生物數(shù)字城市的起源

克勞迪婭·帕斯奎羅，馬可·波萊托/Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto

劉潔 譯/Translated by LIU Jie

生物數(shù)字城市的起源

克勞迪婭·帕斯奎羅，馬可·波萊托/Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto

劉潔 譯/Translated by LIU Jie

在本文中，作者主要介紹了一些利用前沿的數(shù)字設(shè)計技術(shù)來進行的材料和生物運算實踐，以及在這背后的新的思考是如何從根本上影響我們對當(dāng)代城市的構(gòu)想的。首先，在科學(xué)/技術(shù)層面上，對這些材料運算方法的研究可以使設(shè)計師突破傳統(tǒng)數(shù)字設(shè)計過程中所常用的以描述為導(dǎo)向的運算方法；其次，從社會/文化的角度來看，這種能夠參與到生命物質(zhì)進化過程中的機會有助于增加我們與周圍環(huán)境之間的互動程度；而其最終的潛力將會是把整個過程中的任何一個觀察者變?yōu)檫@個過程的共同設(shè)計者?；诖?，本文進而將會對當(dāng)前生態(tài)危機背景下建筑所呈現(xiàn)的角色進行討論，并以此呼吁人們對當(dāng)前這種新的地質(zhì)時代——科學(xué)家們稱之為“人類世”——進行批判性的解讀。

數(shù)字設(shè)計技術(shù)，生物數(shù)字城市

“鄉(xiāng)村和城市的形成是很自然的一件事情。我們可以將它視為一種自然科學(xué)。我們可以將它看做是一種類似于園藝的藝術(shù)。它的存在離不開我們對其中的植物、土壤和水的了解。城市發(fā)展這門藝術(shù)需要我們對自然界中的所有生物體以及非生物元素的現(xiàn)狀以及技術(shù)的潛能有所了解?！?/p>

——弗雷·奧托[1]

城市圈：作為增強版的生物圈

如果我們從衛(wèi)星的視角來俯視如今蓬勃發(fā)展的全球城市，會發(fā)現(xiàn)很難去區(qū)分什么是自然的，什么是人造的；盡管當(dāng)代城市是一個常被描述為自然的對立面的大型人造系統(tǒng)，但是它所生長出的城市形態(tài)結(jié)構(gòu)卻與自然形態(tài)不謀而合。之所以會形成這樣的結(jié)果是因為城市和自然都是一種復(fù)雜且動態(tài)的系統(tǒng)，其系統(tǒng)的總體生長趨勢均為非線性的，并且是非常難以預(yù)測的。通過衛(wèi)星監(jiān)測的視角，我們可以獲得一種與傳統(tǒng)人類視角截然不同的劃分人造（城市）與自然（景觀）界限的新方式。而基于這種宏觀的視角，我們也可以進而討論非人視點下的城市領(lǐng)域的范圍。在此尺度下，城市及其形態(tài)的生成則主要是促使其新陳代謝的物質(zhì)、信息和能量流動的結(jié)果。這也使得我們從對城市形態(tài)（即對建筑與空白場地的感知）的關(guān)注轉(zhuǎn)變到對地形肌理形成過程（當(dāng)代城市景觀形態(tài)）的關(guān)注。換句話說，我們可以開始把城市看作成一種具有生命的動態(tài)系統(tǒng)。

在過去的10～15年中，全球化已然將世界以一種不可思議的程度相互聯(lián)系交織在一起。同時，當(dāng)今城市之間物質(zhì)、能源和信息的流通無比浩大已使得城市再也不可能以均質(zhì)或混亂的狀態(tài)存在。如此這樣的城市網(wǎng)絡(luò)不僅從空間上跨越了大陸，同時也已然連接至資源驅(qū)動型產(chǎn)業(yè)中的生物圈部分。城市網(wǎng)絡(luò)的存在雖然對于我們的城市社會的維系而言必不可少，但是它卻不利于這個社會中居民的財富和幸福。這是一個整個世界都如此自相矛盾的怪圈，我們將其稱之為“城市圈”。城市圈在以一種令人難以置信的速度生長，并且它已經(jīng)涉及到了構(gòu)成自然生物圈的所有系統(tǒng)，以至于我們已經(jīng)無法再將城市圈和自然生物圈分割開來。而這，便是“人類世”的本質(zhì)所在。

所以，我們應(yīng)當(dāng)捫心自問：我們該如何對“城市圈”進行設(shè)計，才能使其更具有彈性及適應(yīng)性進而將其演變成為一種“增強版的生物圈”？

這個問題的提出使我們覺得有必要去開發(fā)一些嵌入了持續(xù)適應(yīng)能力和自我評估能力的變革工具。隨著自然界與嵌入式人工產(chǎn)物之間的融合變得越來越密切，原本那些常規(guī)的保護自然的方法正逐漸喪失其價值，它們需要被一些更合適的新型操作機制以及那些能夠直接評估出人類對自然生態(tài)系統(tǒng)改造究竟能帶來的多大影響的新方法所代替。建筑，作為一門學(xué)科，必須提供一種能夠來應(yīng)對變化和轉(zhuǎn)型這兩個生態(tài)城市典型特征的新的材料和運作機制。而建筑也可以被當(dāng)作是異質(zhì)系統(tǒng)——如社會系統(tǒng)、基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施體系和環(huán)境系統(tǒng)——之間的材料界面。因此，我們可以重新對建筑進行思考，將其視為一種能夠通過我們的日常生活進行感知、記錄和操控的事物，一個能夠持續(xù)擴張進而可以定義我們的城市面貌及我們的新型城市自然混合棲息地的事物。

這種想法使我們調(diào)動出一些全新的角度來進行思考，我們追蹤根本、放眼大局、側(cè)目旁觀。我們因此呼吁一項批判質(zhì)疑“人類世”的新策略，并認(rèn)為應(yīng)當(dāng)將“園藝”作為“人類世”的新中心，并使其成為城市環(huán)境轉(zhuǎn)型變革中的設(shè)計實踐常用手法。在這里，所謂的“園藝”不僅指代種植、培育植物及蔬菜，同時，正如上文弗雷·奧托所提及的一樣，我們其實更多地強調(diào)對一種動態(tài)的具有生命的材料的廣泛應(yīng)用以及對這種材料所進行的數(shù)字算法編程，而它們將能夠定義我們的城市和都市景觀。

如園藝般編程

由于前文所提及的基于材料的算法本身具有特殊性，使得對其編程往往會固定于某一特定的環(huán)境背景。對于這種特殊性的解釋，我們可以將其等同于對比生物工程師在實驗室合成人工組織與園丁在干旱的土地孕育生命；雖然二者都在進行生成新事物的工作，但是其所需的環(huán)境是截然不同的。前者需要一個完全受控和精細的測試場以保證他的程序操作具有普適性，而后者則需要考慮到他的花園里可能會遇到的那些不可預(yù)測的生態(tài)環(huán)境中的不穩(wěn)定因素。

H.O.R.T.U.S.和城市藻類冠層是筆者最著名的項目之一，之所以設(shè)計它是因為筆者希望能夠建造一個嵌入式生長的范例。有趣的是，該項目最初僅僅是希望在城市中建造微型藻類花園，然而，在與蘭德大學(xué)的進化生物學(xué)家凱瑟琳·羅格朗的交談之后，項目的概念也發(fā)生了進化。凱瑟琳·羅格朗認(rèn)為若能夠設(shè)計大量的、物種豐富的微型景觀，其或許會作為“泛環(huán)境”的一部分以一種未知的可能性繁榮發(fā)展起來。事實上，她指出，微型藻類其實是無處不在的，但我們不知道如何培育微藻生態(tài)以及如何將其變成富有效果的高產(chǎn)的城市花園。

'Te settlement, the human city, is natural. To recognize it is a natural science. To tend it is an art, analogous to horticulture. Tis cannot exist without knowledge of the plants, soil and water involved. Te art of urban development requires knowledge of all living organisms in nature, of non-living nature, the present state and the possibilities of technology.'

– Frei Otto[1]

The Urbansphere as an augmented Biosphere

If we look at contemporary booming global cities from the perspective of a satellite, we find it quite difficult to distinguish what is natural and what is artificial; contemporary cities, despite being large manmade systems often described as the antithesis of nature, develop morphological structures that recall natural formations. This is because they are complex and dynamical systems and their overall growth is non-linear and highly unpredictable. The perspective enabled by satellite monitoring provides us with a different set of boundaries that depart from the traditional humanoriented distinction between the artificial -the city -and the natural -the landscape. Tese macro patterns allow us to discuss what we may call the non-anthropocentric view of the urban realm. At this scale cities and their morphologies are mostly determined by the flows of matter, information and energy that fuel their metabolisms. Tis shifts our attention from urban form – in the sense of a build figure vs. unbuilt ground – to the morphogenetic processes that underpin the current morphology of an urban landscape. We can in other words begin to look at cities as living systems.

Over the last 10-15 years the world has become globalised and interconnected to an incredible extent, and the flows of material, energy and information feeding contemporary cities are vast. Cities are now far from equilibrium, turbulent systems. Such networks now span continents and connect points across the biosphere part of a resource-driven industry that is both necessary to the survival of our urbanising society and detrimental to the wealth and well-being of its inhabitants. It is a paradoxical condition that we call 'urbansphere' and that envelops the entire world. Te Urbansphere has grown at an incredible rate affecting all the systems that compose the natural biosphere, to the extent that it has become impossible to separate the two. Tis is the essence of the Anthropocene age.

1 H.O.R.T.U.S. ZKM by ecoLogicStudio

So we should ask ourselves: how can we design this 'urbansphere' to make it more resilient and adaptive and evolve it into an 'augmented biosphere'?

This question confronts us with the necessity to develop instruments of transformation equipped with an embedded capacity of constant adaptation and self-evaluation. As nature is becoming more and more hybridised with embedded artificiality, the ethical paradigm of natural conservation is progressively losing its value and needs to be replaced with more adaptive mechanisms of management and direct evaluation of the effects of human transformation of natural ecosystems. Architecture as a discipline must provide a new material and operational framework to deal with change and transformation, the two main defining qualities of this new form of ecosystemic urbanity. Architecture can act as a material interface between heterogeneous systems, such as social, infrastructural, and environmental ones. We can therefore re-think architecture to signify sensing, registering and manipulating through our daily lives the unfolding processes defining our cities and our new hybrid habitats.

Such an approach mobilises a number of perspectives that go underneath, above and to the side of our customary human (anthropos) view. We therefore call for a strategy that critically questions the geological period of the Anthropocene claiming a new centrality for 'Gardening', as a design practice as well as modus operandi in the transformation of the urban environment. 'Gardening' is here referred to not only as the practice of tending plants and vegetables, but, as prefigured by Frei Otto, we point to an expanded field of dynamical material and digital processes which define our cities and our urban landscapes.

Coding as gardening

Material algorithms, as defined before, posses a rather peculiar nature which makes coding specific to a certain milieu. This peculiarity can be exemplified by comparing the methods of a bioengineer synthesizing artificial tissues in a lab with the one of a gardener reviving a patch of dried land; while both are running generative protocols, the first requires a perfectly controlled and refined testing ground for his procedures to acquire general applicability while the second needs to consider the unexpected fluctuation of the ecology of his garden.

Engaging this idea of an embedded generative protocol is at the core of one of the authors' best known project, the H.O.R.T.U.S. and the Urban Algae Canopy. Interestingly the project's concept, centered on the urban cultivation of micro-algal gardens, has evolved in conversation with evolutionary biologist Catharine Legrand, from the university of Lund. She described the unexplored possibility to design microbial landscapes of considerable size and diversity that would thrive as part of what we would call an extended milieu. Indeed, she noted, microalgae are everywhere but we do not know how to tend microalgae ecologies and turn them into productive urban gardens.

2.3 H.O.R.T.U.S.

然后，我們便在英國建筑聯(lián)盟學(xué)院位于倫敦的校區(qū)里設(shè)計了微型藻類城市建筑的第一個原型H.O.R.T.U.S.。該項目借鑒了園丁處理人類意愿和植物自然屬性之間劇烈差異化的方式。園丁只是偶爾會去調(diào)和他對美的渴求與植物本身物理感知所具有的自然趨向性。吉爾斯·克萊門特，一個法國哲學(xué)家和景觀建筑師，認(rèn)為花園的形式化是生物信息改良并正規(guī)傳遞的一個過程，用我們的術(shù)語講，叫作算法編程，而算法是引發(fā)控制生物多樣性的園丁機器。

在H.O.R.T.U.S.這個項目中，我們將不同的高度、日照、水分和CO2含量數(shù)據(jù)進行記錄，然后利用一些預(yù)設(shè)算法對微藻的生長進行干預(yù)，以促進不同種類微藻的生長；當(dāng)然，植物生長本身是一個充滿變量和不定因素的過程，在實驗過程中需要對數(shù)據(jù)進行不斷地讀取、評估并以此來規(guī)劃下一步的具體操作，或者說確定下一步針對微藻培育的編程方向。這些微藻花園的自主生長過程及對其所進行的美化干預(yù)過程之間相互交迭，循環(huán)往復(fù)；每個步驟都會產(chǎn)生出更多的差異性以及局部的復(fù)雜性，而這些生成的新結(jié)果反過來會被再次識別和培育；而對這整個生成過程的操控使得花園有潛力成為一個美麗的、健康的生物集群有機體；引用克萊門特的話：“現(xiàn)實總是且只有伴隨經(jīng)驗才能誕生，無園藝工作亦無花園?！盵2]

未來生物城市原型

H.O.R.T.U.S.和“城市藻類冠層”這一系列設(shè)計作品是ecoLogicStudio事務(wù)所對于微藻這一種生物材料及其未來集成演變成為生物城市的可能性的研究。它的基本建造單元是一個“生物反應(yīng)堆”：即一個封閉的以藻類為主的生態(tài)圈。在這個生態(tài)圈里，藻類可以從城市環(huán)境中獲取光、營養(yǎng)和CO2。初期階段我們可以通過對這種“生物反應(yīng)堆”的堆疊進而構(gòu)建一面曲墻，將其作為界定分割空間、自主調(diào)節(jié)遮陽及釋放產(chǎn)生O2的功能進行使用。我們設(shè)計的第一個原型作品便是被用作一個可自我調(diào)節(jié)的遮陽裝置：原理是其吸收的陽光越多，藻類的生長繁殖迭代得越快，空間的遮陽效果越好。如果各個單元接收的光線變少，藻類的光合作用也會相應(yīng)變少，于是墻壁的通透性便會增加。這種基于“實地條件”（例如，像墻體的具體布局以及“生物反應(yīng)堆”中特定的微生態(tài)環(huán)境這種環(huán)境條件）的設(shè)計構(gòu)成了建筑與城市生態(tài)之間的對話。而這種對話和互動的理念則是基于參觀者呼出的CO2能夠被“生物反應(yīng)堆”吸收進而使得藻類繁茂的原理：藻類繁茂程度的不同會產(chǎn)生變化多端的光環(huán)境，也會影響到空氣中的O2與CO2的比例，因而會形成同一組使用者可以持續(xù)影響到空間變化的結(jié)果。這個設(shè)計方案為我們展現(xiàn)了一種人類和城市中非人類生態(tài)系統(tǒng)之間和諧共生的關(guān)系。

隨后的一系列設(shè)計范例開始在全球范圍下建造展示；例如，在2008年威尼斯雙年展上，作者研究了威尼斯?jié)暫淖匀恍纬蛇^程，并提出了一些可以增強其形成的方法策略。通過參考相應(yīng)的人文和歷史要素，作者設(shè)計了一整套“潟湖冷凝器”，它們分別作為該區(qū)域生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的孵化器、儲存器及研究工具。這個設(shè)計作為從建筑尺度到城市景觀尺度的飛躍，代表著對微藻園藝進行進一步突破性的大膽嘗試，其將有可能成為未來城市設(shè)計的驅(qū)動力。

而首次展出于米蘭2015世博會未來食品區(qū)的設(shè)計作品“城市藻類冠層”便是充分展現(xiàn)了這種抱負。在這個項目中，城市環(huán)境被描述成一系列的數(shù)字化操控區(qū)域。這些數(shù)字地圖亦可謂數(shù)據(jù)圖形提供了一些城市中關(guān)鍵指標(biāo)參數(shù)（如空氣污染和公共交通可達性）的可視化展示，使得人們能夠直觀地看到其在空間和時間上的變化幅度和強度。然后，這些地圖信息進一步地演變并形成作為城市基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施新生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的園林的設(shè)計原型。這些園林原型以不同的形式展現(xiàn)于不同的空間環(huán)境中；而這些環(huán)境中相關(guān)的社區(qū)也因為引入了這種理念的建筑及城市設(shè)計裝置而被催生激活。這些裝置通常會具有特定的性能，例如可以蒸發(fā)蒸騰、光合作用、碳封存等；并依據(jù)其功能將其設(shè)計成特定的材料組織構(gòu)造或系統(tǒng)形式，如分支狀、折疊狀、編織狀等。與此同時，設(shè)計作品中還植入了遙感控制的可能性，可以持續(xù)監(jiān)測環(huán)境中的溫度、pH值、輻射值、鄰近度等。我們的設(shè)計促使了類似于這種生物數(shù)字化培育的新的城市設(shè)計方法的自發(fā)推廣和迅速擴張，并以一種超越常理的、不可思議的方式推動著城市生產(chǎn)力的增長（因此稱作為“網(wǎng)絡(luò)園藝”）。在這種愿景下，城市化將會對自然起到增強效果而并非是對立效果。因此我們認(rèn)為，城市棲息地有能力為非人類生命系統(tǒng)提供比野外環(huán)境更加先進的交流、互動及培育環(huán)境。

4-6 城市藻類冠層/Urban Algae Canopy by ecoLogicStudio

We then designed H.O.R.T.U.S., our first new prototype of micro algal urban architecture at the Architectural Association in London. The project reflected on how a gardener operates through a process of intensification of difference; his only chance to reconcile his desire of beautification and the natural expressivity of living processes resides in the movement, intended in its biological and physical sense; Gilles Clément, a French philosopher and landscape architect, suggests that the formalization of the garden becomes a process of formalized transmission of biological messages or, in our terms, of algorithmic coding; algorithms are for the gardener machines to breed bio-diversity.

In H.O.R.T.U.S. differences in height, insolation, moisture and CO2levels, are registered and then exploited by the project's algorithm to promote the growth of different microalgal species; also the growth, being itself a variable and partially unpredictable process, needs to be read, assessed and then considered in the formulation of future actions, or in the future lines of the gardening code. Te garden grows and beautification progresses in loops; each step generating more difference and local complexity that can be in turn recognized and bred; the management of this generative process is what makes the garden a potentially beautiful and healthy organism; in Clément's words: 'Reality is entirely contained within experience. Only. Without gardening there is no garden.'[2]

Prototypes for the future bio.City

The series of projects named H.O.R.T.U.S. and the Urban Algae Canopy are ecoLogicStudio's research into the living material of microalgae and its integration in the bio.Cities of the future. Its basic building unit is the 'bio-reactor': a contained ecosphere in which algae are supplied with light, nutrients, and carbon dioxide captured from the urban atmosphere. Initially the bio-reactors were stacked to build a curved wall, which performed roles of spatial definition, screening of light and release of oxygen. Te first prototype was conceived as a self-regulating shading device: the more sunlight absorbed, the greater the bloom of algae and the greater the screening of the space. Te less light each unit receives, the less photosynthesis occurs and the transparency of the wall increases. The 'found conditions' (environmental factors such as the layout of the wall and the particular micro-ecologies contained in the bio-reactors) become integral parts of the conversation between architecture and urban ecology. The concept of communication and interaction exploited the fact that visitors would exhale CO2into the bio-reactors, so that the algal bloom – and the variegated environment of light and oxygen created by it – was continually altered by the same people who occupied the space. This design solution introduced a symbiotic relationship between human and non-human urban ecosystems.

Subsequent prototypes were built and presented internationally; at the Venice Biennale 2008, the authors examined the natural processes of the Venice lagoon and suggested a number of ways in which these could be augmented. By referencing cultural and historical elements the authors designed a catalogue of 'lagoon condensers'; these acted as incubators, containers, and research tools for the ecology of the region. This jump in scale, from architecture to urban landscape, represents the continuing development of a provocative attempt to explore the potential of microalgal gardening as a future urban design driver.

7-10 2015米蘭世博會未來食品區(qū)的城市藻類冠層/UrbanAlgae Folly for the Future Food District -Milan EXPO2015

因2015年米蘭世博會而建造的城市藻類冠層目前在丹麥奧爾胡斯展出。該項目花費了6年的時間制作，是世界上第一個由軟質(zhì)ETFE（乙烯 -四氟乙烯）作為表皮材料且其中承載了螺旋藻和小球藻這類生命體的生物數(shù)字建筑。微藻進行光合作用的能力大概是大型樹木的10倍，并且它們能夠比飼養(yǎng)任何種類的動物更高效地提供植物蛋白質(zhì)。我們開始意識到藻類物種如何能夠變成高效的城市裝置這個問題，然而目前藻類卻被排除在城市景觀配種的種類之外，因此也致使人們在盲目地青睞于性能差的城市森林的同時忽略了藻類的存在。

因此，我們建立了一個數(shù)字化增強版的棲息地來培育這些微生物，讓它們作為人們?nèi)诤献匀缓蜅⒌氐男乱粚釉妇?。在這個棲息地中，實際上，微藻的生產(chǎn)能力在人類和非人類系統(tǒng)之間多次的干擾和相互作用過程中增強。城市藻類冠層這個創(chuàng)新構(gòu)筑物源自于對ETFE這種材料的建筑表皮的改造升級?；诖?，城市藻類冠層其實有可能提供一種不僅僅可以促進藻類生長，同時也可以確保使用者舒適度的理想環(huán)境。在日照強烈的夏天，微藻會生長迅速，從而增加建筑表皮的遮陽能力，進而提高人體的舒適度，而使用者的存在則會激活能刺激藻類產(chǎn)氧、吸光、生長的數(shù)字化調(diào)控系統(tǒng)。在任何時刻，城市藻類冠層所具有的透明度、顏色、反射率、聲音以及生產(chǎn)力都是氣候、微藻、人類及數(shù)字控制系統(tǒng)共生的結(jié)果。溫度、pH值、濕度、與人類的鄰近度及活動度這些的數(shù)據(jù)流會實時地反饋到調(diào)整藻類數(shù)量的數(shù)字“大腦”中。數(shù)字“大腦”能夠自動模擬計算出微藻所具有的CO2的吸收能力、O2的生產(chǎn)能力和營養(yǎng)物質(zhì)的產(chǎn)出能力，并以此為基礎(chǔ)對相關(guān)的部分操作進行調(diào)整；而這局部的調(diào)整也將會反作用于整個反應(yīng)鏈，進而影響到整個城市領(lǐng)域。這些抽象的具有調(diào)和作用、尺度不限的生物數(shù)字化過程是我們對自然本質(zhì)的全新理解的核心，其超越了人類的知覺以及生物的界限。

總結(jié)

我們正在將原型進一步地發(fā)展成一個可以提供具有吸收城市有害氣體并產(chǎn)出生物能這一特殊能力的城市和建筑尺度的系統(tǒng)。我們相信，任何關(guān)心可持續(xù)城市發(fā)展和試圖設(shè)想未來生物城市的人們一定會摒棄對綠色建筑的舊觀念，進而欣然接受這種能夠以城市污染物作為飼料的高性能生物技術(shù)系統(tǒng)；微藻建筑可以將污染物轉(zhuǎn)化為養(yǎng)料，并可以構(gòu)建出一種新型建筑。這是一種可以一勞永逸地剝除城市如畫般偽田園假象的建筑，并突破了原有的名副其實、徒有外表的城市森林的概念。因為它是一個將其材料、信息和高效運作過程都數(shù)字化提取到了一定程度的建筑，所以它可以產(chǎn)生一種新的機制進而引起城市新陳代謝的變革。我們將這種抽象的全維度的系統(tǒng)稱之為“城市圈”，而我們的生物數(shù)字建筑則是構(gòu)成該系統(tǒng)的工具。

Such ambition has been fully developed in the project Urban Algae Canopy first presented as part of EXPO Milan 2015, in the Future food district. In this project, the urban environment is described through a set of operational fields. These numeric maps or datascapes provide a visual description of the variation and intensity of key descriptor parameters, such as air pollution and public transport accessibility, in space and time. These maps were then evolved and designed into proto-Gardens, new ecosystemic urban infrastructures. The proto-gardens were visualized in a multitude of forms and spatial conditions; related social communities were catalysed by the introduction of these new prototypical urban and architectural devices. The devices are characterized by a specific set of performances such as evapo-transpiration, photosynthesis, carbon sequestration, etc.; they are engineered into specific material organizations or systems such as branching, folding, weaving and so on. They are also embedded with remote sensing and actuating potential, constantly monitoring Temperature, pH, radiation, proximity, etc. Our proposal enables a spontaneous and viral proliferation of new urban practices of bio-digital cultivation, contributing in novel and unexpected ways to an increase in the city's productivity (thus the term 'cyber-gardening'). In this vision, urbanity augments nature rather than being in antithesis to it. Te urban habitat, we contend, offers more evolved environments of communication, interaction, and cultivation of non-human living systems than the wild one does.

The Urban Algae Canopy was built for EXPO Milano 2015 and is currently due to be exhibited in Aarhus Denmark. Six years in the making, the Canopy is the world's first bio-digital architecture made of a soft ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) skin and hosting living cultures of Spirulina and Chlorella. The ability of microalgae to photosynthesize is 10 times greater than that of large trees and they can produce vegetable proteins with far greater efficiency than any form of animal farming. We began to realize how algal species constitute exceptionally efficient urban mechanisms, which are currently excluded from the spectrum of codified urban landscapes and are therefore neglected in favour of less performative urban woods.

We therefore built a digitally augmented habitat to cultivate these microorganisms as part of a new expanded vision of inhabited performative public realm. In this habitat, the productive capabilities of microalgae are actually expanded by multiple levels of interference and interaction with other human and non-human systems. The innovative architecture of the Urban Algae Canopy originates from the evolution of the ETFE architectural skin system. In this instance, it has the ability to provide the ideal habitat both to stimulate algal growth and to guarantee visitors' comfort. On sunny summer days, the microalgae grow rapidly, thus increasing the shading potential of the architectural skin and improving human comfort. Visitors, by their presence, activate the digital regulation system, which stimulates algal oxygenation, solar insolation, and growth. At any given moment the effective translucency, colour, reflectivity, sound, and productivity of the Urban Algae Canopy are the result of the symbiotic relationship of climate, microalgae, humans, and digital control systems. Data streams of temperature, pH, humidity, and human proximity and activity are fed in real time to the digital 'brain' that adjusts the algae flow. Simulated predictions of CO2adsorption, O2production, and nutrient harvesting are computed and alter the relative local operational field; local changes trigger chain reactions that in turn affect the overall urban field. Tese abstract, mediated, and transcalar bio-digital processes lie at the core of our new understanding of the nature of nature, which extends beyond human perception and biological constraints.

Conclusions

We are currently developing the prototype further to deliver a full scale urban and architectural system with particular ability to adsorb urban air pollution and generate biomass energy. We believe that whoever cares about sustainable urban development and wants to envision the bio-City of the future must discard conservative views on green architecture and embrace high performative biotechnological systems that are capable of feeding on urbanity's dirty side; microalgal architecture turns pollution into nutrients, row material for a new kind of architecture. It is an architecture that once and for all removes urbanity from its picturesque and pseudo-rural dimension, goes beyond superficial metaphors of urban forests or woods. It is an architecture that embraces the digital abstraction of its material, informational, and energetic processes at a level where they are free to engender new mechanisms of transformation of the urban metabolism. We call this abstract systemic dimension the Urbansphere, and our bio-digital architectures are the tool for its synthesis.

/Reference

[1] Frei, Otto. Occupying and Connecting. Stuttgart: Axel Menges 2009: 111.

[2] Clement, Gilles. Il giardiniere planetario. Milano: 22Publishing, 2008: 66.

On the Origin of the Bio-Digital City

With this article, the authors introduce how new insights on processes of material and biological computation enabled by cutting edge digital design techniques will have radical effects in the way we conceive contemporary cities. On a scientific/technical level, the study of these process of material computation enables designers to go beyond descriptive computation, typical of conventional digital design; from the socio/cultural perspective the possibility to engage the evolving processes of living matter enables a deeper form of interaction with our surroundings; ultimately the potential is to turn any observer of a process into its codesigner. From these premises the article discusses the role of architecture in the context of the current ecological crisis and calls for a critical reading of the current new geological era, which scientists call the 'Anthropocene'.

digital design techniques, bio-digital city

倫敦大學(xué)學(xué)院巴特萊特建筑學(xué)院

2017-03-15