​China, Jiangyin. Docklands Park

Jiangyin is on the Yangtze, the world’s busiest working river. The city is regenerating part of its industrial docklands into a high density live-work district. Stage one of this major project is the creation of a 4km public realm along the river edge.

This project rehabilitates, preserves, enhances and extends a raft of microhabitats. Complexity of the existing river edge is formally maintained, enhanced and secured with loose rock scaled for habitat. A new corridor of indigenous trees and lower story plants weaves through the project’s length. It connects the Ebizui mountain ecological node to the east with the canal eco corridor towards the west.

​Fast forward

Can worms replace workers?
Silk doesn`t seem like the sturdiest building material, but a group at MIT turned to 6,500 live silkworms to build a structure that connects nature with technology in a whole new way. They programmed a robotic arm to create a framework across a metal scaffold that gave the silkworms a roadmap to follow. When the worms were let loose on the structure, they responded to light, heat, and geometry, producing patterns that were a reflection of their environment. The resulting dome could inspire researchers to design and make man-made fiber structures never before imagined.
Silk Pavilion. Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
MIT Media Lab Mediated Matter Group

Architecture can imitate the beautiful efficiency of nature

​Fast forward

Can skyscrapers be made of wood?
The idea of a wooden skyscraper raises eyebrows – and a lot of questions: Can it stand up in an earthquake? What if it catches fire? But this design competition winner proposes a thirty-four-story wooden skyscraper that would have the safety attributes of steel or concrete, with less construction waste and better acoustics than traditional high rises. The idea is more than speculation; Sweden`s largest housing association plans to complete the tower by 2023.
HSB Stockholm competition winner (concept). Stockholm, Sweden
Berg | C.F. Møller Architects & DinnellJohansson

New ideas can grow on trees

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Can mushrooms replace stone?
These bricks are made of mushrooms. Mushrooms! The “bio-bricks” were grown inside of reflective trays made out of a mirrored film. These reflective containers were later used at the top of the tower to bounce daylight into the structure and the space around it. The towers shape is designed to be efficient, too, cooling itself by pushing hot air out at the top. In contrast to the energy\-gobbling skyscrapers on New York Citys skyline, Hy-Fi offers a thought-provoking glimpse of the future. Hope you like mushrooms.
Hy-Fi: 2014 MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program winner. Queens, New-York, United States

We can grow the future

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Can bacteria be your architect?
A 6,000-kilometer-long inhabitable wall in the Sahara Desert isn`t built – it is grown, with the help of a bacteria that turns sand into sandstone. This is the concept behind Dune, a naturally generated sand structure that relies on a biological reaction: The sandstone is grown with the help of Bacillus pasteurii, a bacterial microorganism found in marshes and wetlands. Once introduced, the bacteria might be able to create a structurally sound and livable structure in less than a week, opening new possibilities for rapidly deployable refugee housing in the desert.
Dune (Concept). Sahara Desert, North Africa. Project by Magnus Larsson

The desert is a living place

​Fast forward

Can a skyscraper be built in a day?
Building a skyscraper used to take years. But a group in China is changing everything we know about construction, building a fifteen-story hotel in six days, then a thirty-story hotel in just over two weeks. The secret is prefabrication: Large sections of the building were assembled in a factory, eliminating waste and delays at the building site. According to the China Academy of Building Research, the tower is five times more earthquake-resistant than a similar one built with traditional methods.
(Т30 Hotel, Broad Group. Hunan Province, China)

Even if buildings can happen in the blink of an eye, they should still stand the test of time

​What if a cow built your house?
To create this experimental structure, cleverly named The Truffle, a group of architects dug a hole, packed it with hay, and then poured concrete around it. After the concrete dried, a calf named Paulina moved in, eating the hay for a year and hollowing out a small cave in the process – all that was left in the end was the scratches and imprints of how the place was made. It is a fantastically hideous little building that became the most sublime place to watch a Spanish sunset. It`s also a true melding of the most important tenets of future building: reliance on known techniques, forward-thinking environmentalism, whimsy, and brilliant simplicity. Moo.
(“The Truffle”, Ensamble Studio. Costa da Morte, Spain)

The future of architecture will surprise you.