Talking to the Future Humans is a column in which we speak to the people who have shaped, are shaping or are trying to shape the future, or at least ideas surrounding the future. It is the mindchild of Kevin Holmes, Managing Editor for The Creators Project.
Dr. Rachel ArmstrongIf you think that we'll live in houses made of brick and mortar in the future, then you're both misguided and boring. Instead, bricks will be replaced by cells. Yep, cells. The house your children will grow up in will be alive, and the paint on your walls will be able to do all sorts of clever things, like suck out the carbon dioxide from the air while you sleep, thus saving the entire human race from global warming and you from your hangover simultaneously. Sounds great, right? Like utopia.
Dr. Rachel Armstrong is one of the scientists who’s trying to manufacture these materials and eventually make them commercially available. I got in touch to find out more.
VICE: Hi, Dr. Rachel. Why do our buildings need to be alive? What’s wrong with the way we build things now?
Rachel Armstrong: Architecture traditionally uses inert materials that are belligerent to a changing environment in order to create a barrier between the unpredictable natural world and our domestic lives. This desire for control over our surroundings is a very ancient one, and has actually set the standard for materials used in building practice today. We’re control freaks.
To an extent, yes. This approach, of trying to ‘factor out’ our surroundings in the places where we live, underpins the major environmental crisis of our time. In the current industrial age the very act of making a building results in a one-way transfer of energy from the environment into the final product, the inert objects that become our modern homes and cities. When our surroundings change or our buildings inevitably deteriorate, then we set about making new ones. The mass production and international prevalence of this process has had a significantly negative impact on the environment. So it’s about the carbon footprint that buildings are leaving?
Currently, architecture accounts for 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, which is an even bigger carbon footprint than transport. But architecture causes more damage to our living space than the carbon footprint that it stamps on the building site.Can you explain what the “living materials” you're trying to manufacture are, or at least will be?
Architects have historically used biology to inspire more lifelike buildings, because they've fully appreciated that our environment is not static. They have even incorporated living structures into the fabric of buildings as exemplified in the ‘living bridges’ of Cherrapunji, India. These root bridges are painstakingly woven by hand, a skill passed down through generations. These sound awesome. How do they work?
They span deep gulleys that are over a hundred feet long and take ten to 15 years to become fully functional. Once they are established, they are strong enough to support the weight of 50 or more people at a time. They can even remain standing following flash floods. In modern life, with the expectations of an industrial society, we don’t want to wait for 15 years for a bridge to grow. Biological systems are not currently used as construction materials in architectural practice, since they pose significant design limitations upon the ‘technology’ – they would require nutrition, for example. My research explores the material applications of a new group of technologies with lifelike qualities called ‘living technology’. These technologies may provide a new generation of smart materials that exist somewhere between ‘natural’ biology and traditional, inert building materials.So what are the names of these wonderful new materials that are gonna help us live forever?
One of the new materials we've come up with is the protocell.What’s a protocell?
They’re simple forms of life which scientists are trying to create from scratch in laboratories. They can then be developed for different uses so we could create materials that you can’t find in nature. Take for instance limestone, which has been used as a building material since historic times and has been created by the accretion of tiny shells of fossilised marine life. Using the protocell system it is possible to think of how the accretion process that has constituted the production of limestone could be artificially extended, so that this natural building material continues to grow, self-repair and even respond to changes in the environment in real time. These protocells sound like pretty nifty things. Is there any chance they could mutate and take over the world?
Protocells are not autonomous and can be orchestrated, rather than controlled in a classical push-button mechanical sense, by manipulating flows of chemical information. It is possible for a designer to have an idea of the range of possible outcomes for a protocell technology in a way that can be thought of as being similar to cooking. When initial ingredients are brought together there is a likely outcome that can be predicted. The same is true of protocells. Phew. Have you built any materials so far using synthetic biology?
We are exploring the possibility of water-soluble, environmentally responsive paints and coatings for building exteriors based on the principles of chemical self-assembly. As a potential practical application, the group has engineered protocells to capture carbon dioxide from solution and convert it into a solid carbonate form, similar to naturally occurring limestone or shell. Such layers might be used in carbon fixing or in carbon negative architectures. If I asked a builder to fashion me a house from protocells and synthetic biology, would he oblige or just look at me funny?
Protocells currently exist only as research models in the laboratory and commercial applications have not yet been produced.What will our homes of the future look like? Will they feature interactive environments and A.I. functionality, like HAL from 2001, but not be quite so terrifying?
We could see things like smart lighting that responds to the inhabitant’s mood and the environment. Ultimately homes will continue to provide shelter and comfort, but increasingly they will participate in our surroundings and create healthier living spaces. They will be able to connect with and respond to internal and external environmental changes. The coming age of ‘smart houses’ combined with mobile phone applications will enable homeowners to install a whole range of hybrid technologies, combining cybernetics with chemistry that can respond remedially to changes in their environment.These synthetic living materials are basically pimping up buildings by making them contribute to their environment and also react to it, rather than just sitting there all inert and lame like the buildings we have now.
Cities could be active sites of resource production rather than sumps of consumption, where living materials could be used on the roofs of our cities, like solar panels, to harvest carbon dioxide and produce energy in the form of liquid fuel rather than electricity, rather like the green leaves of plants do, as an alternative to cutting down trees or burning fossil fuels. I’m so impressed with these materials right now, even though they don’t yet exist. What other marvels could they do?
They could also function as an integral part of the recycling of domestic water supplies. Protocell technology and synthetic biology-based techniques also raise the possibility of an architecture that is hygroscopic. Hygro-whatic?
Where a substance can attract and hold water, like sugar. This way an outside wall could retain and process water by absorbing it at source as dew in the morning, or during a rainfall to provide readily available sources for human consumption. Not even Superman could do that.
Living materials may ultimately have the ability to change the fundamental relationship between human development and the environment. This would be a major shift in our building practices that could contribute to our continued survival, rather than promoting the destruction of our biosphere. We may start thinking of our buildings as domestic guardians that offer some robust protection against certain unpredictable consequences of climate change, or the advent of natural disasters. Super-buildings! Thanks Dr. Rachel, I feel like my mind has grown after learning of all this.Follow Kevin Holmes @Stewart23rdPreviously: Talking to the Future Humans - Alex Peake and the Future of Video Games
Rachel Armstrong: Architecture traditionally uses inert materials that are belligerent to a changing environment in order to create a barrier between the unpredictable natural world and our domestic lives. This desire for control over our surroundings is a very ancient one, and has actually set the standard for materials used in building practice today. We’re control freaks.
To an extent, yes. This approach, of trying to ‘factor out’ our surroundings in the places where we live, underpins the major environmental crisis of our time. In the current industrial age the very act of making a building results in a one-way transfer of energy from the environment into the final product, the inert objects that become our modern homes and cities. When our surroundings change or our buildings inevitably deteriorate, then we set about making new ones. The mass production and international prevalence of this process has had a significantly negative impact on the environment. So it’s about the carbon footprint that buildings are leaving?
Currently, architecture accounts for 40 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, which is an even bigger carbon footprint than transport. But architecture causes more damage to our living space than the carbon footprint that it stamps on the building site.
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Architects have historically used biology to inspire more lifelike buildings, because they've fully appreciated that our environment is not static. They have even incorporated living structures into the fabric of buildings as exemplified in the ‘living bridges’ of Cherrapunji, India. These root bridges are painstakingly woven by hand, a skill passed down through generations. These sound awesome. How do they work?
They span deep gulleys that are over a hundred feet long and take ten to 15 years to become fully functional. Once they are established, they are strong enough to support the weight of 50 or more people at a time. They can even remain standing following flash floods. In modern life, with the expectations of an industrial society, we don’t want to wait for 15 years for a bridge to grow. Biological systems are not currently used as construction materials in architectural practice, since they pose significant design limitations upon the ‘technology’ – they would require nutrition, for example. My research explores the material applications of a new group of technologies with lifelike qualities called ‘living technology’. These technologies may provide a new generation of smart materials that exist somewhere between ‘natural’ biology and traditional, inert building materials.
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One of the new materials we've come up with is the protocell.What’s a protocell?
They’re simple forms of life which scientists are trying to create from scratch in laboratories. They can then be developed for different uses so we could create materials that you can’t find in nature. Take for instance limestone, which has been used as a building material since historic times and has been created by the accretion of tiny shells of fossilised marine life. Using the protocell system it is possible to think of how the accretion process that has constituted the production of limestone could be artificially extended, so that this natural building material continues to grow, self-repair and even respond to changes in the environment in real time. These protocells sound like pretty nifty things. Is there any chance they could mutate and take over the world?
Protocells are not autonomous and can be orchestrated, rather than controlled in a classical push-button mechanical sense, by manipulating flows of chemical information. It is possible for a designer to have an idea of the range of possible outcomes for a protocell technology in a way that can be thought of as being similar to cooking. When initial ingredients are brought together there is a likely outcome that can be predicted. The same is true of protocells. Phew. Have you built any materials so far using synthetic biology?
We are exploring the possibility of water-soluble, environmentally responsive paints and coatings for building exteriors based on the principles of chemical self-assembly. As a potential practical application, the group has engineered protocells to capture carbon dioxide from solution and convert it into a solid carbonate form, similar to naturally occurring limestone or shell. Such layers might be used in carbon fixing or in carbon negative architectures. If I asked a builder to fashion me a house from protocells and synthetic biology, would he oblige or just look at me funny?
Protocells currently exist only as research models in the laboratory and commercial applications have not yet been produced.What will our homes of the future look like? Will they feature interactive environments and A.I. functionality, like HAL from 2001, but not be quite so terrifying?
We could see things like smart lighting that responds to the inhabitant’s mood and the environment. Ultimately homes will continue to provide shelter and comfort, but increasingly they will participate in our surroundings and create healthier living spaces. They will be able to connect with and respond to internal and external environmental changes. The coming age of ‘smart houses’ combined with mobile phone applications will enable homeowners to install a whole range of hybrid technologies, combining cybernetics with chemistry that can respond remedially to changes in their environment.These synthetic living materials are basically pimping up buildings by making them contribute to their environment and also react to it, rather than just sitting there all inert and lame like the buildings we have now.
Cities could be active sites of resource production rather than sumps of consumption, where living materials could be used on the roofs of our cities, like solar panels, to harvest carbon dioxide and produce energy in the form of liquid fuel rather than electricity, rather like the green leaves of plants do, as an alternative to cutting down trees or burning fossil fuels. I’m so impressed with these materials right now, even though they don’t yet exist. What other marvels could they do?
They could also function as an integral part of the recycling of domestic water supplies. Protocell technology and synthetic biology-based techniques also raise the possibility of an architecture that is hygroscopic. Hygro-whatic?
Where a substance can attract and hold water, like sugar. This way an outside wall could retain and process water by absorbing it at source as dew in the morning, or during a rainfall to provide readily available sources for human consumption. Not even Superman could do that.
Living materials may ultimately have the ability to change the fundamental relationship between human development and the environment. This would be a major shift in our building practices that could contribute to our continued survival, rather than promoting the destruction of our biosphere. We may start thinking of our buildings as domestic guardians that offer some robust protection against certain unpredictable consequences of climate change, or the advent of natural disasters. Super-buildings! Thanks Dr. Rachel, I feel like my mind has grown after learning of all this.Follow Kevin Holmes @Stewart23rdPreviously: Talking to the Future Humans - Alex Peake and the Future of Video Games