SPOTLIGHT: NEW BOOK by MITCHELL JOACHIM, "Super Cells: Building with Biology"

Mitchell Joachim is a leader in ecological design, architecture and urbanism.  He is a founding Co-President of Terreform ONE in 2006.  He earned a Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MAUD Harvard University, M.Arch. Columbia University.  Mitchell is an Associate Professor at NYU and EGS (European Graduate School).  He previously taught at Columbia University, Syracuse University, Parsons, Washington University, and the Frank Gehry Chair at University of Toronto. He was formerly an architect at Gehry Partners, and Pei Cobb Freed. He has been awarded fellowships at TED 2010, Moshe Safdie Assoc., and Martin Society for Sustainability at MIT. He won the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanityy, the History Channel and Infiniti Excellence Award for City of the Future, Time Magazine Best Invention of 2007, Compacted Car w/ MIT Smart Cities and a Bronze Medal at iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) for Gen2Seat.  His project, Fab Tree Hab, has been exhibited at MoMA and widely published.  He was chosen by Wired magazine for "The 2008 Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To".  Rolling Stone magazine honored Mitchell in "The 100 People Who Are Changing America".  In 2009 he was interviewed on the Colbert Report. Popular Science magazine has featured his work as a visionary for “The Future of the Environment” in 2010.  Mitchell was the Winner of the Victor Papanek Social Design Award sponsored by the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austrian Cultural Forum, and Museum of Arts and Design in 2011.  Dwell magazine featured Mitchell as one of "The NOW 99" in 2012.

 

"Super Cells: Building with Biology" (TED Books) gives an "eye-popping tour of the new biological frontier, Nina Tandon and Mitchell Joachim describe the tantalizing array of inventions already being created with nature’s elemental building block: the cell. Imagine personalized bone replacements, living condominium complexes, bacteria-made haute couture, and top sirloin grown without a farm. Tandon and Joachim, daring inventors in their own right, contend that we’re entering a new technological era, one in which we can create smarter technologies by making cells our partners in design. And they confront the thorny questions that come with playing with the power of life."

 



Mitchell Joachim is a founding member of Global Design NYU, and is one of the innovative designers featured in our forthcoming BOOK!

Stay up-to-date on international news regarding sustainable architecture!

Visit gdnyu.com, like Global Design NYU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@gdnyu).

________________________________

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ICXN3VA/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_g5n.sb0S6WD3Z
http://www.mitchelljoachim.com/

World Map Installation uses E. Coli and Jellyfish Proteins to illuminate our population in 2100

By Johnny Magdaleno — Oct 22 2013




A Buckminster Fuller-style Dymaxion Map

Terreform’s Bio City Map in full, one side
If you think about it, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Map is a perfect example of how reductive approaches to science may be necessary to resolve some of the world’s more pressing complications. To best understand the Earth as a total entity, Fuller suggested we go pre-Magellan, back to the days when the earth’s shape was physically unproven, by unravelling our beloved sphere to a flat, non-symmetrical surface. Like peeling an orange while keeping the peel intact.

Close up of Dymaxion Map
This is why it fits so well as a model for Terreform’s Bio City Lab – in ethos and in structure. Putting Fuller’s concept to practice, the New York-based design firm constructed a vertical plane of two-sided triangular pieces that model Earth’s surface, as if it were peeled directly off the mantle. Each side of the installation houses physical representations of data that snapshot a coming reality: by 2100, an anticipated 11 billion human bodies will be hustlin’ in all corners of the globe.

Instead of relying solely on computer algorithms or census trends, Terreform employs what it refers to as “bacteriography” to drive Bio City Lab’s glowing body. Strains of E. Coli and protein structures from sea anemones and jellyfish combine to bio-illuminate population fluctuations from now until 2100, ultimately mimicking the natural ebb-and-flow of urban densities with purely biological means.
Terreform’s website details why: “Bacteria in this constrained form and under the right conditions, behave almost identically to urban population patterns […] In many cases, they are as good as computational versions because they are the source which algorithms are derived from. In time, the mapping installation may illustrate patterns yet unobserved in typical digital models.”

The protein structures are injected into the DNA of genetically modified E. Coli strains, which are then gathered in petri dishes and subjected to UV rays. These rays effectively flip a switch in the bacteria, resulting in a neon mesh of blues, greens, reds and yellows. Green glowing blotches indicate where we are now; red ones indicate what our numbers will look like in the coming century.

Opposite the petri dishes are mountainous 3D graphs detailing population peaks across 2100’s world.

As a result, the structure becomes both static and mutative: the rigid and plastic population graphs depict future projections, while the ongoing biological reactions depict the fluid, amorphous quality of population changes.
It also takes into account contemporary phenomena like megacities (urban areas with populations of more than 10 million) and instant cities (urban areas with an infrastructure erected in anticipation of a population, usually at the cusp of economic booms).

But instead of specifying which petri dishes or 3D graphs correlate with which cities, the Bio City Map is geographically indiscriminate. Current urban areas, countries, continents or even bodies of water remain unreferenced, so that the populationstatistics and data of each city come together to form a single, transcontinental urbanity. In turn, it becomes a city of cities.
Through this, the installation suggests that if we’re to tackle problems of saturated population density and their potential corollaries (water, energy, food, housing, etc. crises), we need to stop worrying about national or regional interest and look at the bigger global picture. Literally.

Bio City Map for Terreform’s Biological Urbanism at OCAD University, Toronto, Canada

Detail of population spike graph Terreform is an international contender when it comes to these things.
They’re one in a series of contemporary design firms looking to explore the romantic tendencies of futurism through experimental approaches to society building. Along with recent curations like Liam Young’s Future Perfect exhibition at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (which we partially covered here) and the writings of William Meyers, they’re giving breath to the argument that creativity, technology, and biology must unite if we’re to effectively solve societal dilemmas down the road.
Each of these groups and creators recognize the need for cross-collaboration. It’s no longer just architects, just urbanists, or just engineers hashing out blueprints – it’s all of the above, plus a cadre of fiction authors, artists, futurists, mathematicians, and more. Which makes more than enough sense: how can you guide the growth of a society without soliciting the thoughts of those who grow its culture?
All photos courtesy of Terreform


_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Magdaleno, Johnny. "World Map Installation Uses E. Coli and Jellyfish Proteins to Illuminate Our Population in 2100." The Creators Project. The Creators Project, 22 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/world-map-installation-uses-e-coli-and-jellyfish-proteins-to-illuminate-our-population-in-2100

Spotlight: GDNYU

See GDNYU in motion as our founders, Louise Harpman, Peder Anker, and Mitchell Joachim, discuss our traveling exhibition and highlight some of its innovative projects.

Spotlight: Terreform ONE - "Governors Hook Urbaneering"

Urbaneering is a new profession that can re-invent and negotiate the complex mix that encompasses the next city.

Terreform ONE: "Whose job is it to create a city? Our intention is to jumpstart a new profession that can re-invent and negotiate the complex mix that encompasses a city. We have defined a radical new occupation to regenerate, pioneer, and sustain the future urban realm. These innovative multi-disciplinarian advocates are called Urbaneers. Their immense task is to manifest and facilitate the City 2.0 across the globe."

"Each Urbaneer is an individual with a different set of versatile abilities that merge previously disparate occupations. They range from combined ecological architects and engineers to action based urban planners and developers. Almost any recombined professional activities will work, so long as they meet the constantly changing needs of urbanization. Urbaneers perform in a role akin to Jane Jacobs, but at the magnitude and accomplishment of Robert Moses. An excellent historical example of an Urbaneer is Frederick Law Olmstead. For years, we have shaped a school called ONE Lab that has expanded on this very notion. ONE Lab instructs in the art of Urbaneering to people seeking to augment their sensibilities and operate within cities. We wish to further develop an Urbaneer curriculum at ONE Lab."

Urbaneering Project Page | Terreform ONE