Towards the microbial home: An overview of developments in next-generation sustainable architecture

Abstract

Disruptive innovation is needed to raise the threshold of sustainable building performance, so that our buildings improve on net zero impacts and have a life-promoting impact on the natural world. This article outlines a new approach to next-generation sustainable architecture, which draws on the versatile metabolisms of microbes as a platform by incorporating microbial technologies and microbially produced materials into the practice of the built environment. The regenerative architecture arising from these interventions includes a broad range of advances from using new materials, to creating bioreceptive surfaces that promote life, and providing green, bio-remediating energy from waste. Such innovations are presently reaching the marketplace as novel materials like Biocement® with lower embodied carbon than conventional materials that adopt microbially facilitated processes, and as novel utilities like PeePower® that transforms urine into electrical energy and bioreactor-based building systems such as the pioneering BIQ building in Hamburg. While the field is still young, some of these products (e.g. mycelium biocomposites) are poised for uptake by the public-private economic axis to become mainstream within the building industry. Other developments are creating new economic opportunities for local maker communities that empower citizens and catalyse novel vernacular building practices. In particular, the activation of the microbial commons by the uptake of microbial technologies and materials through daily acts of living, 'democratises' resource harvesting (materials and energy) in ways that sustain life, and returns important decisions about how to run a home back to citizens. This disruptive move re-centres the domestic-commons economic axis to the heart of society, setting the stage for new vernacular architectures that support increasingly robust and resilient communities.

FIGURE 1

Mycelium biocomposite produced from cardboard and moulded in a Tupperware container (right) Samuel Hoornaerts, Wicked Home, Masters' Studio, Ghent, 2022.

FIGURE 2

BIQ House, the world's first building powered by algae, Hamburg, Germany, courtesy of Colt International, Arup, SSC GmbH, 2011.

FIGURE 3

The Living Architecture bioreactor ‘wall’ courtesy of the Living Architecture project, 2019.

FIGURE 4

The ALICE installation you see here, is a version of the interface that was exhibited during the Digital Design Week at the Victoria and Albert Museum last year. Courtesy of the ALICE consortium: Ioannis Ieropoulos, Julie Freeman and Rachel Armstrong. ©ALICE, photograph by Julie Freeman.

FIGURE 5

A total of 999 years 13 sqm (the future belongs to ghosts), installation by Rachel Armstrong and Cecile B Evans at the Whitechapel Gallery for the ‘Is This Tomorrow’ group show, Photograph courtesy Rolf Hughes, 2019.

FIGURE 6

MFC toilet structure made from recycled wood, incorporated into a precision gardening unit with robot‐farmed hydroponically grown plants. Concept for Nova Gorica GO! 2025 festival, rendering by Anna Vershinina, 2023.