This compelling structure is an example of biomimetic architecture – architecture that mimics biological structures and/or functions. It is part of a project called Metabolic Media whose structures model the molecular structures and energy metabolism in living cells. It’s a design collaboration between Nobel scientist Sir John. E. Walker, who won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work on cell metabolism and ATP, and designer Rachel Wingfield, a Research Fellow at Central Saint Martin’s in London and a member of the very cool Loop.ph Design Research Studio. The piece was commissioned for an exhibition at the ICA called Nobel Textiles in which textile designers were teamed up with Nobel scientists. Metabolic Media’s energy-producing “textile,” which can easily be wrapped around large or small architectural structures, is not only environmentally promising, it’s visually interesting. Below: autonomous structures powered by the sun:
One of the exciting developments of [Metabolic Media] has been the outcome of a collaboration with Risø DTU, the National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy in Denmark. We have been working with printed, organic solar cells based on the work by Dr. Frederik Krebs, Senior Researcher and Torben Damgaard Nielsen, Innovation Pilot. Large tensile surfaces and building facades could be used to harness the sun’s energy and turn it into electrical energy using flexible printed photovoltaics (solar cells)… Woven and modular architectural structures provide a lightweight solution for growing food plants in small spaces without soil [via] geotextile structures and solar cells designed to charge the batteries of a fueling pump system that feeds and monitors the network of plants by misting the roots with nutrient rich solution.
