All buildings today have something in common. They're made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of workers. All of this effort results in an inert object. And that means that there is a one-way transfer of energy from our environment into our homes and cities. This is not sustainable. I believe that the only way that it is possible for us to construct genuinely sustainable homes and cities is by connecting them to nature, not insulating them from it.
Sve zgrade danas imaju nešto zajedničko. Grade se korištenjem viktorijanske tehnologije. To uključuje nacrte, industrijsku proizvodnju i izgradnju pomoću timova radnika. Svi ti napori rezultiraju inertnim zdanjem. A to znači da postoji jednosmjerni transfer energije iz okoliša u naše domove i gradove. To nije održivo. Vjerujem da je jedini način na koji je moguće graditi istinski održive domove i gradove taj da ih povežemo s prirodom, a ne izoliramo ih od nje.
Now, in order to do this, we need the right kind of language. Living systems are in constant conversation with the natural world, through sets of chemical reactions called metabolism. And this is the conversion of one group of substances into another, either through the production or the absorption of energy. And this is the way in which living materials make the most of their local resources in a sustainable way. So, I'm interested in the use of metabolic materials for the practice of architecture. But they don't exist. So I'm having to make them.
Kako bismo to mogli, treba nam pravi jezik. Živi sustavi su u stalnom razgovoru s prirodnim svijetom, putem nizova kemijskih reakcija koje nazivamo metabolizam. A to je pretvaranje jedne skupine tvari u drugu, bilo putem proizvodnje, bilo putem apsorpcije energije. To je način na koji živi materijali najbolje iskorištavaju lokalne resurse na održiv način. Ja sam zainteresirana za upotrebu metaboličkih materijala u praktičnoj arhitekturi. Ali oni ne postoje. Pa ih moram napraviti.
I'm working with architect Neil Spiller at the Bartlett School of Architecture, and we're collaborating with international scientists in order to generate these new materials from a bottom up approach. That means we're generating them from scratch. One of our collaborators is chemist Martin Hanczyc, and he's really interested in the transition from inert to living matter. Now, that's exactly the kind of process that I'm interested in, when we're thinking about sustainable materials.
Radim s arhitektom Neilom Spillerom na arhitektonskoj školi Bartlett Surađujemo s međunarodnim znanstvenicima kako bismo stvorili te nove materijale u pristupu od dna prema vrhu. To znači da ih stvaramo od nule. Jedan od naših suradnika je kemičar Martin Hanczyc, i on je zaista zainteresiran za tranziciju od inertnih k živim tvarima. A to je upravo onakav proces koji mene zanima, kada razmišljamo o održivim materijalima.
So, Martin, he works with a system called the protocell. Now all this is -- and it's magic -- is a little fatty bag. And it's got a chemical battery in it. And it has no DNA. This little bag is able to conduct itself in a way that can only be described as living. It is able to move around its environment. It can follow chemical gradients. It can undergo complex reactions, some of which are happily architectural. So here we are. These are protocells, patterning their environment. We don't know how they do that yet. Here, this is a protocell, and it's vigorously shedding this skin. Now, this looks like a chemical kind of birth. This is a violent process.
Martin radi sa sustavom zvanim Protostanica (Protocell). To je samo – a to je čarolija -- debela torbica. U sebi ima kemijsku bateriju. Nema DNK. Ova torbica se može ponašati na način koji jedino možemo opisati kao život. Može se kretati u svom okruženju. Može slijediti kemijske gradijente. Prolazi kroz složene reakcije od kojih su neke, na sreću, arhitektonske. Pa, evo nas. Ovo su protostanice, koje odražavaju svoje okružje. Još ne znamo kako to čine. Ovo je protostanica i ona žustro odbacuje svoj omotač. Ovo izgleda kao kemijsko rođenje. To je nasilan proces.
Here, we've got a protocell to extract carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it into carbonate. And that's the shell around that globular fat. They are quite brittle. So you've only got a part of one there. So what we're trying to do is, we're trying to push these technologies towards creating bottom-up construction approaches for architecture, which contrast the current, Victorian, top-down methods which impose structure upon matter. That can't be energetically sensible.
Ovdje imamo protostanicu koja izvlači ugljični dioksid iz atmosfere i pretvara ga u karbonat. A ovo je omotač oko te okrugle masti. Vrlo su krhke. Pa ovdje imate samo dio jedne. Ono što pokušavamo je pogurati te tehnologije prema osmišljavanju pristupa u gradnji od dna prema gore za arhitekturu, koji je suprotan od sadašnjih, viktorijanskih, od vrha prema dolje metoda koje strukturu pretpostavljaju tkivu. To ne može biti energetski razumno.
So, bottom-up materials actually exist today. They've been in use, in architecture, since ancient times. If you walk around the city of Oxford, where we are today, and have a look at the brickwork, which I've enjoyed doing in the last couple of days, you'll actually see that a lot of it is made of limestone. And if you look even closer, you'll see, in that limestone, there are little shells and little skeletons that are piled upon each other. And then they are fossilized over millions of years.
Dakle, materijali za pristup od dna prema vrhu zapravo već postoje. Koriste se, u arhitekturi, od pradavnih vremena. Ako prošetate gradom Oxfordom u kojemu smo danas, i pogledate zidove od cigle, u čemu sam uživala u proteklih nekoliko dana, vidjet ćete da su mnogi izgrađeni od vapnenca. A ako pogledate još pažljivije, vidjet ćete u tom vapnencu male školjke i male kosture naslagane jedan na drugi. A zatim su se fosilizirali tijekom milijuna godina.
Now a block of limestone, in itself, isn't particularly that interesting. It looks beautiful. But imagine what the properties of this limestone block might be if the surfaces were actually in conversation with the atmosphere. Maybe they could extract carbon dioxide. Would it give this block of limestone new properties? Well, most likely it would. It might be able to grow. It might be able to self-repair, and even respond to dramatic changes in the immediate environment.
Komad vapnenca, sam po sebi i nije posebno zanimljiv. Izgleda prekrasno. Ali zamislite kakve bi karakteristike tog vapnenca mogle biti kad bi površina zaista razgovarala s atmosferom. Možda bi mogao izvlačiti ugljični dioksid. Bi li to komadu vapnenca dalo nova obilježja? Pa, najvjerojatnije bi. Mogao bi biti u stanju rasti. Mogao bi se sam popravljati, pa čak i odgovoriti na dramatične promjene u neposrednom okružju.
So, architects are never happy with just one block of an interesting material. They think big. Okay? So when we think about scaling up metabolic materials, we can start thinking about ecological interventions like repair of atolls, or reclamation of parts of a city that are damaged by water. So, one of these examples would of course be the historic city of Venice. Now, Venice, as you know, has a tempestuous relationship with the sea, and is built upon wooden piles. So we've devised a way by which it may be possible for the protocell technology that we're working with to sustainably reclaim Venice. And architect Christian Kerrigan has come up with a series of designs that show us how it may be possible to actually grow a limestone reef underneath the city.
Arhitekti nikada nisu sretni samo s jednim blokom zanimljivog materijala. Oni razmišljaju na veliko. OK? Pa, kad razmišljamo o povećanju metaboličkih materijala, možemo početi misliti o ekološkim intervencijama poput popravljanja atola, ili vraćanju dijelova grada koji su oštećeni vodom. Jedan od takvih primjera bi, naravno, bio povijesni grad Venecija. Venecija, kao što znate, ima olujni odnos s morem, i izgrađena je na drvenim stupovima. Pa smo izumili način na koji je možda moguće da protostanična tehnologija s kojom radimo održivo povrati Veneciju. Arhitekt Christian Kerrigan je napravio niz nacrta koji nam pokazuju kako bi moglo biti moguće izgraditi greben vapnenca ispod grada.
So, here is the technology we have today. This is our protocell technology, effectively making a shell, like its limestone forefathers, and depositing it in a very complex environment, against natural materials. We're looking at crystal lattices to see the bonding process in this. Now, this is the very interesting part. We don't just want limestone dumped everywhere in all the pretty canals. What we need it to do is to be creatively crafted around the wooden piles.
Dakle, to je tehnologija koju danas imamo. Ovo je naša protostanična tehnologija, koja učinkovito gradi omotač poput svojih vapnenačkih predaka, i odlaže ga u vrlo složenom okružju, uz prirodne materijale. Promatramo kristalnu strukturu da vidimo proces spajanja. Ovo je vrlo zanimljiv dio. Ne želimo samo istovariti vapnenac posvuda u te lijepe kanale. Ono što želimo je da bude kreativno oblikovan oko drvenih stupova.
So, you can see from these diagrams that the protocell is actually moving away from the light, toward the dark foundations. We've observed this in the laboratory. The protocells can actually move away from the light. They can actually also move towards the light. You have to just choose your species. So that these don't just exist as one entity, we kind of chemically engineer them. And so here the protocells are depositing their limestone very specifically, around the foundations of Venice, effectively petrifying it.
Na ovim dijagramima vidite da se protostanica zapravo odmiče od svjetla, prema temeljima u tami. Promatrali smo to u laboratoriju. Protostanice se doista mogu odmicati od svjetla. A mogu se isto tako i micati prema svjetlu. Samo morate odabrati vrstu. Tako da one ne postoje u samo jednom obliku, mi ih kemijski izrađujemo. Pa ovdje protostanice odlažu vapnenac vrlo precizno, oko temelja Venecije, učinkovito ih okamenjujući.
Now, this isn't going to happen tomorrow. It's going to take a while. It's going to take years of tuning and monitoring this technology in order for us to become ready to test it out in a case-by-case basis on the most damaged and stressed buildings within the city of Venice. But gradually, as the buildings are repaired, we will see the accretion of a limestone reef beneath the city. An accretion itself is a huge sink of carbon dioxide. Also it will attract the local marine ecology, who will find their own ecological niches within this architecture.
Sad, ovo se neće dogoditi sutra. Trebat će neko vrijeme. Trebat će godine prilagođavanja i promatranja ove tehnologije kako bismo postali spremni testirati je na slučajevima najoštećenijih i najviše pogođenih zgrada u Veneciji. Ali postupno, kako zgrade budu popravljane, vidjet ćemo okrupnjavanje vapnenačkog grebena ispod grada. Takav greben je ogromni slivnik ugljičnog dioksida. A privući će i lokalnu morsku ekologiju, koja će pronaći vlastite ekološke niše u ovoj arhitekturi.
So, this is really interesting. Now we have an architecture that connects a city to the natural world in a very direct and immediate way. But perhaps the most exciting thing about it is that the driver of this technology is available everywhere. This is terrestrial chemistry. We've all got it, which means that this technology is just as appropriate for developing countries as it is for First World countries. So, in summary, I'm generating metabolic materials as a counterpoise to Victorian technologies, and building architectures from a bottom-up approach.
Dakle, ovo je doista zanimljivo. Sad imamo arhitekturu koja povezuje grad s prirodnim svijetom na vrlo izravan i neposredan način. No, možda je najuzbudljivija stvar u vezi toga ta da je osnova ove tehnologije dostupna svuda. Ovo je zemaljska kemija. Svi je imamo. Što znači da je ta tehnologija jednako prikladna za zemlje u razvoju kao što je i za zemlje Prvog svijeta. Dakle, u sažetku, stvaram metaboličke materijale kao suprotnost viktorijanskoj tehnologiji, i gradim arhitektonskim pristupom od dna prema vrhu.
Secondly, these metabolic materials have some of the properties of living systems, which means they can perform in similar ways. They can expect to have a lot of forms and functions within the practice of architecture. And finally, an observer in the future marveling at a beautiful structure in the environment may find it almost impossible to tell whether this structure has been created by a natural process or an artificial one. Thank you. (Applause)
Drugo, ti metabolički materijali imaju neke osobine živih sustava, što znači da se ponašaju na slične načine. Mogu se očekivati mnogi oblici i funkcije u okviru praktične arhitekture. Konačno, promatrač u budućnosti koji bi se divio prekrasnim strukturama u okolišu, mogao bi otkriti da je gotovo nemoguće reći je li određena struktura stvorena prirodnim ili umjetnim procesom. Hvala vam. (Pljesak)