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.

Future Scenarios

http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-grand-place.html

2036, the Internet is 50 years old ! Democracy has spread in real time and knowledge is within everyone’s reach. Lies by the State and condoned genocide are no longer possible. We are moving towards world peace. Information and communication technologies have considerably modified the layout of public spaces, the consumer society of the 20th century and citizen movements. The economy of this cyberdemocracy is no longer based on money, but on the intangible exchange of information.

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Forecast2009.html

The big theme for 2009 economically will be contraction. The end of the cheap energy era will announce itself as the end of conventional "growth" and the shrinking back of activity, wealth, and populations. Contraction will come as a great shock to a world of conventionally programmed economists. They will toil and sweat to account for it, and they will probably be wrong. Unfortunately, this contraction will do its work in unpleasant ways, driving down standards of living, shearing away hopes and expectations for a particular life of comfort, and introducing disorder to so many of the systems we have depended on for so long. People will starve, lose their homes, lose incomes and status, and lose the security of living in peaceful societies. It will become clear that the Long Emergency is underway.

Major Driving Forces Affecting Life in 2030
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/scenario.htm

1. Increasing threat of the 2008 Financial Collapse
   to the stability of the global economy
   
   
2. Increasing threat of global economic meltdown caused by uncontrolled globalization.
   
   
3. Increasing Globalization
   
   
4. Increasing population growth
   
   
5. Increasing demand for fossil fuels
   
   
6. Increasing divisions between the
   First and Third Worlds
   
   
7. Increasing immigration from the
   Third World to the First World
   
   
8. Increasing collapse of global ecosystems
   
   
9. Increasing global warming and climate change
   
   
10. Increasing growth of Failed States
    
    
11. Increasing threat of Terrorism
    
    
12. Increasing growth of the internet and
    instantaneous global communication
    
    
13. Increasing development of renewable energy
    
    
14. Increasing outsourcing of jobs from the
    First World to the Third World
    
    
15. Increasing threat of global pandemics caused
    by the growth of anti-biotic resistant viruses
    in the Third World
    
    
16. Increasing division between the Globalized World
    and the Islamic World
    
    
17. Increasing threat of bankruptcy by the United States.
    
    
18. Increasing threat that OPEC will switch the global reserve currency from Dollars to Euros.
    
    
19. Increasing concern about the rising number of
    immigrants in the First World.
    
    
20. Increasing scarcity of natural resources.
    
    
21. Increasing costs of scarce natural resources and
    fossil fuels.
    
    
22. Increasing growth of a global consumer culture.
    
    
23. Increasing threat of WMDs threatening global
    society and economic stability
    
24. Increasing threat of war and violence in the declining Third World countries.
    
    
25. Increasing threat to societal stability caused by
    economic insecurity and the growing division between the very wealthy and the vast majority.
    
    
26. Increasing threat of global environmental collapse caused by Global Warming and the destruction of
    Global ecosystem.
    
    
27. Increasing global insecurity caused by the interaction of environmental collapse and
    economic insecurity.
    
    
28. Increasing fear of economic and societal breakdown.
    
    
29. Increasing distrust of political and economic leaders.
    
    
30. Increasing fear that our political and social
    institutions aren't working
    
    
31. Increasing fear that the future will be worse
    than the past.

2bcont'd...

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.