GrAB - Growing As Building

"GrAB - Growing As Building" takes growth patterns and dynamics from nature and applies them to architecture with the goal of creating a new living architecture. The aim of the project GrAB is to develop architectural concepts for growing structures. Three main directions will be investigated: transfer of abstracted growth principles from nature to architecture, integration of biology into material systems and intervention of biological organisms and concepts with existing architecture. Key issues of investigation will be mechanisms of genetically-controlled and environmentally-informed, self-organised growth in organisms and the differentiation of tissues and materials. Research parameters will include for example size, height, speed and properties like the stiffness or flexibility of structures, which are equally important in living systems and in architecture. The methodology of biomimetic information transfer used will be based on refined methods from previous projects like "Biornametics". Computer simulations re-modelling relevant principles and physical models will be used to understand selected natural phenomena and inform the translation process. Artistic and architectural tools and methods will be jointly used with practices from the natural sciences. A Biolab will provide hands-on experience with growth of organisms. The architectural interest lies in the development of structures in a specific environment following an interaction of elements derived from natural pattern formation. To support the transfer of dynamic, growing structures recent advancements in processing technologies like additive manufacturing systems will be looked at and possibly integrated into design concepts and both analogue and digital models. Scales tackled can include materials (also nanoscale), built elements and structures and urban systems. Apart from architects and artists, scientists from the field of biology, biomimetic and engineering including students will collaborate to develop this project in a holistic way and to supply all the necessary expertise.

Let us imagine a house that grows through biological and technological processes: a house that finds its own site in a self-organised way, that can be used during its growth, adapts to climate, that continues to grow when more space or a stronger structure is needed, that does not produce waste and dissolves when its lifetime ends. The project GrAB - Growing as Building describes this idea through the work of an interdisciplinary team comprising architects, biologists, artists, and mechatronics and robotics engineers. The goal of the project was to research biological growth principles and to create proto-architectural examples for a new, living architecture. Based on architectural visions, role models from nature were strategically investigated. A Biolab served as an experiment platform where team members could work with organisms like slime mould, mushroom mycelium and algae that were cultivated in the search for new solutions for building elements. Principles from nature such as self-organisation, hierarchical order of material over a range of different scales and cyclic metabolic systems were transferred into architectural concepts. To generate adaptive structures new versions of mobile 3D printing were developed. The experiments with slime mould growth in a 3D space grid were applied to an architectural design for the existing structures of Fort Maunsell. The mycelium experiments were targeted to deliver an easy way to generate architectural elements by combining living organisms with waste materials like wood chips, sawdust, straw or paper. 3D printing was developed further by extending the movability of the print head in a 3D space. Cable suspensions were used to control the position of the print head in space and extending the printable area to a few cubic meters. As an overall outcome, the main experiments, prototypes and devices were shown in a public exhibition, and described in a book publication Built to Grow Blending Architecture and Biology (Birkhäuser/ De Gruyter 2015). The book publication extends the project frame with a chapter on 'agency', 'emergence', and 'resilience', a transcribed thematic discourse between experts that contextualises immanent values and ethical aspects of this research in our changing world. The project is the first of its kind to strategically investigate the topic of transfer of biological growth principles to technology, and paves the way for further integration of natural and artificial built environments.