Living Architecture: How Synthetic Biology Can Remake Our Cities and Reshape Our Lives (Kindle Single) (TED Books) [Kindle Edition]

Rachel Armstrong (Author)

Book Description

What will the city of the future look like? More like an ever-changing and vibrant garden than a static set of buildings and blocks. In 'Living Architecture,' British scientist and architect Rachel Armstrong re-imagines the world’s extensive urban areas and argues that in order to achieve sustainable development of the built environment — and help countries like Japan recover from natural disasters — we need to start thinking differently. Armstrong sets the scene for considering different ways of making structures and materials, suggesting that we can ‘grow’ more ecologically compatible buildings by using life-like technologies, such as protocells. The result is a new kind of architectural practice where cities behave more like an evolving ecosystem than lifeless machines.

Product Details

• File Size: 297 KB
• Print Length: 51 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0076QQJMY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,489 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #24 in Kindle Store > Kindle Singles > The Sciences
  • #36 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Biological Sciences > Biotechnology
  • #36 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Biotechnology

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars What if? A vision to reclaim and reshape the way we design and build February 12, 2012

By Rett01 TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Villagers in remote Cherrapunji India build footbridges by training root tendrils from trees that are members of the banyan family to span rocky gullies and gorges. The living bridges can reach 30 meters. They're permanent and strong enough for 50 people to cross at a time.

The root bridges of Cherrapunji are a primitive example of living architecture, using nature and bio-mechanisms to design and build without relying on traditional industrial, machine-manufactured processes. Living architecture offers a bold, futuristic vision that sounds like science fiction but according to the author is a fresh idea that despite many challenges is eminently workable, and represents a practical way to reclaim and sustain our environment.

"Living Architecture" is Armstrong's blueprint for attaining that new, audacious vision.

In order to grasp the concept of living architecture, you need to understand "protocells," which are the building blocks of the new living materials and methodologies that might supplement and even supplant existing design and manufacturing methods.

Protocells are not living molecules. They don't contain DNA and can't reproduce. But they can be "created" by combining natural chemicals and substances (oil mixed with an alkaline solution, for example) and they do have properties such as the ability to organize themselves into microstructures. They exhibit behaviors such as movement and sensitivity to biological or chemical elements and light, for example.

In a big "What-If" Armstrong asks what if we could employ to protocell principles to stabilize one of the "most ferociously unstable" places on the planet - Venice, which is crumbling from the corrosive effects of being assaulted for three centuries by the forces of nature....

Armstrong suggests using protocell technology to shape the natural processes taking place in Venice to reclaim the ancient city-state. It is theoretically and most likely practically possible to mix up a protocell stew using natural agents that would be used to grow a vast limestone reef that would serve as a permanent foundation to support the city. Light-sensitive protocell colonies could be created to gradually petrify the wooden pilings, which would then slow the city from sinking into the soft mud on which it sits.

Using Venice as an example is one of the more easy to understand explanations of how living architecture might reclaim and reshape our world and offer a new paradigm for how we think about the way we design and build. It's one of many examples Armstrong calls upon in her T.E.D. essay.

This is by no means an easy read. It feels as if she's presenting at a conference, lecturing to colleagues who know exactly what's she's talking about. But just because it's a slog doesn't mean it's not worth the time. It's a provocative essay that causes you to pause and think: what if what Armstrong presents as a new vision might actually be realized. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars On Living Architecture February 8, 2012

By Ben

Format:Kindle Edition

Living Architecture was written in the wake of the recent devastating Japanese tsunami and reflects on some of the architectural practices that underpin modern urban development. It asks the question 'why do we, as living creatures inhabit things that are not alive?' and sets the scene for fundamentally different ways of making structures and materials. New possibilities are discussed in the context of recent scientific developments. `Living technology' is a set of new technologies whose performance lies somewhere between machines and biology. As such, they blur the distinction between living and non-living processes as well as challenge the separation assumed to exist between a building and its natural environment. Living Architecture proposes a new relationship for urban development where people work in concert with and orchestrate the forces of nature using living technology to create new architectural outcomes. The proposed approaches are compatible with ecologically engaged practices such as, Panarchy, Permaculture and Biomimicry and takes a multi-systems view of Living Architecture at many scales of operation ranging from the micro scale, to the city. Living Architecture is at an early stage of development but its speculative approach is based on real world experiments, which are also discussed in this book. Additionally Living Architecture reflects on a possible alternative scenario for the devastated Sendai coastal region should the potential of living architecture be fulfilled, which takes the form of a short science fiction story.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Living Architecture - the next revolution in making February 7, 2012

By Ben

Format:Kindle Edition

Living Architecture has a mission - to set the scene for fundamentally different ways of making structures and materials. The aim is to `grow' more ecologically compatible buildings by using life-like technologies. The result is a new kind of architectural practice where cities behave more like an ecosystems than machines. Living Architecture was written in the wake of the recent devastating Japanese tsunami and asks 'why do we, as living creatures inhabit things that are not alive?'.

3.0 out of 5 stars Building the cities of the future April 6, 2013

By Dave Versace

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Interesting if somewhat speculative discussion of how synthetic biology (primarily protocells, chemically programmable systems that respond to changes in their environment in potentially useful ways). There are some compelling ideas here, such as the idea of chemically petrifying the woodpiles currently supporting Venice to create an artificial limestone reef more capable of distributing the load of the city. But I can't see that the author makes much of a case for how the proposed technology will become ubiquitous. It might be the political wonk in me, but I can see an awful lot of hurdles - social, legislative, financial and environmental, for a start - that would have to be overcome. What I can't see from this discussion is a convincing path to the tsunami-resistant Japan of 2060 described in the final chapter.

5.0 out of 5 stars All Hope, applied practically and without arrogance February 20, 2013

By Jessica Pugh

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a brilliant presentation of where our society ought to be headed in the wake of an ever changing world. The ideas, are presented logically and provide a clear course for the future. I recommend this read for anyone with a passion for inspiration, architecture and or science.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read. November 19, 2012

By Twiddledidlydum

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Great primer to what can be done with architecture, and where building technology should go. I especially enjoyed the futuristic description of what the human-built environment could function as, during disasters (such as the tsunami in Japan).