Page 50 - JCAU-5-1

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Microbial technologies: Toward a regenerative architecture

Figure 4. Process diagram of Living Architecture showing the circularity of resource use and environmental compatibility of waste streams (organic sludge
and cleaned/polished water). Source: Courtesy of the Living Architecture project, 2018.

The performance of the biofilms is optimized using activates the microbial commons to enable a domestic
an artificial intelligence that is also powered by the economy that frees the household from its obligate
MFCs, which operates simple mechanical controls that consumption of resources, reducing electricity and utilities
strategically deliver feedstock within the arrays. Enabling bills, while mitigating the amount of untreated waste
the smarter use of electrons, multiple tasks are performed discharged into the environment (Figure 5).
within the apparatus from generating power to providing Interrupting modern technological silos Living
data and enabling a range of metabolic transformations Architecture’s living bricks are suitable for different uptake
as the basis for a circular resource economy established communities within different architectural typologies for
between humans and microbes. Living Architecture’s
circular economy is enabled by its integrated infrastructure, the construction of ecohomes, where the contributions by
where people exchange their waste for cleaned water, all who carry out the work-of-life, are valued through their
bioelectricity, and a range of useful biomolecules, which ecological transactions, turning domestic spaces into sites
are compatible with everyday activities of daily living of wealth generation. Inhabitants now have choices to make
(Figure 4). To facilitate this exchange, the MFC design about how they use their ecological resources to reduce
was optimized to create the possibility of novel formwork their dependency on centralized utilities or help others.
by combining structure and flow by creating electricity- 10. 999 years 13 sqm (the future belongs to
producing building blocks, or “living bricks” (You et al.,
2019). ghosts)
The electrochemical characteristics of three different The original version of Living Architecture could not be
kinds of conventional house bricks were tested from two exposed directly to the public owing to the presence of
source locations. When fed with human urine, European genetically modified organisms, so an alternative wild-type
standard off-the-shelf house bricks generated a maximum microbial experience entitled 999 years 13 sqm (the future
power of 1.2 mW (13.5 mW/m ) , whereas Ugandan belongs to ghosts) was developed for the Is This Tomorrow
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house air bricks produced a maximum power of 2.7 mW exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, in collaboration
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(32.8 mW/m ). The integration of MFCs into buildings with artist Cecile B. Evans (Bevan, 2019) (Figure 6).
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An installation was prefigured as a minimal housing
space (13 sqm) conferred with the longest possible lease
6 m refers to the anode electrode surface area. Depending on (999 years) and powered using the natural biofilms in an
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how the MFCs are configured, the electrode material may
form part of a wall’s reinforcement or insulation (being like array of 15 MFC complexes from the Living Architecture
fibreglass) and so the electrode surface area (in m ) can be project producing ~200 mW/L urine. The only observable
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configured being equivalent to wall/brick surface area. traces of humans were digital manifestations of the human
7 The choice of Ugandan bricks was based on using building past, present and future (ghosts), powered by microbes,
blocks from a Pee Power® field site. highlighting the interdependencies between the species

Volume 5 Issue 1 (2023) 6 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.157