ECOLOGICSTUDIO
PHOTOSYNTHETIC ARCHITECTURE
Methodology
2. Welding, laser-cutting, 3D printing and lab-grade glass modelling to evolve the hardware design and functioning
1. Cross-disciplinary collaboration on the development of 1:1 testing of wetware, software and hardware
Materials were tested that can host microalgae cultivation and adapt to the built environment. A digital welding technique was developed and tested for ETFE (22). Starch-based bioplastic foils enabled systems to be proposed for building façades that provide shade and security (23–4) and host urban algae farms. Initially, the geometry of existing closed-loop algae farming systems was mapped to compare them with cladding structures. This allowed for a hybrid system to be engineered that acts as both cladding and container for microalgae growth (21).
Collaborations have been established with biological and computing scientists throughout the projects. This includes Catherine Legrand, a micro-biologist at Lund University who has been working on isolating specific strains of microalgae found in Sweden. The multiple colours and properties of microalgae were highlighted through this collaboration and became part of future prototypes. A priority was to explore microalgae’s resilience to thermal stress and its capacity to absorb and re-metabolise air pollutants. In the future, it could be possible to engineer algae variants to develop a portfolio of proprietary strands with optimised resilience to urban conditions. This research has been further developed to an architectural scale. For Urban Algae Folly Milan, Pasquero’s team collaborated with Nick Puckett, a computational expert at The University of British Columbia. They developed a sensing and actuating mechanism that records the properties of the microalgae medium and its surrounding environment. This was further advanced with integrated sensors and data representation devices. Under development is an interface that allows biological intelligence and AI to interact with human needs to achieve a bio-autonomous self-regulating and sufficient system.
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21 Urban Algae Folly Aarhus, 2017. ETFE photobioreactors (detail).
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