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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Regenerative algal futures

This, however, can be overcome with system overrides 2018). However, detailed and rigorously researched the
as well as manual and autonomous technologies, which problems of the planet are, practical solutions relating to
enable a smooth flow of algal broth within a system. the source of the problems are rarely addressed. There
Incorporating photosynthesis in such a system would needs to be an affirmative, radical, and catalytic response
explicate air revitalization as well as thermal control into a to the results of the huge amount of research that has been
common system (Matula & Nabity, 2019). Matula goes on undertaken. Moreover, one might consider in this decade
to suggest that more research is needed in terms of algal of the 2020s that there is an urgent need for a novel form of
cultures responding to thermal and gravitational conditions architecture, responding to the effects of disease, pollution,
in low Earth orbit relating to oxygenic production. and anthropogenic atmospheres. A critical posthuman
The analysis, failures, and successes of the previous architectural solution will be necessary for human and
experiments with microalgae are used as aids to assess and nonhuman survival.
innovate bioregenerative life support in photobioreactor In the 1960s, design group Archigram’s work was
systems, allowing Matula to evaluate feasibility factors of created at a time when architects were fascinated with the
photobioreactor systems being used for future planetary futurist aesthetics of the Moon Landing and the notion of
inhabitation (Matula & Nabity, 2019). On Earth, finding astronauts in space. Archigram took these inspirations and
solutions to carbon dioxide concentration, and for areas merged them with their desire to make cities mobile. They
requiring air revitalization in dystopian environments, looked at standardized minimum spaces, creating new and
photobioreactor research is crucial, as it could potentially “futurist aesthetics,” enabling mobility through design, and
prove to be a mitigation method for planetary damage. juxtaposed it with large-scale modernist architecture. The
Tobias Niederwieser, the Research Associate at BioServe work they produced was experimental, neo-futurist and
Space technologies USA, asserts: took inspiration from technological advances, imagining
Through new innovative designs, biology and speculative worlds and scenarios through their collage
engineering can exist in symbiosis that benefits design and pamphlets. The group experimented with
both sides. In addition, while this technology consumerist imagery, modular machinery, mobility, and
development is tailored for spaceflight life support neo-futurist space capsules.
systems that might 1 day allow us to travel to and Archigram conceptualized modular systems for
live on Mars and beyond, it might also help us to potential ways of living and was followed by the
make life on Earth more sustainable by reducing architectures emerging from the Existenzminimum
the carbon dioxide concentration (Niederwieser, concept (see The Capsule Hotel by Kisho Kurokawa in
2018). Tokyo, completed 1972). Archigram and their futuristic
Niederwieser’s concluding statement for his doctoral thesis visions, designs, imaginings, and aesthetics set precedents
is significant for the future implications of life on Earth and for for what could be imagined and achievable in terms of
future life beyond low Earth orbit. Future advanced life support designing for Anthropocene and “bare life” type scenarios.
systems would be necessary for multiplanetary and interstellar
travel (Volponi & Lasseur, 2020). Similarly, Zheng et al. (2008) 4. The Biospherians
assert that Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) would There have been many experiments carried out over long
radically improve living conditions in terms of working BLSS durations of time related to bioregenerative systems and
being placed on space stations, enabling potential inhabitation considered as failures. Biosphere 2 (1991) was a large-
on the Moon and Mars, also furthering the uses in transport scale vivarium which covered an area of 3.14 acres of
vehicles relating to Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) on the the American land, designed as a futurist pneumatic
lunar and Martian surfaces (Dempster et al., 2004). It is architecture. The reason for calling the project Biosphere 2
crucial to reflect this back to Earth, as conditions on Earth are was that planet Earth itself is perceived as Biosphere 1. The
imminently changing and environments where you will not biospheric architecture housed a “complete ecosystem”
be able to breathe are becoming inevitably uninhabitable due and set out to test the possibilities of how humankind
to the harsh and radical changes in the environment. It is in could potentially survive for long durations in outer
this context that algal photobioreactor research can be seen as space. The biosphere was made up of seven types of
existentially fundamental. biome areas, including a rainforest, ocean, coral reef,
mangrove, wetlands, fog desert, and many other individual
3. Environmental immunology
experimental habitats. The original crew had been inspired
The demise of the planet is predicted by many thinkers, by the books Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson and
scientists, and writers (Bostrom, 2019; Lewis & Maslin, Mount Analogue (1952) by Rene Daumal, and Operating

Volume 5 Issue 3 (2023) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.179