Bio_re Claim

Bio_reClaim is a project of IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia developed at Master in Advanced Architecture in 2015 of the Academic Program by:
Student: Lalin Keyvan, Jonathan Irawan, Christopher Wong, Roberts Staples, Abdullah Ibrahim and Luis Bonilla
Faculty: Claudia Pasquero, Carmelo Zappulla and Maria Kupstova

This project sets Biorock as a pretext for investigating the capacities to construct a growing system to transform potential brownfield urban domains speculating on the possibilities of Biorock as an organism for recovering brownfield of polluted lands. The biological organism will be controlled to a physical system growing from the polluted ecosystem providing a source of tangibility to the public, educating and quantifying the direct extent of disturbance caused by polluting the environment. The active space will be dynamic platform for the public to interact and learn of the challenges facing the cities environment. The by-product will be the harmonious cleansing toxic chemicals from the waters generating a source of energy and promoting the emergence of aquatic organic life. Previous experiments by Wolf H Hilbertz used the electro-accumulation of minerals in the restoration of coral reefs and revitalisation of the sea life. Hilbertz trade- marked the accreted substance as a Biorock. Our aim is to first understand and experiment within the material limits of Biorock as an active urban application. We do this by controlling the accumulation process and devising a physical system which we can bio-computationally manipulate to suit our purpose Bio-Computational research in geometric formations leads to bones as a model developing a biologically responsive material. Similar to bones Biorock substance is a dynamic system that is able to repair itself after functional failures. Bone, regenerates and calcifies according to the external stimuli that is applied, resulting in the re-organizing of organic material which is distributed to a geometric output. Scientific research informs us that there are certain environmental conditions required to successfully generate electrode posited minerals in seawater. The key minerals required for optimum growth are calcium phosphates, also present in grey water runoff. We conducted a series of controlled experiments with this mineral content and bone substratum carefully varying the control parameters to produce the optimum growth suitable for full scale urban recovery and activation.

For More Information >> https://www.iaacblog.com/programs/bio_reclaim/