Living Architecture
SynBio research in this area impacts humans on significantly different levels of architectural scale.
Medical projects focus on the architecture of tissues, organs, and organoids. A major challenge associated with manufactured organoids is cell survival to and beyond functional time scales. By creating structures and scaffolds that promote cell survival and enhance bio-printing, this research advances the bio-manufacturing of synthetically manipulated cells to create functional units for organ replacement.
Architectural projects seek to transform the paradigm of design practices from the design of static, mineral constructions to dynamic, responsive, biological or biologically-inspired assemblies. Research in the School of Architecture is focused primarily at the building, landscape and urban scales, rather than in building and material science, so engagement with SynBio is at the scale of systems behavior in hybrid biological/inorganic compositions.
