Metropolis - May 2011

MoMA DESIGN STORE DESTINATION

how well such an installation would hold up as an architectural element. Growing algae in glass tubes—what researchers call a closed-system tubular photobioreactor—has been done, though not yet profitably. Research has found that excess sunlight can lead to oxygen buildup, which reduces growth and dimin-ishes the potential to produce energy. How many tubes it would take to produce how much energy remains undetermined. Optimists look to the untapped resources of the 150,000 to 750,000 microalgae species still to be studied.

The team offers microalgae as a point
of departure rather than a silver bullet of
sustainability. They’d be more certain to
survive in Los Angeles than in an icy Chicago
winter. “Are we saying that all GSA client
buildings should be wrapped in algae?”
Jackson says. “Absolutely not. But it’s some-
thing that should be studied.”
Bill Hellmuth, president of HOK, was awed
by the team’s proposal to use microalgae. “The
thing I think is so cool is that this is existing
technology,” he says. “We know in some appli-
cation it will work. Will it take research? You
bet. But it’s not a space-shot kind of thing.”
Reaching for an out-there technology was as
natural to the young designers as their fluidity
with digital research. Hellmuth marvels at
“their ability in real time to do energy model-
ing and testing of things using computer tools.
This generation, it’s part of how they think,
how their fingers work. Bringing that technol-
ogy to the process encourages exploration.”
But Hellmuth sees something else that will
distinguish the next generation of designers
from those before them: they approach sus-
tainability as a core value. “If you look at the
waves of people who are interested in sustain-
able design, the first wave were moral pio-
neers,” Hellmuth says. “They dealt through
moral suasion. We’ve all come to the conclu-
sion that this is something we have to do in
order to survive. This generation takes it from
a more pragmatic point of view. They’re asking,
How can we take this and create art with it?
How can we weave this into our buildings
in a much more fundamental way?” /

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SALT AND PEPPER IN ONE, Munire Kirmaci, 2006

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