Our bodies and homes are covered in microbes — some good for us, some bad for us. As we learn more about the germs and microbes who share our living spaces, TED Fellow Jessica Green asks: Can we design buildings that encourage happy, healthy microbial environments?
Jessica Green wants people to understand the important role microbes play in every facet of our lives: climate change, building ecosystems, human health, even roller derby — using nontraditional tools like art, animation and film to help people visualize the invisible world.
This design concept has been used before in a lot of different aspects of architectural design, One is the use of Biotecture design creating harmonic patterns using natural materials (wood) & stone. Dan Winter and Mike Reynolds come to mind as well the work done by Mario Cuinella.
Any design relating to the natural environment is important i’m keen to learn more about the bruce affect.
“Can we design buildings that encourage happy, healthy microbial environments?”
We can indeed, they’re called natural living ecosystems and we can interact with the by stepping outside!
I shudder when I hear “designing for microbes we choose…” yes, of course we as humans with our limited minds fully understand the infinitely complex interactions of the microbial world and its effect on all other living systems that we can make that choice… right.
Amusing that people still don’t get it, ecology 101, species are adapted to exist in a particular ecological niche – and humans exist amongst Nature, and trying to use more technology to fix the problems technology is creating is flawed thinking, you can’t fix problems using more of the things that created them.
Anyone who has kept pets knows you try to recreate their natural environment to maintain optimum health and life expectancy. A reptile enclosure emulates the heat, UV and habitat of that reptile, and aquarium recreates the water temperature, pH, bottom substrate and plant life found in the fishes natural habitat. And what of humans? Why not try integrating natural habitats into human living spaces, or extending human living spaces and Nature into each other?
Maybe architects never learn about ecology and don’t see humans as an other animal species that has evolved to exist in a certain habitat, and there is where the problems begin…
Bring on the ‘Bliss’ Bacteria! Thank you Jessica Green for fabulous presentation giving us the sneak peak of a new design principle, flagged to go mainstream in the near future. Great research, persuasive graphics and real applications. Thanks again!