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The advent of nanotechnology enables us

to scrutinise biological particles and

processes at a scale never realised before.

Rachel Armstrong looks at nanoparticles’

relationship to biological processes and

the subsequent implications for the

development of new responsive materials

for architectural design.

Anders Christiansen, Homeostatic Membrane, 2008Homeostasis is the physiological process by which theinternal system of architecture (humidity, temperature,acid-base balance) is maintained at equilibrium, despitevariations in the external conditions. The homeostaticmembrane acts as the overlap between the externalconditions and internal requirements of a building. Drawingon current research in the fields of bioengineering andnanotechnology, it hosts a biosynthetic ecology of biologicalmatter and technological mechanisms. This includes vesselsof biological matter, flexible tissue, vent corridors, dynamicprobes and a ‘vascular’ system connecting the vessels,along with a responsive field of detectors and actuators,such as water collection/purification systems, micro algaebioreactors and photovoltaic cells that are assimilated inthe very ‘flesh’ of the Homeostatic Membrane.

At the start of the 21st century we are in a unique position with respectto the available technologies to evaluate biological processes with scrutinynever encountered before, and understand them from a bottom-upapproach that revolutionises the future potential of architectural design.New visualisation techniques, such as the revolutionary atomic forcemicroscope, allow us to study molecules that exist at a few billionths ofa metre. This is the nanoscopic level, which has eluded scrutiny untilrecently since its scale exists at the wavelengths of visible light andcannot be seen using traditional visualisation techniques.

In 1959 the prophetic Richard Feynman proposed that we couldarrange atoms in most of the ways permitted by physical law;1 and 27years later K Eric Drexler fleshed out this vision when he publishedEngines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, in which hetook inspiration from biological systems to predict the engineering ofmolecular-scale machines, termed molecular assemblers, that couldprecisely manipulate and assemble atoms, to create minuscule robotsthat could carry out industrial-scale functions.2

Intriguingly, at the nanoscopic scale, molecules exhibit surprisingproperties as their unique size influences their behaviour, and materialsexhibiting these characteristics are called metamaterials.DaimlerChrysler is working on a new generation of thermoplastics thathave been modified by the addition of nanoparticles in amanufacturing process that promises to revolutionise vehiclemanufacture and defy traditional Newtonian models of behaviour.3

Atoms, on the other hand, obey their own physical laws that inhabit thestrange world of quantum physics. Uniquely, molecules that lie withinthe nanometre range possess intermediate properties that are almostimpossible to predict. For example, the traditionally inert element goldbecomes a catalyst, while changing the size of a particle can alter itscolour and electrical resistance unexpectedly.

Nanotechnology can even be employed to improve upon themetamaterials of the natural world to create enhanced, biodegradablewoods and foam. Lars Berglund is leading the Biomime project whereresearchers harvest different types of nanocomposites such as woodand cellulose to improve on their natural properties to make high-performance films, foam and aerogels.4

The field of plasmonics is a fascinating area of nanotechnologicalresearch where optical signals are transmitted through minusculestructures and can render objects invisible. In 2006, John B Pendryof Imperial College London and his colleagues demonstratedtheoretically that a shell of plasmonic metamaterials with uniqueoptical properties could reroute electromagnetic waves travellingthrough it, thus creating a cloaking device.5

It is also possible to combine biological and artificial molecules tocreate new functional devices at the nano-scale level. Carlo DMontemagno of the University of Cincinnati created an 11-nanometrerotary motor from a bacterial protein and a metallic nanorod that waspowered by adenosine triphosphate, the source of chemical energy incells, and rotated eight times a second.6 Jim Tour, Chao Professor ofChemistry and director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory atRice University’s Richard E Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science andTechnology, took the concept of a molecular engine one step further

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and created a motorised NanoCar that was powered by light,7 using amodified version of a molecular rotating motor originally designed byBen L Feringa at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.8

Nanocars and other synthetic transporters may yet prove to be asuitable alternative or additional tool for bottom-up systems wherebiological methods are not practical to move objects in a controlledfashion on a molecular scale. Nanovehicles could ultimately beincorporated into biological systems to create radically new ways formanipulating biological materials in architectural practice, so thatdesigner organic and inorganic molecules will be able to work together.

Even more radical biocompatible designs have been investigated byNadrian Seeman at New York University, and others who have shownhow the self-assembly properties of DNA can be used to create quitecomplicated nano-scale structures.9 DNA has proven to be aparticularly versatile molecule, especially since its computing powercan be tapped to create tiny machines that can speak directly to livingcells. The Seeman Research Group at Austin has created scaffoldingon which to assemble designer drugs and DNA machines with movingparts such as nanomechanical sensors, switches and tweezers, whichcan also be used for more complex robotic functions using techniquesthat were able to exert precision control of the DNA molecule.

Nanotechnology offers architects the possibility of creating aresponsive interface between the interior and exterior of cellscreating the infrastructure upon which truly responsive architecturalinterfaces may be produced. Homeostatic Membrane by AndersChristiansen, a diploma student of Unit 20 at the Bartlett School ofArchitecture, is a dynamic architecture that draws upon nanoscaleengineering and biotechnology, setting the scene for the developmentof a truly integrated ecological design.

Functional integration with inorganic nanotechnology and thebiological world has already been achieved by Charles Lieber, aprofessor of chemistry at Harvard University, who used a bottom-upapproach for the mass fabrication of integrated assemblies between ratcortical neurones and nanowires.10 The device was capable ofbidirectional communication and could control the electrical activity ofthe cells. The hybrid design is even more interesting than its originalbiological derivative, since its artificial synapses are the first stepstowards building a biocompatible artificial brain.

The SymbioticA Research Group (SARG), an Australian art sciencecollective involving a collaboration between Guy Ben-Ary, PhilipGamblen, Oron Catts and Stuart Bunt, has taken this integration ofartificial with biological interfaces a step further. Their project MEART– The Semi Living Artist (MEART, which stands for ‘multi-electrode andart’, is an entity described by its creators as a ‘geographicallydetached, bio-cybernetic research and development project exploringaspects of creativity and artistry in the age of new biologicaltechnologies’), in collaboration with the Steve Potter Lab, is made fromliving biological matter, mechanics and electronics, and has been givensensors using a motion-capture system and motor system that operatesthrough a robotic arm and is capable of producing observablebehaviour in the form of automated drawings.11

SymbioticA Research Group in collaboration with the Steve PotterLab, MEART – The Semi Living Artist, ‘ArtBots: The Robot TalentShow’, Eyebeam Gallery, New York, 2003The robotic arm is here seen creating drawings on paper. With its‘brain’ (dissociated rat neurons grown in culture) growing in StevePotter’s lab in Atlanta, and its body installed at the Eyebeam Gallery inNew York, the two interacted through the Internet (TCP/IP) in real time.

A dynamic feedback system was created using a webcam (the eye ofMEART) that captured portraits of viewers within the gallery space.These images were then converted into a stimulation map and used tostimulate the neurons (this was the beginning of the drawingprocess). A multi-channel electrophysiological recording from aneuronal culture (MEART’s ‘brain’) was performed at the Steve PotterLab, and the resulting data sets were processed in two locations:Atlanta and the Eyebeam Gallery. The processed outcome was used tocontrol and move the drawing arm, and the progress of the drawingwas monitored and compared with the original portrait. The differencebetween the original portrait and the progressing drawing was thensent back to the lab as another stimulation map to complete thefeedback loop, the whole process continuing until a threshold ofmarks on paper was passed which signified the end of a drawing.

The system’s neurons were cultured over 64 electrodes fitted on aglass substrate (multi-electrode array – MEA). These electrodes pickedup 60 channels of activity from the neurons. The data received fromthe neural activity was processed both in Atlanta and New York tocontrol the robotic (drawing) arm in real time.

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The future implications for architecture in terms of nano-scalemodifications to living processes are exciting in that they will form thebasis of designer-led, genuinely responsive materials with innovativeproperties that will have a broad range of applications in ourexperience of the built environment. 4

Notes1. Richard Feynman’s original lecture ’There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom’ can be found at www.its.caltech.edu/~feynman/plenty.htm.2. K Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, Anchor Books(New York), 1986.3. Daimler Chrysler, ‘DaimlerChrysler, suppliers invent recyclable thermoplastic’. Seehttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3381/is_199912/ai_n81224274. For more on Lars Berglund’s Biomime project, seehttp://www.biomime.org/archive/june_eng.pdf.5. For more on John B Pendry’s Invisibility Cloak Technology, seehttp://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/3076.6. For more on Carlo D Montemagno’s bacterial protein motor and rod, seehttp://www.springerlink.com/content/x517602072016u67/.7. For more on Jim Tour’s NanoCar, see http://www.21stcentury.co.uk/cars/nano-car.asp.8. For more on Ben L Feringa’s molecular rotating motor, seehttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7081/full/440163a.html.9. For more on Nadrian Seeman’s flexible DNA experiments, seehttp://lib.bioinfo.pl/auth:Seeman,NC.10. For more about the functional integration between inorganic nanotechnology and thebiological world, see ‘Neuron forms links with silicon nanowires’ athttp://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn9838.11. TC&A’s MEART project can be found at http://www.fishandchips.uwa.edu.au/.

Text © 2008 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 86-7 © Anders Christiansen; p 88(t), 89© Guy Ben-Ary, photos Phil Gamben; p 88(c) © Guy Ben-Ary, photo Dr Steve Potter; p88(b) © Guy Ben-Ary, photo SARG and the Potter Lab

MEART – The Semi Living Artist, ‘Australian Culture Now’, AustralianCentre for Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne, Australia, 2004The Melbourne installation used a control paradigm based onpopulation vector algorithms. This uses information from all areas inthe neurons, even those that show a weak response to the stimulus.The robotic arms are drawing, and behind them is a computer screenshowing a photo of a man’s face, a pixellated black-and-white image,a scrolling text box and some graphs. The only other item on the tableis a camera that looks down over the arms at the picture they aredrawing. A large screen on the wall behind the table shows a graph,a representation that looks like a glacial landscape.

Position sensors were integrated into the robotic arm for theMelbourne exhibition to further improve the control system. Thesensors communicated with the software through a microcontrollersystem to make the positioning of the arm more accurate than before.

MEART – The Semi Living Artist, ‘Biofeel: A New Breed of Artist’, PerthInstitute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, Australia, 2002The MEART robotic arm drawing as part of the Biennale for Electronic ArtsPerth. In this performance the robot became a geographically detached artist,its ‘brain’ and ‘body’ interacting through the Internet (TCP/IP) in real time.

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