire retardants and don’t produce toxic gases during production. Back in 2014, ‘The Living’ devised ‘Hy-Fi’, a prototype structure constructed from mycelium bricks, which could be grown in 5 days. This is particularly significant because it means that mycelium-based materials have been investigated as a potential and viable option for space architecture, precisely for this possibility of growing versatile and strong materials ‘on-site’, when the volume of materials transported must be restricted to an absolute minimum.

At the University of Colorado Boulder, the Living Materials Laboratory investigated a new cement-free living building material that, unlike our beloved cement can be fully recycled. They used cyanobacteria to manufacture a kind of bio cement. Component green microorganisms use CO2 and sunlight in a similar way to algae. They sequester the CO2 in this process. By harnessing the exponential growth of bacteria, the researchers managed to grow this building block from scratch, demonstrating a new manufacturing method. The real-life application of this technology is already here, with some companies urging the incorporation of bio-enhanced materials like ‘biocement’ in all new large-scale building projects.

 

Researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, have worked to manufacture a self-healing concrete, using an enzyme that transforms CO2 in the atmosphere into calcium carbonate crystals, sealing otherwise unnoticeable cracks, thus preventing further damage to the material. Luckily, unlike similar experiments which utilise bacteria, this process is fast and doesn’t pose any particular safety concerns. It also shows a key development elevating new concrete technology from simple arguments about form, improved strength or reduced emissions in the curing phase, due to the addition of nano lime particles. While shape and efficiency alone are important, this new development could help resurrect concrete’s reputation – and satisfy the demands of Brutalist aficionados.

These few examples from a fascinating and broad area of research provide an example of what a sustainable construction material industry could look like in the not too distant future. In the next decade, more research is required to evaluate issues such as safety and biocontamination. These new materials would also have the difficult task of converting a public opinion which has remained generally unchanged regarding the construction industry, despite the innovations seen in other sectors like renewable energy. Furthermore, it is true that on the whole we are very wary of the bacterial world.

So, engineered living materials are still very much in their fledging era, and of course no matter how conclusive and positive any laboratory research is, commercial viability is yet another matter when considering the application of such materials. However, despite all of this, it is clear that this research has catapulted a new material world into the public view and shows a new level of sustainability and synthesis for Architecture. Regardless of environmental motivations at play, the interlinking or nature’s architecture with our own seems a natural progression from our long standing desires to match its beauty and systems.

 

 

1.     https://www.iea.org/reports/global-status-report-for-buildings-and-construction-2019 

2.     https://www.archdaily.com