Picoplanktonics: a living laboratory
Interview with Vincent Hui and Nicholas Hoban
Nell’intervista ai curatori del Padiglione canadese alla 19. Biennale di Architettura di Venezia, Picoplanktonics rivela un’architettura vivente che incorpora organismi capaci di assorbire CO₂, invitando a ripensare cura e responsabilità verso il pianeta.
The Canadian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale presents itself to the public as a living laboratory, a space for experimentation where architecture becomes an object of study and discussion, a constructive forum for collectively addressing the challenges of the present: Picoplanktonics overturns the architectural legacy of a human-centred built environment to collectively imagine a radically transformed future, using ecology-oriented design practices.
"We are used to thinking of architecture as a static monolith: but what if the human element returns to being part of the system and we really have to take care of nature, treating it as architecture, leaving it alive and free to capture carbon?
What if we stopped thinking about extractive processes related to architecture and really started talking about regenerative processes?" say Nicholas Hoban and Vincent Hui in an interview with Graziella Zannone.
Based on research by Andrea Shin Ling, a researcher at ETH, and her team, the pavilion presents a biofabrication platform capable of printing living structures on an architectural scale, which has led to the creation of structures that combine sand, a type of bioglue, and a living cyanobacterium, Synechococcus PCC 7002, a species of picoplankton that gradually strengthens the material by absorbing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
"The exhibition asks us to confront the natural dimension, to re-evaluate our relationship with nature, imagining what would happen if we asked more of ourselves in caring for the natural structures that shape our environment.
The pavilion draws the public's attention back to the dimension of care and responsibility for the planet, addressing the challenges of climate change in a cohesive manner."
Picoplanktonics
Commissario: Canada Council for the Arts
Curatore/Espositore: Living Room Collective (Andrea Shin Ling, Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui, Clayton Lee)More information about the Pavilion at this link.
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