Dr. Rachel Armstrong wants you to imagine a future when buildings have skins that can capture carbon and interact with their surroundings.
It sounds like a futuristic fantasy – and, truth be told, Armstrong does write science fiction – but she said the living technology she and her team are developing should be available within three to five years.
"Currently, architecture strives to be carbon neutral as being some kind of Utopian goal to work towards," Armstrong said after speaking at ideaCity on Friday.
But what we need, she said, is carbon-negative architecture.
Armstrong, a teaching fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, is developing a "protocell" system, formed of simple components like water and olive oil, with "a little bit of chemistry" thrown in. The protocell is not technically alive because it lacks DNA, she explained, but it could be described as living technology.
When complete, she hopes people can cover buildings like barns with carbon capture paint, which would over the next three to six months thicken and become knobbly. In time, the building would have fingers of carbonate extending out into the environment, looking like a cave turned inside out.
"What’s really interesting about these living materials is they depend very much on the environmental conditions, so if you’ve got a prevailing wind, if your barn is right next to a chimney that’s pumping out carbon dioxide, if you’ve got swallows nesting against eaves, all of that gets incorporated into the appearance of the building."
The carbon-capture technology could create solid materials that could be used for construction.
Armstrong, also a medical doctor, sees a not-so-distant future in which responsive "skins" on the outside of buildings can capture sunlight and turn it into fuels. That, she said, might take 10 to 15 years.
She intends to make the simple recipes for these systems available to developing countries for free.
"I would like to prove Margaret Atwood wrong," Armstrong told the audience, referring to a comment the literary icon made the previous night about the bleak future for an oil-dependent, over-populated world.
"We are not doomed."
- Nicole Baute, Toronto Star
Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/825904–ideacity-building-a-skin-for-buildings
