Inaugural Lecture, Prof Marcos Cruz - The Bartlett International Lectures

About

The Dean of Faculty, Christoph Lindner, will introduce the inaugural lecture by Marcos Cruz.

This event forms part of The Bartlett International Lectures Autumn 2021.

This autumn and spring, each of the International Lectures will be curated by one of the school's programmes to inspire, invent, imagine, and provoke. This event is curated by Bio-Integrated Design MArch/MSc. 

Abstract

Marcos' inaugural lecture explores ways to integrate biological growth in architecture as a way to create innovative environments that improve the environmental quality of cities and addressing the current climate crisis. Against a prevalent sense of flatness and the established idea that buildings can look forever new, the proposed work embraces impure aesthetics derived from self-regulated growth on three-dimensional walls that age over time.

Central to this new ornamental dimension of architecture is the use of poikilohydric species (algae, mosses, lichens), grown on bioreceptive material scaffolds, that switch on and off their photosynthetic activity without the need for irrigation or maintenance. The lecture delves into novel interdisciplinary work methodologies traded between architects and scientists that range from lab tests to outdoor observational studies, reflecting a mix of computationally-driven morphologies, novel material composites and multi-scale applications.

More information

• Find out more about Bio-Integrated Design MArch/MSc
• Visit Prof Marcus Cruz's profile
• See the full programme for The Bartlett International Lectures

Image: Poikilohydric Living Wall - installation for the St Annes Catholic Primary School, London, created on the occasion of the exhibition ‘La Fabrique du Vivant’ at the Centre Pompidou exhibition, 2019. A collaboration between UCL Bio-ID (Marcos Cruz, Javier Ruiz, Brenda Parker with Richard Beckett) and Pennine Stone. Photo Credit: Sarah Lever