They're Smart, But Are They Bright?

The building facade is fast becoming one of contemporary architectures discovery zones.

- Audrey Gray

In a small, locked basement room in Newark, three tanks gurgle gently all in a row. Martina Decker, an associate professor and director of the Material Dynamics Lab at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, finds the right key on her chain and opens the door, releasing a slight organic smell, like the bulk beansand-grains section of a grocery store. Up close, the vats bubble with mystery liquids—actually strains of cyanobacteria— each one a different shade of green, ranging from a young Japanese tea to pond scum in full bloom.

“These have a 14-day growth cycle; you can see it left to right,” says Decker, who is part architect herself, clad in black instead of a lab coat. “But even after four days, it’s pretty dark.”

Blue-green algae like spirulina— that muck brewing in Decker’s tanks— could provide food and even biofuel to power buildings in our planet’s resource strapped future. In 2013, Austrian firm Splitterwerk and Arup tested out such a thesis for the International Building Exhibition in Hamburg, and suggested that incorporating micro-algae into a building envelope could increase the structure’s efficiency while also contributing to its inhabitants’ well-being.

In this vein, both researchers and design firms have continued to reconceptualize the facade, right down to its material composition. In addition to algae, these prototypes make use of “smart materials” that respond to changes in temperature, light, electric currents, or magnetic fields independently, without an external power source or mechanical system.