Bringing Gaudi’s World to Life with Synthetic Biology

How bioechnology can transform architecture

Last week I wrote about the incredible properties of compressed mycelium materials, which can serve as a very believable leather alternative. Beyond leather, mushrooms can be used for making meat alternatives, medicines, as well as packaging and building materials. Today, I’m doing a deep dive into how synthetic biology is reshaping construction materials and architectural design.

When I traveled to Spain in 2011, it was primarily for one reason: to see with my own eyes the incredible architecture of Gaudi.

I was studying in Florence at the time, appreciating the architectural masterpieces of the Renaissance and writing a thesis on the revival of classical proportions. My father was an architect and I grew up looking at models of miniature cathedrals meticulously glued together from tiny polystyrene blocks. The design of these churches was guided by mathematical principles and strict rules of symmetry to evoke divine intelligence. However, I’ve always gravitated more towards natural organic shapes.

Using nature-inspired forms in buildings is called biomimetic architecture. Gaudi was the first of the modern architects who embraced that concept. His buildings feature spiral staircases, honeycomb gates, dragon-scale roofs, diatom-shaped windows and columns that look like trees and bones. Walking around Barcelona, one can casually spot these alien-looking, serpentine houses. The pinnacle of Gaudi’s creative genius, however, is the basilica of Sagrada Familia.

Despite the fact that he was a deeply religious man, Gaudi did not design his masterpiece according to the sacral architectural canon. His inspiration—his true religion—was Nature. According to the master himself, “Originality is returning to the origin”. This philosophy is evident in the design of the basilica, where he liberally incorporated shapes from the natural world, both in structural and ornamental ways.

The man was ahead of his time. It took an additional half a century for us to start thinking about incorporating the ingenuity of biology into our industries and economy. Arguably, we needed to make some technological advances in biotechnology and synthetic biology first. But this shift towards a more sustainable, nature-inspired way of living, requires more than just technological progress. It requires imagination. It requires creativity. And sometimes, it takes visionary artists to inspire scientific breakthroughs.

From studio to lab

As I was working on my last week’s blog about mushroom leather, I learned about Phil Ross, the co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of MycoWorks, a synthetic biology company making mycelium materials. Ross is neither a synthetic biologist nor a mycologist. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he was an artist, and his first introduction to the magical world of mushrooms was—as for many of us—via cooking them. However, an artist’s gaze made him look at mushrooms differently than either chefs or scientists do.

Instead of focusing on the flavor or medicinal compounds, cells or DNA, he saw mushrooms in their physical form and was fascinated by that form. He studied the intricate undulating shapes of the reishi mushroom, how it changed its shape, color and thickness in response to varying amounts of light, moisture and nutrients. He began growing reishi himself with the curiosity of a scientist, observing and documenting through drawings and watercolors how the organism, “records what it experiences” in its physical manifestation.

Growing mushrooms into different shapes became his obsession. One of the first mushroom objects he created was a chair. A monolithic piece of furniture GROWN to its final form, with all its biological uniqueness and imperfections. Ross worked with a Japanese designer to equip the shroom stool (shtool?) with legs made out of reclaimed wood. Then he had an idea: if he could grow furniture, why not grow everything, including the houses themselves?

From lab to the real world

The body of the mushroom is like the tip of the iceberg: underneath the surface, there is a sprawling network of the mushroom root system, mycelium, that can be grown into almost any shape. All it needs is some sawdust—and luckily, we have plenty of that. Sawdust waste is actually a big problem: it can’t be burned and takes a long time to degrade. Enormous piles of it will just sit there, rotting and releasing toxins from black mold.

Incredibly, mycelium breaks down the sawdust and from it creates a protein structure called chitin, the same material that makes the shells of shrimp and crabs. It can be grown into bricks, insulation panels, and packaging materials, which is what a company called Ecovative is doing. Mycelium materials are waterproof, fire-resistant, non-toxic and biodegradable. They can even stop a bullet.

To put mushroom bricks to the test, in 2014, a group of young architects constructed a 40-foot-high mushroom brick tower outside the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The structure was designed by architect David Benjamin of The Living Design Studio and it carries a similar organic, nature-inspired quality as Gaudi’s architectural shapes. The question is: it is practical to build things from mushrooms on a real-world scale?

For centuries, we’ve been building everything from biological materials like wood, wicker, straw, cork and leather. Today, we are coming back to this idea but from the height of experience, having raised our expectations about what buildings should look like, what structural characteristics they should have, and with added challenge of meeting those specifications in a sustainable manner. While mycelium bricks make great insulation panels and furniture, they cannot support a lot of weight.

To solve this shortcoming, Blast Studio is using structural engineering principles to create load-bearing mushroom shapes. Using computer-aided design, the firm has calculated and 3D printed an optimal column configuration to retain moisture and create an ideal climate for mushroom growth. Once solidified, this two-meter-high column has a similar structural capacity to medium-density fiberboard, which means it can replace concrete in small buildings. 

For larger buildings though, concrete remains our best option. Unfortunately, concrete production is pretty dirty: the material is responsible for around 9% of global CO2 emissions, according to recent estimates. One way to reduce its environmental impact is to use self-healing concrete created by embedding microbes in the structure. These microbes convert CO2 into limestone crystals and seal the cracks the same way cement does.  

The production of cement itself is in large part responsible for the environmental footprint of concrete. To change that, a North Carolina biotech startup BioMason is producing what they call “biocement”. The process uses live microbes that create limestone crystals without releasing CO2, nor requiring heating or chemicals. It can even be done underwater using consortia of self-sustaining natural marine microorganisms.

But what if instead of replacing existing materials, we imagine completely new ways of building? This is what the startup Pneuma Bio has set out to do. They are making living materials with embedded microalgae cells that can sequester CO2. They can be made into fabrics, construction materials and even paint that covers our buildings.

The idea of using algae in architecture was applied to create a building that emits oxygen and generates electricity. The algae-laced building in Hamburg, Germany was completed back in 2013. Its surface features transparent panels filled with water and pumped with nutrients and carbon dioxide for the algae to grow. Not only does it give the building a beautiful green color, but the algae also absorbs almost twice its weight in CO2 and generates electricity for the entire building.

From real-world to imaginary architectures

When Gaudi dreamed up the design of Sagrada Familia, he was driven by an unstoppable vision. Unfortunately, he never managed to complete his ambitious project, and the monumental cathedral has remained unfinished for nearly a hundred years since his death. His design was so complex, that engineers and architects could not calculate the shapes of the structures that would support it. Even the computer-aided design (CAD) programs used for most architectural projects were not powerful enough to deal with the complexity of Sagrada Familia.

It was not until we made reasonable progress in computing and 3D printing that the construction of this monumental art piece was resumed again. The building is scheduled to be finished by 2026, on the hundredth anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

I find a striking similarity between architecture, which is the blending of art and engineering, and synthetic biology, the intricate dance of nature and science. Some synbio ideas may appear far-fetched today, the same way many ambitious architectural projects were conceived without the knowledge of how to technically execute them.

But to me, it’s not about the “how”. It’s about daring to dream up a different world. With time, the technologies will be developed. But we need visionaries today to drive their development, to inspire us—and to give us hope for a sustainable future.