John sent a link to an Atlantic article by Rose Eveleth on how mosses and lichens are being using in building design.
“Marcos Cruz, one of the directors of the BiotA lab, says that he has long been interested in what he sees as a conflicted way of thinking about buildings and beauty: ‘We admire mosses growing on old buildings, we identify them with our romantic past, but we don’t like them on contemporary buildings because we see them as a pathology,’ he says. …
“Richard Beckett, another director of the BiotA lab, says that he’s interested in the project flipping the usual way that buildings are designed, at least in a small way. “Traditionally architecture is a top-down process, you decide what the building will look like, and then you build it. Here we’re designing for a specific species or group of species …
” ‘Every architect you speak to talks about the skin of the building,’ says Beckett. … Instead of skin, the lab wants people to think of the exterior of a building as bark. ‘Not just a protective thing, a host; it allows other things to grow on it, it integrates as well.’ ” More here.
I love the concept, but the story left me wondering what the designers’ main motivation might be. They say it’s not about green and sustainable buildings. It seems to be about aesthetics, being “attractive.” They do want the mosses to be self-sustaining and the look to be purposeful.
Photo: Dinodia/Corbis
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