Constructing living buildings: a review of relevant technologies for a novel application of biohybrid robotics

Abstract

Biohybrid robotics takes an engineering approach to the expansion and exploitation of biological behaviours for application to automated tasks. Here, we identify the construction of living buildings and infrastructure as a high-potential application domain for biohybrid robotics, and review technological advances relevant to its future development. Construction, civil infrastructure maintenance and building occupancy in the last decades have comprised a major portion of economic production, energy consumption and carbon emissions. Integrating biological organisms into automated construction tasks and permanent building components therefore has high potential for impact. Live materials can provide several advantages over standard synthetic construction materials, including self-repair of damage, increase rather than degradation of structural performance over time, resilience to corrosive environments, support of biodiversity, and mitigation of urban heat islands. Here, we review relevant technologies, which are currently disparate. They span robotics, self-organizing systems, artificial life, construction automation, structural engineering, architecture, bioengineering, biomaterials, and molecular and cellular biology. In these disciplines, developments relevant to biohybrid construction and living buildings are in the early stages, and typically are not exchanged between disciplines. We, therefore, consider this review useful to the future development of biohybrid engineering for this highly interdisciplinary application.

Ultraconformable, Self‐Adhering Surface Electrodes for Measuring Electrical Signals in Plants

“…In addition, a different field, that tries to make use of the intrinsic functions of plants such as sensing, communication, growth, mechanical structure from a technological perspective for applications in robotics, energy harvesting, biosensing, and architecture is the research on biohybrid devices and biohybrid robotics. [ 18–27 ] A starting point for interfacing plants with reliable electronic components that adapt to the plant could indeed lead to systems that use the stimulus‐responsive electrical signals from a technological perspective. [ 9,28 ] Different thin‐layer sensors and electronic systems based on materials like conductive polymers and graphene operating on the plant surface have been developed for measuring for example humidity or concentrations of certain biomolecules with great potential for agricultural monitoring.…”

How can carbon be stored in the built environment? A review of potential options

“…In addition, large-scale living 'arboscupltures' have been created for recreational parks (Gale 2011). Socalled biohybrid constructions have been classified into four groups by Heinrich et al (2019): (1) biological organisms supported by scaffolds, (2) biological energy sources in buildings, (3) plants grown into loadbearing building components, and (4) forming building components from amorphous living material.…”

Social Integrating Robots Suggest Mitigation Strategies for Ecosystem Decay

“…For example, such long-term interactions with organisms are explored (Heinrich et al, 2019) for the prospect of creating adaptive and self-healing living architecture.…”

“…It is possible that the array reconfigures itself slowly over time, similar to the array/network of under-actuated mobile units described in Donati et al (2017) and Thenius et al (2018) , which are primarily aimed at long-term environmental monitoring but can act as a CASU with the appropriate organisms as well. For example, such long-term interactions with organisms are explored ( Heinrich et al, 2019 ) for the prospect of creating adaptive and self-healing living architecture.…”