Our vision is to develop biotechnologies to create a new generation of Living Buildings which are responsive to their natural environment; grown using living engineered materials to reduce inefficient industrial construction processes; metabolise their own waste, reducing pollution, generate energy and high-value products and modulate their microbiome to benefit human health and wellbeing. To achieve this, we are building the world’s first research Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment (HBBE).
The Hub combines two research clusters: Architectural Design at Newcastle University and Biotechnology at Northumbria University. Our initial expansion will include recruiting more than 30 new members of staff across a range of fields from Architectural Design to BioEngineering and we are aiming to create a grouping of more than 80 researchers by the end of 2022/23. Three new research facilities will integrate our research: the Micro Bio-Design Lab, the Macro Bio-Design Lab and a unique Experimental ‘Living’ House, ‘The OME’.
We want to make the UK a leader in this new transdisciplinary field by creating a research hub capable of creatively designing and building biotechnology at multiple scales from molecular interactions to whole buildings while addressing the human context of their deployment. The Hub will, through its network of academics, industry partners and educational programmes catalyse innovation for a building industry fit for the 4th Industrial Revolution by blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological.
The HBBE is organized around four core themes, although we expect that these will develop and evolve as the HBBE grows:
Theme 1: Building Metabolism
Aim: To develop a new generation of microbial technologies which will act as building metabolisms – processing waste and generating energy and useful products. This will involve research, design and the development of prototype experimental building services incorporating microbial bioreactors. These systems will be capable of extracting valuable resources from sunlight, wastewater and domestic waste and generating energy and high-value products. This approach also involves rethinking building infrastructure – so that a building processes its waste, including plastics, in situ, rather than relying on centralised industrial infrastructure for waste treatment.
Theme 2: Living Construction
Aim: To develop a new generation of bulk engineered living materials which are intelligently synthesised and/or activated using microbial processes. This will involve research into biominerals (the synthesis of mineral crystals to create new construction materials), biopolymers (for example bacteria producing cellulose fibres and bioplastics) and responsive materials such as bacterial spore-based hygromorphs (shape-changing in response to water) materials. This theme also involves the integration of computer modelling across biology and engineering, advanced fabrication techniques (including 3D printing) and the physical testing of materials.
Theme 3: Microbial Environments
Aim: To better understand and computationally predict the interaction between the built environment and the microbiome and to develop healthy environments by cultivating or influencing the microbiome through the design of buildings and human interaction. This will involve the development of technology to make buildings which can sense their microbiome and modify microbial communities to encourage healthy microbiomes through, for example, biotic/antimicrobial materials and biome aware ventilation systems. There is a growing awareness of the importance of the environmental microbiome to human health but there is little research on how we design for healthy, sustainable microbial environments. This research will inform evidenced based design of our spaces and building infrastructures to take into account the microbiome and human interactions within it.
Theme 4: Responsible Interactions
Aim: To develop a responsible and integrated approach to biotechnology for the built environment through a reflexive, inclusive and critical understanding of the interactions that emerge from HBBE’s research activities. This will involve investigating the interactions between natural systems, new and existing (bio)technologies, the built environment and cultures. The interactions between researchers, stakeholders and end-users of biotechnologies and the microbiome are also important to capture and understand since they will reveal the novel research collaborations and practices that are required to underpin the emergence of responsible biotechnologies. Finally, we will develop an expanded understanding of large-scale prototyping of biotechnologies both socially, ecologically and technically, using the Hub’s experimental house (The OME) and its prototypes to further enable these interactions.
Theme 5: Living Textiles
Aim: The Living Textiles Research Group positions textiles as a critical biofabrication strategy for the development of new materials and construction methods, transforming biomaterials and biosynthesised polymers into environmentally responsive, and programmable systems that operate at the scale of the built environment. Our research examines the potential to design with biology using textile materials, textiles thinking and advanced textiles technology. We enable multidisciplinary research collaborations with experts from across design and science communities leading to innovation across scales and applications.