We are seeking a motivated Biodesign Research Assistant to join a BBSRC Engineering Biology Mission Award project focused on translating bacterial cellulose based leather alternatives into real-world prototypes. 

You will:
• Build material-led demonstrators for exhibitions and stakeholders
• Work with Imperial College London + industry partners
• Design and deliver a funded open design competition for biodesigners

Fixed term, 1-year 
Based at Northumbria University
Informal enquiries: Prof Meng Zhang meng.zhang@northumbria.ac.uk

For further details please see: here

Woven Breathing Façade: Hygroscopic Responsive Textile Architecture was created by HBBE members Ye Sul E. Cho, Jane Scott and Ben Bridgens as part of the RESPIRE project, and has been selected for exhibition at the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennale: Architectures for an Overheated Planet which takes place from September 18th to October 19, 2025 at Ibirapuera Park, Sao Paulo.

Woven Breathing Façade reimagines architecture as a living, adaptive organism. Conceived as a self-regulating system, it passively responds to heat, humidity, and rainfall by harnessing the hygroscopic properties of wood. Without electricity or mechanical components, its woven elements expand and contract with atmospheric shifts, opening to ventilate, closing to protect, and continually negotiating with the surrounding climate.

Instead of relying on technological complexity or artificial control, the project draws on the intrinsic intelligence of natural materials. Inspired by traditional basket-weaving techniques, the façade transforms wood’s innate hygroscopic capacity into a responsive textile. Each stitch functions as a pore, tightening or loosening with environmental change, creating a living weave that breathes with its context. Over the course of the biennale, the installation will remain in motion. Subtle shifts in temperature, humidity, and even the presence of visitors will activate the façade, turning it into a slow performance of coexistence with natural forces.

At a time of climate extremes and ecological urgency, Woven Breathing Façade offers an alternative vision for the built environment. Rather than sealed, isolated systems dependent on energy-intensive infrastructures, it imagines buildings as porous membranes—sensitive, adaptive, and alive. This bio-inspired approach proposes a radical shift in how we design and inhabit space: an architecture that does not impose control, but instead listens, senses, and evolves in resonance with the rhythms of its environment.

Acknowledgements: Breathing Woven Façade was developed as part of the RESPIRE: Passive, Responsive, Variable Porosity Building Skins research project, funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant. Special thanks to Natalia Pynirtzi for her contribution to this work; and to Oliver Perry and Nathan Hudson for their technical support. The project was undertaken in partnership with the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment funded by Research England’s Expanding Excellence in England (E3) fund.

The School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University is seeking to appoint a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in Architecture: Ethical Design, Construction and Practice on an open-ended teaching and research contract. For further details please see:

https://jobs.ncl.ac.uk/job/Newcastle-LecturerSenior-Lecturer-in-Architecture-Ethical-Design%2C-Construction-and-Practice/1233133701

Northumbria University & UCL
Living Assembly: Building with Biology

We are thrilled to announce our participation in the 2025 London Design Biennale at Somerset House, taking place from 5–29 June. Collaboration with Living Construction team at Northumbria University and Beckett Lab at UCL, our exhibition, Living Assembly: Building with Biology, is featured within the Biennale’s Eureka programme, which highlights pioneering research-led design initiatives .

Introducing Living Assembly: Building with Biology

Living Assembly explores the potential of bio-fabricated materials. Our approach envisions a future where buildings are not constructed but grown, utilising the capabilities of living organisms to create dynamic, responsive, and ecologically integrated systems.

The installation includes bulk materials made from mycelium—the root network of fungi—as well as microbial leather, genetically engineered to self-pigment. Alongside these are materials in active formation, responsive to their environment and forming new biological niches. Spanning from the molecular to the architectural scale, the exhibition offers a unique look at finished biomaterials and experimental systems still in development. These include bacterial cement grown inside custom casing vessels, microbial cellulose shaped into emergent complex forms, and a bacteria-based latex embedded with spores that shift in response to humidity. Other prototypes explore biologically active ceramics infused with beneficial microbes that support both human and environmental health.

Together, these innovations gesture toward a future of construction where materials are cultivated, buildings self-assemble using both hard and soft tissues, and the built environment remains sensate and alive.

Aligning with the Theme: ‘Surface Reflections’

Curated by Artistic Director Dr Samuel Ross MBE, the 2025 Biennale’s theme, Surface Reflections, delves into how design is influenced by both internal experiences and external environments. Living Assembly embodies this theme by demonstrating how biological processes can inform architectural practices, leading to structures that reflect the natural world’s complexity and adaptability .

Join Us at Somerset House

We invite you to experience Living Assembly and engage with the possibilities of bio-integrated design. The London Design Biennale 2025 runs from 5–29 June at Somerset House, London. For more information and to book tickets, please visit the official website.

Read more about here: link

Supporting Bodies
This work has been supported by UK Research and Innovation, including funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), University College London, and Northumbria University

About the projects

As part of The Newcastle Late Shows 2025, The Coach House, a historic brick building near Charlotte Square, will host a living bio sculpture developed by the BioKnit team, named Pupa, a mycelium-based installation that explores the intersection of textiles, biotechnology, and architecture. The BioKnit Pupa installation transforms The Coach House into a living laboratory, where fungal mycelium grows and weaves through 3D knitted fabric to form a series of organic arches and canopies.

Read more about the Late Shows here: https://creativecentralncl.co.uk/artists-announced-the-late-shows-2025/

Dr Jane Scott (HBBE, Living Textiles) describes the potential for mycelium materials to revolutionize sustainable manufacturing and create a future with no waste: https://www.re-tv.org/articles/jane-scott

Creative Central NCL is supporting a new artistic commission in partnership with The Coach House and HBBE.

The Coach House, a historic brick building near Charlotte Square in Newcastle, is undergoing a creative transformation by architects MawsonKerr. As part of The Late Shows 2025, it will become home to an innovative living bio-sculpture, developed by the HBBE Living Textiles group which will merge knitted textiles and mycelium composite to create a unique, large-scale, immersive installation.

We’re seeking an artist to collaborate with researchers, shaping and responding to this living process through their creative practice. Artists from various disciplines, including installation, music, writing, spoken word, film, light, sound, and visual arts, are encouraged to apply. This is a chance to explore the intersection of art and science, contributing to a groundbreaking piece unveiled during The Late Shows.

We are particularly interested in how an artist(s) will engage with this living process, communicate it, and, of course, ultimately respond with the creation of a new work to be unveiled at The Late Shows. 

Deadline: 10am, Monday 10 March 2025

Full details: https://creativecentralncl.co.uk/opportunities/commission-for-the-late-shows-with-the-coach-house/

The OME’s demountable wall system is being used to test the thermal performance of an experimental wall system, which combines commercially available extruded clay blocks with agricultural waste. The prototype is part of Di Yang’s PhD, which aims to find low-cost solutions to reduce energy demand in housing in rural China, supervised by Prof. Neveen Hamza, Prof. Rose Gilroy and Dr Magdalini Theodoridou.

Healing Masonry has been featured in Material Source’s annual guide to biomaterial and waste-based products!

Healing Masonry introduces a blend of biological self-healing systems into masonry materials, presenting a sustainable alternative to conventional construction. Utilising bacteria for biomineralisation, the project transforms a red lime mortar into a visually engaging medium that shifts colour as it repairs itself and highlights the aesthetic and protective advantages of biomineralisation in building materials.

Online panel discussion: February 11th 13:00 CET. A panel of scientists (including HBBE’s Magdalini Theodoridou) will be inspired by thoughtful questions and fun videos from kids, gathered by The University of Sousse. This promises to be an inspiring forum that celebrates women in science and encourages young minds — especially girls — to dream big in STEM.