A new vision for homes and cities

Living Architecture: Investigating the interface between biology and architecture – a new vision for homes and cities

The Irish Times
Thu, Dec 27, 2018
by Sylvia Thompson

full article link >
Living organisms can be used in the construction of buildings and to heat and light them

… “Living walls first appeared as a concept 15 years ago and they are everywhere now. Accoya wood technology is a mainstream technology which takes ordinary softwood timber and converts it into an indestructible rot-proof timber by combining with another simple substance, vinegar –ascetic acid – which changes the chemical composition of the wood,” Barry says.

… Dr Armstrong says her ideas and prototypes are no longer speculative. “It should be possible to build libraries of microbial programmes to create microbial fuel cells and metabolic maps to share.”

She is the coordinator for the €3.2 million Living Architecture project, a collaboration of experts from the universities of Newcastle, UK, the West of England (UWE Bristol), Trento, Italy, the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid, LIQUIFER Systems Group, Vienna, Austria, and EXPLORA, Venice, Italy, that began in April 2016 and runs to April 2019.

…