How thin layer of microorganisms on building's outermost skin can regenerate the environment
Any naturally occurring stains on facades of buildings are usually considered as dirt or subject of removal. What happens when we question what the outside of a building needs to look like and why? And how might this deepen our understanding of what grows on it? Epidermitecture is concerned with stains formed by microorganisms on facades of buildings and explore their ability to restore and regenerate the environment by acknowledging their importance in building industry, society and aesthetics.
Cross-border/international
Austria
Czechia
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{Empty}
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
As individual(s) in partnership with organisation(s)
First name: Adam Last name: Hudec Gender: Male Please describe the type of organization(s) you work in partnership with: Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna Age: 28 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Slovakia Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Florianigasse Town: Wien Postal code: 1080 Country: Austria Direct Tel:+43 681 10599136 E-mail:dusts.institute@gmail.com Website:https://www.adamhudec.net/
URL:https://www.adamhudec.net/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): https://www.instagram.com/ada_a_am/
Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
Almost two-thirds of all architectural surfaces could be able to absorb significant amounts of CO2 and other toxins from the environment. Thus, practices of maintenance and constant upkeep of the outer surface of buildings remove any naturally occurring stains and therefore limit the ability of those surfaces to act as an active carbon sink. Any naturally occurring stains on facades of buildings are usually considered as dirt or subject of removal, thus these spots or discoloration of facades by microorganism can successfully regenerate and restore the environment. By acknowledging their importance in the urban ecosystem and enhancing rather than suppressing other forms of life on outer surfaces of buildings, we could with minimum investments and intervention, achieve goals set by the green deal and head toward climate-neutral cities across Europe. The contemporary architectural discourse places a premium on architecture and urban skins that are new, or at least appear to be new or clean rather than those that are overgrown by microbial communities. What happens when we question what the outside of a building needs to look like and why? And how might this deepen our understanding of what grows on it? An initial study of the facade's organic stain on Villa Tugendhat in Brno showed that it is not necessary to maintain the outer surfaces of heritage buildings biopatina-free, as intended in current maintenance practice, but rather explore its potential to protect and regenerate both the surface and the environment. By proposing “bio-restoration” of architectural facades, engaging public and emphasising citizen science approach to collect data about Biopatina, developing own research tools and method that include rather than exclude other forms of life, Epidermitecture aim to create new sets of guidelines for policy makers and architects on how to maintain and design buildings outermost skin in respect to other forms of life naturally occurring on all surfaces.
Climate neutral cities
microorganism
facades
citizen science
bio-restoration
By 2030, there should be 100 European cities as climate-neutral according to the European commission. The accomplishment of such a goal goes hand in hand with regeneration of existing urban ecosystems and its biodiversity. However, when it comes to urban and architectural surfaces, we tend to maintain them in a clean state, ignoring or even suppressing any microorganic life on any kind of man-made surfaces. Thus, these microorganisms, referred to as Biopatina, could effectively reduce C02, N02 and other toxins from the urban environment. How to support instead of suppress biogenic growth on facades of buildings? By preserving naturally occurring stains, spots or any discoloration on urban and architectural surfaces, we could effectively transform them into an active habitat of Biopatinas that could help us achieve climate-neutral cities within the time period given by the European commission. By unlearning the maintenance practices and acknowledging instead of ignoring non-human growth on architecture, we could find new ways to coexist with and regenerate the environment. By collecting, analysing and cultivating Biopatina from facades of building, studying material and environmental conditions favourable to Biopatina growth and investigating maintenance practices connected to architectural skin, Epidermitecture aims, for the first time, to enhance rather than suppress biogenic growth on architectural surfaces.
Most of what has been produced on the skin of architecture has aligned with a recurring attention to a sense of ‘cleanliness’ and aesthetic pleasure derived from architectural spatiality, which has cultural connotations regarding what has been thus produced as ‘clean’ and appealing. What happens when we question what the outside of a building needs to look like and why? The contemporary architectural discourse places a premium on architecture and urban skins that are new, or at least appear to be new, rather than those that transform, live, and become. The value of an architectural surface in this context is often judged by its ability to keep itself stain-free, which entails the erasure of any nonhuman life form that emerges on the architectural skin, or in other terms, on the Epidermitecture. By noticing endlessly purified surfaces, we begin to understand the extent to which architectural practices have been marked by the disregard for nonhuman life. In method and output, the project Epidermitecture seeks to support and engage existing modes of coexistence between nonhumans, architecture, and the environment while employing a range of performative, arts-based, and collaborative techniques to question how we think of architectural aesthetics today. What kind of practice/aesthetic are required to explore the building’s skin as a Biopatina habitat? Artistic methods will be employed to connect and sensitise the public to the potentialities of Biopatina. The public will be engaged to develop an expanded awareness of the Biopatina habitat and micro-organisms forming the biogenic crust by Walking in silence, Observing, Smelling, Touching and Collecting Biopatina samples. Self-developed citizen science tools ‘Biopatina KITs’ will be deployed with performative tools to collect data by participants and thus clearly become a valuable source of data for Biopatina analysis performed as a collective ritual.
Epidermitecture is a phenomenon of revived environmental aesthetics, a collective practice, that takes place within already occurring coexistence interactions. Hence, the challenge for Epidermitecture becomes not only how to represent a shifting environment, but also how to collectively practise it as aesthetics in order to re-imagine an architecture in which humans and nonhumans are brought closer together. Epidermitecture thrives for inclusivity and affordability of the concept idea, since microorganisms forming biopatina does not require special treatment, artificial watering, fertiliser, or even our attention, just our acceptance. To support Biopatina growth means to learn to accept non-human life as a vital part of architecture, cultural heritage and urban environments. Based on the initial study of Biopatina on Villa Tugendhat, we are proposing so called Bio-restoration of architecture: it is not necessary to maintain the outer surfaces biopatina-free, as intended in contemporary maintenance practice, but rather explore its potential to protect and regenerate both the surface and environment. Epidermitecture aims to create a set of guidelines for policy makers to include Biopatina as an intrinsic part of architecture concept/planning/maintenance.
The aim of the Epidermitecture project is to help the community to achieve climate neutral cities by 2030 with minimum investments needed. The implication such as increase in air quality in cities, reducing costs for maintenance of facades and decreasing social/environmental/ economic risks connected with raising global temperatures are one of the main benefits of the project. By engaging participants as active ‘citizen’ scientists, we align with Caren Cooper’s analysis of the citizen as: ‘those with {the} rights and responsibilities to participate in some larger collective and citizen scientists are thus people exercising their rights and responsibilities to participate in collective scientific endeavours.’ Merging artistic and citizen science practice with geomicrobiological research, Epidermitecture proposes interactive public engagements in the form of performed rituals as a part of the scientific analysis and material studies. Throughout the project, public participation is foundational to both the scientific and artistic research at the core of endeavour, as well as the trajectory of sociological theory, navigating the outcome with the goal to enhance Biopatina growth on architectural surfaces.
The Institute of Natural Sciences and Technology in the Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna provided all the resources necessary to conduct the scientific part of the project - basic microbiological analysis and sequencing of Biopatina as well as incubators for growing microorganisms in liquid cultures and plates. The Institute of Art and Architecture in the Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna supported the design development of the project: provided digital equipment to monitor and measure Biopatina growth on the facades. Dusts Institute, a research platform and community place in Vienna, engaged in the project from a social/cultural perspective, providing support in organising public events, public engagement and educational workshops and translating scientific research into artistic interventions. Moreover Metode, a publishing platform in Oslo, helped to position the entire scope of the project from conceptual and philosophical perspective and provided support to document the entire scope of work in an experimental essay.
In this project we aim to search for alternative values which embrace, rather than exclude, both human and non-human life forms on architecture because of their supposed uselessness. This term was introduced in the context of architecture by Michelle Howard in her essay Uselessness is a Rarefied Thing, where she argues that the uselessness of any phenomenon or object depends on our lack of knowledge of the means we use to divest ourselves of our ignorance. She articulates the argument that architects do not appear to have the time, patience, or understanding to consider how a simple adjustment in context might transform a useless artefact (symbiotic coexistence of cyanobacteria, micro fungi, algae and lichen in this project) into a fruitful one. On the other hand, In the field of science, processes of material interaction have been explored by geo-microbiologists who have undertaken investigative work on the interactions between microorganisms and the world. Geo-microbiologists study how the environment was shaped by nonhumans that already existed 3.8 billion years ago. Research on microbiological intra-actions shows that they maintain the fluxes of matter between the atmosphere (air), lithosphere (rocks), and hydrosphere (water) in the form of biogeochemical processes. The first scientist who applied these findings to the study of interactions on the outer surfaces of cultural heritage buildings was Wolfgang E. Krumbein. In the 1980s, he investigated the organic synergy of architectural organic skin on St. Peter’s Cathedral in Cologne and St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, thus shaping a new generation of scientists. Epidermitecture research method was informed by geomicrobiology and architecture as a part of its interdisciplinary approach that is necessary in order to achieve the ultimate goal of the project - to enhance Biopatina growth on architecture.
Most of what has been produced on the ‘skin’ of architecture has aligned with a recurring attention to a sense of ‘cleanliness’, ‘seamlessness’ and aesthetic pleasure derived from architectural spatiality, which has sociological connotations on what has been thus produced as ‘clean’ ‘slick’ and appealing.
Instead, we deal with the ‘skin of architecture’ through an entirely new lens:
1.Epidermitecture attempts, for the first time in architectural research practice, to enhance rather than suppress intrinsic biogenic growth on buildings’ outermost skin. 2.Adopting geomicrobiology research in the field of architecture offers novel understandings and knowledge of non-human life within the built environment, which has heretofore been rejected by current architectural discourse due to aesthetic and functional misinterpretations. 3. Participatory practices open up radical change in perceiving how to maintain architecture by celebrating non-human life through revived aesthetics based on knowledge generated through arts and science based research. 3.Epidermitecture provides support for social collectives to empower and transform themselves with the aim of supporting existing modes of coexistence between architecture, other life forms, and the environment, by presenting maintenance as public act.
The project Epidermitecture investigates the phenomena that is present globally and calls for international action to change our perception of organic stains on architectural skin as a valuable element in the urban ecosystem. Invented methodology of sensitising the public through public workshops and educational events might be implemented on global scale, in different contexts since in many western oriented societies, any non-human life forms have no place within the daily life. By unlearning current maintenance practices in architecture and acknowledging microorganisms as an intrinsic part of cities, project Epidermitecture aims to create a set of guidelines for policy makers that could be applied globally in respect of other forms of life in cities.
To limit warming to 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as set out in the Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas emissions will need to peak before 2025. Then they must decline by 43 per cent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. In order to achieve this global goal, Epidermitecture could trigger actions in local policy making and in individuals as well, to transform already existing architectural facades into Biopatina habitat, that could effectively absorb CO2 and other toxins from the urban environment. Moreover, climate change is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss but destruction of ecosystems undermines nature's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and protect against extreme weather, thus accelerating climate change and increasing vulnerability to it. Epidermitecture thrives to support rather than suppress Biopatina growth on the facades of buildings, therefore the aim is to support microbial biodiversity within the existing city's infrastructure.
