Paper · 2021
Eco.Green.System
- Type
- Paper
- Course
- Future Sustainability
- Term
- Summer term 2021
- University
- RWTH Aachen
- Unit
- Bauplan Teaching and Research Unit
- Topics
- Cybernetic principle, biodigital architecture, modular façade system
A modular façade system with microalgae in glass tubes: it captures CO₂ from city air, releases oxygen outside and into the building, and yields biomass for fuel, bioplastics and food.
Cities consume about 80 per cent of the world’s energy and cause more than 70 per cent of its CO₂ emissions, and they keep growing. The paper shows one way to process these emissions in the city itself, namely through the façades of buildings.
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Two ideas carry the design. The cybernetic principle understands architecture as a responsive machine that keeps adapting and improving through feedback. Biodigital architecture, grounded in theory in the work of Alberto T. Estévez and in practice in the projects of ecoLogicStudio in London, joins microbiology and design, so that people and microorganisms coexist in the city.
At the centre are microalgae in serpentine glass tubes, six per module. They take up CO₂ from the air and, with sunlight, form oxygen and biomass. Sensors monitor the façade and its surroundings, and an algorithm with AI controls what is fed in and drawn off and how concentrated the microorganisms in the liquid are.
