Protocell Manifesto

http://grayanat.posterous.com/manifesto-for-the-world-architecture-festival

A manifesto for protocell architecture: against biological formalism

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. We want to collage effective organic machinery that composes itself according to the drivers of biological design.

Protocell Architecture is chemically programmable and operates in keeping with the organizing principles of physics and chemistry.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

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.

Dragonfly, A Metabolic Farm for Urban Agriculture

http://www.tuvie.com/dragonfly-a-metabolic-farm-for-new-york-city-in-the-future/

by Vincent Callebaut
http://vincent.callebaut.org/

Dragonfly vertical farm is a concept urban farm specially designed for the Roosevelt Island of New York City which will reduce the problems associated with food shortage, mileage and connection between the producers and consumers. Because of the densely packed city civilization, this farm has been designed vertically, spanning 132 floors and 28 different agricultural fields for accommodating dragonflies aiming to produce fruit, grains, vegetables, meat and dairy. This Dragonfly wing shaped superstructure features wind and solar power producing capability and includes housing, offices, research labs and communal areas separated from farms, orchards and production rooms. Throughout the glass and steel set of wings, animal and plant farming is arranged as well as soil nutrient levels are maintained properly.



These very light wings in glass and steel retake the loads of the building and are directly inspired from the structure of the dragonfly wings coming from the family of “Odonata Anisoptera” whose transparent membrane is very finely nervured. Two inhabited rings buttress around these wings. Their organically chiselled exo-structure accommodates the inter-climatic spaces that receive the agrarian cultures. They buttress.

The whole set forms «double layer» architecture in bee nest mesh that exploits the solar passive energy at its maximum level, by accumulating the warm air in the winter in the thickness of the exo-structure, and by cooling the atmosphere by natural ventilation and by evapo-perpiration of the plants in the summer. Protecting thus the cultures from climatic changes in New York (from -25.5°C in the winter to +41°C in the summer), these plug spaces are useful to reflect on the agriculture not anymore in terms of surface area but really in terms of volume.