Rachel Armstrong innovates and designs sustainable solutions for the built and natural environment using advanced new technologies such as, Synthetic Biology – the rational engineering of living systems - and smart chemistry. Her research prompts a reevaluation of how we think about our homes and cities and raises questions about sustainable development of the built environment. She creates open innovation platforms for academia and industry to address environmental challenges such as carbon capture & recycling, smart ‘living’ materials and sustainable design.
Her award winning research underpins her bold approach to the way that she challenges perceptions, presumptions and established principles related to scientific concepts and the building blocks of life and society. She embodies and promotes new transferrable ways of thinking ‘outside of the box’ and enables others to also develop innovative environmental solutions. Her innovative approaches are outlined in her forthcoming TED Book on Living Architecture.
Watch Rachel Armstrong's TED Fellows talk, "Creating Carbon-Negative Architecture" >>
“Scientists need to work outside their own areas of expertise to make new technologies that are pertinent to the 21st century and to collaborate, both with other scientific disciplines and the arts and humanities.” — Rachel Armstrong
What will the urban areas of tomorrow look like? More like an ever-changing and vibrant garden than a static set of buildings and blocks. In our new ebook Living Architecture: How Synthetic Biology Can Remake Our Cities and Reshape Our Lives, British designer and architect Rachel Armstrong re-imagines the world’s cities and argues that in […]
Continue readingVenice, Italy is sinking. To save it, TED Fellow Rachel Armstrong says we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself. She proposes a not-quite-alive material that does its own repairs and sequesters carbon, too. (Recorded at TEDGlobal 2009, July 2009, Oxford, UK. Duration: 07:32) Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/4R […]
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