Episode 110 - The Future of Buildings Is Alive — Literally

'll be honest with you — when I first stumbled across Rachel Armstrong's papers, I genuinely thought I had the wrong person. The work was filed under architecture, but it was talking about chemistry, microbes, the origins of life, and the philosophy of matter.Rachel Armstrong is a professor at KU Leuven's Faculty of Architecture, but she trained as a medical doctor at Oxford and Cambridge, spent time working in a leprosy colony in India, accidentally ended up in an artist's kitchen in London looking at sculptures made from frozen urine in the snow, and somehow arrived at one of the most fascinating and urgent ideas I've come across in a long time: that the way we build our cities and homes is based on a fundamentally broken relationship with matter itself. We get into what it would look like to build homes that behave more like coral reefs than concrete boxes, microbial fuel cells, living bricks, why a project to save Venice using self-mineralising chemical droplets might be the most poetic engineering proposal I've ever heard, and why Rachel is taking these ideas to communities in Uganda rather than waiting for Silicon Valley to catch up.This one genuinely shifted something in the way I think about buildings, biology, and what science is even supposed to be doing right now. I hope it does the same for youTakeaways:The episode features Dr. Rachel Armstrong, an architect with a medical background, who discusses her unique journey.Dr. Armstrong emphasizes the importance of questioning established norms with the phrase 'What if?' to inspire innovation.She explores the idea that matter is not inert but rather dynamic and responsive to its environment.The conversation highlights the potential for architecture to evolve by integrating biological principles into design.Life, Mind and Matter: Chemistry for an Ecological EraMonstrous Matter: The Microbial Foundations for a Living Planet Biodesign for a culture of life: Of microbes, ethics, and designHow do the origins of life sciences influence 21st century design thinking? Rachel Armstrong — Faculty of ArchitectureThis is the only link you need to subscirbe and never miss an episode of Two Brad For You. Please do rate and review it really helps us out.If you'd like to support the show with currency click here. We are grateful for that too. Finally, you can check out the website here.Many thanks to Freak Motif for the music and Sebastian Abboud for the logo.