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Designers join scientists to make living architecture a reality

Summary

Scientists and architects are collaborating to create buildings that incorporate living organisms like yeast, fungi, and bacteria to make healthier, more sustainable homes. These living building materials can purify indoor air, self-heal cracks, and even glow to warn of environmental hazards. By combining engineering expertise with artistic design, researchers are developing structures that breathe, adapt, and improve our living spaces while reducing environmental impact.

Background

Living architecture, which incorporates living organisms into built structures, has historical precedent but modern bioengineering now enables sophisticated integration of microbes into building materials. Designers and scientists are collaborating globally to create structures using yeast, bacteria, algae, fungi, plants, and DNA that improve indoor environments and sustainability.

Objective

To demonstrate how collaborative efforts between architectural designers and scientists can develop practical living architecture applications that are both functionally effective and aesthetically pleasing. The projects aim to create healthier living spaces, eco-friendly construction materials, and self-healing building structures.

Results

Successfully created formaldehyde-absorbing yeast tiles with optimized geometries, DNA hydrogels producing fluorescent proteins in ceramic matrices, mycelium-based building materials combining fungi with bacteria for biomineralization, and BioKnit dome structures demonstrating structural robustness and acoustic properties. Public exhibitions showed strong visitor engagement and interest.

Conclusion

Living architecture represents a viable next phase in sustainable building design when designers and scientists collaborate to balance aesthetic appeal with functional performance. Continued development of microbe viability, consumer acceptance, and commercialization strategies are needed to bring living architecture from laboratories into residential and commercial spaces.
  • Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences U S A,
  • Study Type:Review and Case Study,
  • Source: PMID: 40961142, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2522200122
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