Forget About Concrete: Scientists Built a Living Wall Material That Grows, Breathes, and Heals Its Cracks
The Canada Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale showcased an extraordinary innovation in architecture: Picoplanktonics, a living wall material that grows, breathes, and heals its cracks. This cutting-edge project, developed by the Living Room Collective, led by Canadian architect and biodesigner Andrea Shin Ling, is a testament to the potential of building with living systems rather than extracting and assembling inert materials.
A Living Experiment in Architecture
Picoplanktonics was not just an architectural display; it was a living experiment. The structures were embedded with living cyanobacteria, requiring daily care to keep them alive. This made the project unique, as it depended on the health of the microbes rather than a finished object alone. The pavilion's success hinged on the microorganisms' ability to thrive, a stark contrast to traditional architectural displays.
A Test Site and Exhibition
The pavilion served as both a test site and an exhibition. It showcased speculative design scaled up for public view, with printed components designed to host microorganisms capable of carbon sequestration. This dual purpose was further emphasized by a separate laboratory effort, a paper published in Nature Communications, which reported that the living materials kept capturing carbon for over a year. The exhibition and research overlapped, providing a comprehensive understanding of these materials' potential in architecture.
The Science Behind Picoplanktonics
The research team, led by Dalia Dranseike, Yifan Cui, and Mark W. Tibbitt of ETH Zurich, developed a system using the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 inside a printable hydrogel. The goal was to keep the organism alive and make the material perform useful work over time. The first clue of success was visual: during a 30-day incubation, the printed samples became greener as the encapsulated cells multiplied, forming mineral deposits throughout the hydrogel.
The extra mass accumulated from two pathways: biological growth and microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP). The second pathway proved more durable, sequestering 2.2 ± 0.9 milligrams of CO₂ per gram of hydrogel after 30 days, and 26 ± 7 milligrams per gram after 400 days, with most of the captured carbon in a stable mineral form.
Shape and Design
The material's design had to address a basic conflict: dense scaffolds support structures but can block light and nutrient flow for living cells. The researchers built their bioink from F127-BUM, a photo-cross-linkable hydrogel system that transmitted 76 ± 3% of visible light, allowing the cyanobacteria to photosynthesize inside the printed network. The geometry of the material also impacted performance, with 5 millimeters being an optimal thickness for viability.
Efficiency and Longevity
The team reported that a flat block was not the most efficient option, and they tested textured and lattice-like designs to improve light exposure. One coral-inspired surface increased printed gel volume by 150% while preserving bacterial viability. This design logic reflects the need for living matter to have space, light, and exchange to function within a built form.
Advantages and Limitations
The attraction of photosynthetic living materials is their low maintenance and ability to change after fabrication. As carbonate minerals accumulated, they mechanically reinforced the living material, potentially leading to structures that store carbon and become harder over time. However, the authors noted that biological sequestration is slower than industrial methods, and it works under ambient conditions without toxic feedstocks.
A Step Towards Regenerative Architecture
Picoplanktonics did not prove that a city can be built this way tomorrow, but it demonstrated that architecture can host a living experiment at room scale. The Nature Communications paper showed that the same class of material can sequester carbon for 400 days under controlled conditions, placing a laboratory result directly inside a building-sized test. This innovation paves the way for regenerative architecture, where buildings can actively contribute to carbon sequestration and environmental sustainability.
