Rachel Armstrong + Petrifying Objects

http://www.rachelarmstrong.me/

Rachel is currently collaborating with international scientists and architects to explore cutting-edge, sustainable technologies by developing metabolic materials in an experimental setting. These materials possess some of the properties of living systems and couple artificial structures to natural ones in the anticipation that our buildings will undergo an 'origins of life' style transition from inert to living matter and become part of the biosphere. By generating metabolic materials it is hoped that cities will be able to replace the energy they draw from the environment, respond to the needs of their populations and eventually become regarded as alive in the same way that we think about parks or gardens. Since metabolic materials are made from terrestrial chemistry they are not exclusive to First World countries and have the potential to transform urban environments worldwide.

Aucklantis:

Aucklantis is also a future city in New Zealand that floats on the sea over the site of Old Auckland after it had been flooded and destroyed due to rising sea levels. Aucklantis is the setting for conflict between old and new worlds, technologies and beliefs.The inspiration for the narrative comes from my fascination of the historic and geographic uniqueness of New Zealand and its relative isolation shaping its development since the age of the dinosaurs when the Moas ancestors were able to walk across the land bridges.Fascinating too is the utopian paradise.

By addressing traditional paradigms in the presence of modern invention, science fiction helps us address some of the deeper common issues of today that are at the core of our humanity.

Biolime: Mock Rock

On the effects of an emerging Living Technology, one that possesses some of the properties of living systems but is not actually alive (ISSP, Online), when it is introduced as a way of making the buildings of Mossville more sustainable, a suburb of the imaginary city of Hardwich, by coating their houses with Biolime, a synthetic rock that is capable of producing limestone by fixing carbon dioxide from the air. Although Biolime goes against the conscientious community's notion of what is natural they come to accept that all other methods of generating a more sustainable environment have not sufficient to reverse the carbon trend and new unnatural measures are justified.

The collaborators had produced a simple oil-in-water droplet emulsion that used carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to drive a chemical process that formed a rock-like salt called carbonate, commonly known as limestone. The resultant work was generally regarded as a fringe research activity though some years later the renewed interest in finding ways of dealing with the runaway carbon count. First World countries endorsed Biolime as the most immediate and effective way to combat climate change.

Cell-like agents used in the Biolime process did not have any genes. Biolime itself was not alive and although it shared some of the characteristics of living systems Biolime would die without the continued nurturing of the community. How it could be true that water could turn into rock?

A few weeks later those areas that had been sprayed with the Biolime solution began to transform and produce a moist, heavily patterned, whitish rock. Delicate crustings of this material appeared in gutterways and grew into stalactite fingers where water had accumulated. Small children picked at oddly shaped protrusions that were sometimes used by wildlife and the Biolime could also be found in places where it had not been deliberately applied.

Mossville had realised that if something as small as the chemical fragments of technology that constituted Biolime, could make such a difference to the health of the community, then the efforts of each individual, no matter how trivial, would make an ever greater difference in their collective quest to tackle the weighty issue of climate change.

Living Architecture:

Architects throughout the ages have likened the built environment to biological systems, but modern architecture is not alive since it is made of inert materials that are belligerent to and disconnected from the natural world. Yet, biology is far more important to architectural practice than just providing the inspiration for new forms and aesthetics. Biological processes are critical to architectural practice in terms of developing more dynamic and environmentally integrated materials.

Metabolic materials could be designed to extract carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the air and release oxygen into the environment. Such materials could even perform new functions that are not found in nature and could safely remove toxins or nanoparticles from the environment and process them into safer substances. When the metabolisms were no longer active they could senesce and decay back into their components for recycling.

Speculative drawings by architect Christian Kerrigan shows one potential application of Metabolic Materials in the future by the sustainable reclaimation of Venice through growing an artificial reef underneath the historic city using the protocell technology.