URoL:EN: Convergence of biology and architecture: how emergent system dynamics generate adaptable, robust, and resilient forms

How might buildings be designed and constructed to behave more like organisms by responding and adapting to their environments? This project aims to take shape design to the next level such that architecture functions in changing environmental conditions. Likewise, the ability of complex biological systems to thrive in changing environmental conditions depends on their ability to adapt, altering their form and function.

During development in both animals and plants, cells must grow, take on specialized functions, and form the complex shapes of organs. In addition, plant tissues can be induced to form unorganized cell masses and regenerate a new organism as a form of biodiversity conservation. In brain cancer, tumors generate new tissue forms, which then compete with the surrounding tissue for their growth.

This project tests the core hypothesis that all of these diverse biological systems use a parallel emergent network connecting the system with the environment—a rule of life—to achieve their shapes, and that this same emergent network can be applied to architectural design to generate adaptable, robust, and resilient structures. Rules of life can be identified and tested by using a diverse set of systems, which is why this project will examine chick hearts, plant flowers, brain cancer, plant cell regeneration, and architectural building façades.

Society is experiencing the 4th Industrial Revolution where intersections between the digital, physical, and biological are radically altering the world. Some of the most burdensome societal challenges—architecture in the context of climate crisis, congenital heart defects, cancer, and food security—share the trait of defective shape formation. By understanding the fundamental emergent networks generating robustness, adaptability, and resilience, insights will be gained into these intractable problems.

The next generation of convergent scientists, engineers, and architects will be trained. The public will experience the innovative architectural prototypes generated through this project in gallery exhibitions.

This project will test the hypothesis that the emergence of robust forms, i.e. morphogenesis, occurs through an iterative cycle of multicellular network interactions connecting the system with the environment. Further, this same biologically based emergence network will be applied to transform architecture and manufacturing to create self-assembled, adaptive, and resilient structures.

This markedly contrasts with the prevailing dogma that biological and architectural morphogenesis is controlled via a “forward genetic” program without iterative feedback from its biophysical environment. Each step of the cyclical emergence network will be tested by performing the same three experimental techniques in evolving biophysical environments across four diverse biological systems: chick hearts, Arabidopsis flowers, brain cancer in mice, and regenerating Arabidopsis somatic embryos. (Aim 1) Optical coherence elastography will be used to measure the local mechanical properties of the biological systems in 3D and over time in varying mechanical environments.

The results will test the first step in the cycle in which cells perceive both internal and external mechanical stresses. (Aim 2) Visium HD spatial RNA-seq technology will be used to determine how cells alter their gene expression profiles in response to external mechanical stresses. The results will test step 2 in the cycle in which cells adapt to stress by altering their material properties, state, and dynamics via changing gene expression. (Aim 3) Hyperspectral multiphoton microscopy will be used to simultaneously image about seven fluorescent markers during shape generation in varying environments.

The results will test how the growth, division, and movement of cells adapt the form toward optimal mechanics. This cycle is hypothesized to iterate as progressive form leads to new local mechanical stresses and new interactions within evolving environmental conditions. (Aim 4) These morphogenetic design rules developed in Aims 1-3 will be modeled and employed to create a robust bioinspired load-bearing façade system with emergent properties.

This structure will mediate between fluctuating interior and exterior climatic conditions, control structural rigidity, light, temperature, humidity, and airflow in response to an ever-evolving environment. How robust, resilient, and adaptable forms emerge over multiple cycles of this emergent multicellular network will be elucidated.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.