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Biohealer.AI is a novel design platform for embedding non-human biodiversity into buildings through the use of ML techniques which integrate complex ecological data sets towards nature-based design strategies. This project utilises these data sets to inform tectonics which optimise the growth of microorganisms on the building substratum. These ecologies, in turn, engage with the material condition to inform the physical and aesthetic phenomenon of ‘building ageing’ as a beneficial condition. This approach rejects the obsession of sterile environments in modernism, as well as the expectation that buildings should exhibit aesthetics of ‘newness’. Instead ageing, and in some cases ruining, becomes a planned condition which exhibits time based reconfigurations of material and space within the building as part of the mixed use program.
The new building will gradually age and decay providing a bioreceptive substrate for nature to grow and spread; New spatial conditions will emerge as ageing progresses, creating a spatiotemporal program informed by environmental conditions.
Different bioreceptive concrete mixes are used to facilitate ageing. Porous concrete is designed to erode while hard mixes provide structure. As outer layers erode, non-human species take over the facade of the building in a planned way.