U-SoA Dean Rodolphe el-Khoury’s Responsive Architecture and Design Lab (RAD-UM Lab), housed at U-SoA, is creating exactly that: a bio-reactor integrated into the building envelope to give a strikingly leafy character while enhancing the building’s environmental performance.
In 2007, el-Khoury and his firm, Khoury Levit Fong, created the concept of an algae wall as an element of a competition to design the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shenzhen, China, which el-Khoury said was the first use of anything like that. Although the firm was a finalist in the competition, their idea was a bit too forward thinking at that time.
More recently, el-Khoury and his team conceptualized the same kind of algae wall as part of the façade for the new Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science in downtown Miami. The concept is simple, explains Christopher Chung, manager of the RAD-UM Lab. “By controlling the amount of light and CO2-rich air that goes to each container of algae, you control how fast they grow. So not only is it functional tool that can filter air and water, it’s also a visual design tool. You can create patterns and pictures by controlling the light in specific ways. Each container becomes a living pixel.”
el-Khoury further explained that the bio-display can be used to visualize data, such as rates of water consumption in various neighborhoods. “We’re working on an app that will let people toggle between a traditional data charts, for example, and the algae wall depiction of that same data, just like how one would choose between a map and a satellite view on Google Maps.”
el-Khoury said that, from a facilities point of view, the system can be used to filter rainwater or gray water from buildings, then be recirculated for non-potable uses such as running sprinkler systems and irrigation. When the image is “developed,” the system is “re-booted” and the algae collected as a bio-fuel to offset the energy bill of the building.
A prototype of the algae wall debuted at the UM 2016 eMerge Americas booth, creating the shape of The U, of course, and attracted quite a bit of attention. UM Executive Vice President and Provost Thomas J. LeBlanc joked that it is “the world’s slowest developing Polaroid.”
