M Arch Living Architecture

MArch lecture Living Architecture Rachel Armstrong TEDGlobal Fellow, Teaching Fellow, AVATAR group The Bartlett School of Architecture [email_address]

Living Cities
“ Historically, the city has been seen as either mechanistic or biological in its order”
Neil Spiller, Digital Dreams

Urban Paleontology Ming Tang, Dihua Yang, 2008

Biological Formalism
Use of biological metaphor
Common conceptual framework
Doctrine that formal structure rather than content is what should be represented
Shared methodological tools
the practice of scrupulous adherence to prescribed or external forms
Top-down process

Growing Architecture Molecular House, Mohammed Alkayer

City as An Organism
“ ... Like any organism [a city] has a circulatory system in its streets, railroads and rivers, a brain in its universities and planning offices, a digestive system in its food distribution and sewage lines, muscles in its industrial centres and any city worthy of the name has an erogenous zone ...”
Matthew Dumont, Arthropods

MEtreePOLIS, Matthias Hollwich

Inertia of Real Cities
The city is not an organism – it is made of inert materials
The built environment consists of unrelated objects that are secondarily connected to each other to create the urban landscape
Apparent vitality conferred by the behaviour of living systems within the built environment

Brazil, Terry Gilliam

Contemporary Materials
Materials of built environment are not dynamic, they are simple, including the current generation of ‘smart’ materials
Limited meaningful embodied integration of different media
Currently parallel architectural spaces are accessed by cross-referral, analogy, metaphor & interfaced via human ‘experience’

Twelve Monkeys, Terry Gilliam

Connecting Artifice & Nature
Requires a fundamental change in the organization model that describes the relationship between building materials and the environment

Hylazoic Soil, Philip Beesley

Living Architecture
New model of sustainable architectural practice that directly connects the built environment to nature
The unit of Living Architecture is the Architectural protocell

Architectural Protocell
A protocell is a primordial atomic globule, connected to the environment through the languages of physics and chemistry. Uniquely, protocell technology possesses material complexity, and is capable of self-organisation

Protocells can be made of pre-existing biological materials such as protoplasm – for example, the protoplasm of the green algae Bryopsis and slime mould – or can be fabricated from scratch using organic and inorganic chemicals

This gives rise to the possibility of Protocell Architecture, as protocell units work together to generate their output

Manifesto for protocell architecture: against biological formalism
We want to change the world with almost nothing.
It is possible to generate complex materials and architectures through harnessing the fundamental energetics of matter. In other words, doing more with less

What we call protocell architecture is, at root, a piece of Dadaist and Surrealist research, in which all the lofty questions have become involved
The novel self-assembling material systems that arise from protocell architectural practice make no reference to, nor attempt to mimic bio-logic. As such, protocell architecture is an alien to the natural world, yet speaks the same fundamental languages of chemistry and physics. The results of these conversations and interactions constitute a parallel biology and second biogenesis whose aesthetics are described by Surrealist agendas

Architecture is dead, long live architecture
Protocells constitute a disruptive technology for architectural practice since they are capable of reaching a transition point when evolution emerges within the system, the outcome of which is unpredictable and therefore offer novel and surprising ways of constructing architecture that will succeed and replace conventional technologies

Protocell architecture swallows contrast and all contradictions including the grotesquery and illogicality of life
Protocell technology is at the beginning of an evolutionary pathway that is connected to and dependent on the environmental conditions around it. The responsiveness of protocells to stimuli, means they can be regarded as computing units. Consequently, protocells do not seek to generate idealized architectural forms but reflect and interpret the full spectrum of the processes they encounter in the real world

What is generally termed life is really a frothy nothing that merely connects
Protocell technology offers an opportunity for architects to engage with the evolutionary process itself. Unlike natural biological systems that evolve randomly according to Darwinian evolution, protocell technology allows deliberate and specific interventions throughout the entire course of its coming into being. By moving and metabolizing, protocells may form the basis for a synthetic surface ecology. These interventions are the basis of what we call protocell architecture

We do not wish to imitate nature, we do not wish to reproduce nature, we want to produce architecture in the way a plant produces its fruit. We do not want to depict, we want to produce directly, not indirectly, since there is no trace of abstraction. We call it Protocell Architecture
Protocell Architecture embodies the principles of emergence, bottom-up construction techniques and self-assembly. It is equipped with design ‘handles’ that enable the architect to persuade rather than dominate the outcome of the system through physical communication. As such, these systems are unknowable, surprising and anarchic.

We want to collage effective biological machinery that composes itself according to the drivers of design
Protocell Architecture is chemically programmable and operates in keeping with the organizing principles of physics and chemistry

We want over and over again, movement and connection; we see peace only in dynamism
Protocell Architecture gathers its energy from the tension that resides at an interface between two media such as oil and water, which causes movement, disruption and change. Protocell Architecture resists the equilibrium since this constitutes death

The head is round, so thoughts can revolve. The head of architecture is green, robust, synthesized and exists everywhere simultaneously, whether it is large or very, very small
Protocell Architecture is fashioned from ‘low tech biotech’ characterised by ubiquitous, durable and affordable materials

We wish to blur the firm boundaries, which self-certain people delineate around all we can achieve
Protocell Technology becomes a co-author in the production of architecture through the possession of living properties and its ability to self-assemble

We tell you the tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow
Protocell Architecture is better adapted to the prevailing physical and social conditions since it is founded on a new set of technologies that are not ‘alive’ but which possess some of the properties of living systems. As such these technologies are qualitatively different to the industrial and digital technologies that have become the mainstream tools of the twentieth century

We will work with things that we do not want to design, things that already have systematic existence
Protocell Technology has the capacity to transform and modify existing building materials and architecture with the potential for surprise

You know as much as we do that architecture is nothing more than rhythms and connections
Protocell Architecture embodies the complexity of materials in a literal, rather than metaphorical manner and becomes a physical part of our existence

We will construct exquisite corpses not dead but alive and useful
Protocell Architecture is central to the understanding of living systems. It allows us to work with and enhance the unavoidable inconsistency which is the essence of life itself

We deal in a second aesthetic, one that initiates beginnings and moulds with natural forces
Protocell Architecture is connected to the environment through constant conversation and energy exchange with the natural world in a series of chemical interactions called ‘metabolism’. This involves the conversion of one group of substances into another, either by absorbing or releasing energy - doing more with less

Architecture as Biosphere
Living Architecture is part of the biosphere
Integrated through common chemical language called metabolism
Metabolism connects living systems to the environment

Metabolic Materials
Materials that are capable of metabolism
These materials are ‘living’ and can be thought of as Living Technology

Living Technology
Possess some but not all of the properties of living systems
Qualitatively different to 20 th century technologies with which we are familiar
Capable of growth, movement, sensitivity, repair, complex behaviour and even reproduction

Low Tech Biotech
For practical purposes in the built environment, these materials need to be robust, safe, ubiquitous and inexpensive

Innovation by Design
Use existing metabolic systems and materials to create the desired outcome:
Crystal growth (biomorphic)
‘ Cellular Gardening’ of indigenous microorganisms for selected characteristics

Roger Hiorns, Seizure Seizure, Roger Hiorns

Seizure, Roger Hiorns

Silicon-Fixing Bacteria Silicon Fixing Bacteria, Simon Park

Dune, Magnus Larsson

Bioluminescence Bioluminescent Bacteria, Simon Park

Bioluminescent Bacteria, Simon Park

Slime Mould Slime Mould, Shin Tseng

Slime Mould, Shin Tseng

Slime Mould, Simon Park

Slime Mould, Soichiro Tsuda

Diatoms

Diatom Factory, Shin Tseng

Plant/Human Nail, Shin Tseng

Bryopsis Bryopsis, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Bryopsis, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Bryopsis & GFP Modified Bacteria, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Bryopsis & Magnetic Particles, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Bryopsis, Andrew Paine

Coralina Coralina, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Coralina, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Limestone

Living Rocks Blue Green Algae, Alexandru Vladimirescu

Stromatolite

Innovation by Invention
Low tech, chemical computers
Protocell technology: an example of Living Technology
NO DNA
Based on the chemistry of oils
Programmable using inorganic chemistry
Can produce architectural outcomes

Protocell Technology Protocell, Martin Hanczyc

Protocell Cluster Protocells, Martin Hanczyc

Modification of Environment Protocells, Martin Hanczyc

Skin Shedding Protocell, Martin Hanczyc

Producing Solid Material

Protocell Pearl

Protocell Shell

Sustainably Reclaiming Venice
Protocell technology programmed to move away from light and deposit limestone under the wood pile foundations of the historic city
Generation of an artificial reef
New ecological niches for marine organisms

Protocell Technology Protocell technology Programmed to create solid out of dissolved carbon dioxide Courtesy Christian Kerrigan

Protocell Photosensitivity Protocell technology under wood piles underneath Venice Programmed to move away from light filled canals to darkened foundations Courtesy Christian Kerrigan

Protocell Activation Protocell technology petrifying foundations Protocell technology forms solid materials by crystallization and accretion Courtesy Christian Kerrigan

Venetian Artificial Reef Artificial Reef underneath Venice Sensitive to environmental variables and local marine ecology Courtesy Christian Kerrigan

Stop Press: Plastic Protocells Plastic coated oil droplet, Andrew Loxley

Stop Press: Protein Protocells Protein coated oil droplet, Andrew Loxley

E-ink Jacket

Summary
Living Architecture is a new way of thinking about creating the built environment since it uses a bottom up approach to construction
Living Architecture is in direct conversation with the environment through the physics and chemistry of the fundamental matter which can be thought of an ‘architectural protocell’

Acknowledgments
Martin Hanczyc
Alexandru Vladimirescu
Neil Spiller
Christian Kerrigan
Shin Tseng
Andrew Paine
Andrew Loxley
Soichiro Tsuda
Simon Park
Matthias Hollwich

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M Arch Living Architecture

by Rachel Armstrong

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