Look at the gray walls of the buildings around you. You think of them as inert, dead surfaces, simple separators between inside and outside? Well, they could soon become ecological walls. Even more: living organisms. Researchers from the Graz University of Technology in Austria and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia are in fact creating a living ink, capable of transforming building surfaces into active microbial ecosystems. The project, called REMEDY (Archibiome tattoo for resistant, responsive, and resilient cities), aims to ensure that our facades not only resist the elements, but also absorb CO2, produce oxygen and filter the air. The breathing brick is no longer a utopia, but a technology in development.
Ecological walls that fight pollution
The international research team, led by Carole Planchette, associate professor at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer at TU Graz, is revolutionizing the very concept of architectural surface. The goal is ambitious: to transform the inert surfaces of buildings into multifunctional bioactive layers.
Professor Planchette emphasizes in a release that this is “a huge potential that we should exploit. Microbial communities on roofs and facades could perform many functions without taking up already scarce unbuilt space.” The concept particularly fascinates me: instead of building new green structures in congested cities, why not bring existing buildings to life through these ecological walls?
Researchers have highlighted that in the next 25 years, throughout the European Union, facades and roofs will be renovated or built from scratch an area of 9,4 billion square meters. A huge opportunity to implement technologies like REMEDY.
How “Living Tattoos” Work
Architectural tattoos are essentially specially selected and engineered microbial communities applied directly to the surface of buildings through inkjet printing technology. Nina Gunde-Cimerman, a microbiologist at the University of Ljubljana, is leading efforts to identify and screen microorganisms, some isolated from building facades in the Slovenian coastal town of Izola.
These microorganisms are not chosen at random: the team is designing interspecies consortia that form stable and resilient communities, ideal for architectural applications. These are not simple decorations, but systems designed to actively protect facades from the elements, absorb carbon dioxide from the environment, filter air pollutants and even repair surface damage autonomously.
The technological challenge
One of the most significant challenges is the printing technology for these green walls. Microorganisms, which measure several micrometers and tend to form millimeter-sized clusters, are too large for conventional inkjet technology, which typically sprays particles in the nanometer range.
To address this challenge, Planchette teamed up with Slovakian inkjet manufacturer Qres Technologies and Austrian coatings specialist Tiger Coatings to adapt the technology for printing with living microorganisms.
“REMEDY’s ambition is to achieve a breakthrough in fundamental research in microbiology and synthetic biology, to transfer know-how to materials science in the form of engineered living materials, and to develop compatible biofabrication processes that enable customized design in the architectural context,” he said. Anna Sandak, Deputy Director of InnoRenew CoE and project coordinator.
Ecological walls, a future to breathe
REMEDY's approach is part of a broader trend towards integrating biological elements into architecture. In Milan, for example, Open 336 was inaugurated, a building designed to capture CO2 from the air, while the University of Surrey has developed a living paint based on cyanobacteria which transforms the walls into “green lungs”.
Planchette is confident that the team will be able to successfully develop both biocompatible inks and customized inkjet technology by the end of the project, adding that she also expects to identify microorganisms capable of surviving both in the ink and under the stresses of the printing process.
In the coming years, our cities could really start to breathe. And perhaps, while we continue to pollute, it will be the buildings that save us from ourselves.
