{"id":54172,"date":"2018-07-02T07:29:25","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T05:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=54172"},"modified":"2018-06-28T11:50:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T09:50:23","slug":"the-next-big-home-design-trend-bacteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/the-next-big-home-design-trend-bacteria\/","title":{"rendered":"The next big home design trend? Bacteria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Textiles, wood, plastic, glass, paper\u2013these are the kinds of materials we\u2019re used to having in our homes. But there are new experimental materials coming, and they\u2019re made of something that sounds grosser than it is: bacteria.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right\u2013these are tiny microorganisms that you want in your home. At the 2018 Biodesign Challenge Summit, an annual competition between design students working with biological materials, there was a plethora of products (conceptual and otherwise) that aim to bring the benefits of bacteria into your house. From living wallpaper to a microbiome analyzer for the bathroom, these prototypes and concepts show why having more microorganisms in your home isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n

Biofiltering wallpaper
\nCreated by students at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, Yando is a protoype for air-purifying wallpaper that\u2019s made from cyanobacteria\u2013the bacteria that power photosynethesis in plants. They clean the air of your house by turning carbon dioxide into oxygen, but because they\u2019ve been reengineered, the bacteria pull double duty as air fresheners. They also light up at night, acting like a nightlight or just a living piece of art.<\/p>\n

Microbially enhanced flooring
\nA group of students from the Universidad del Istmo in Guatemala created a new way of thinking about floors that mimic the look of tiles but are actually made of biologically reduced waste from the construction industry. For the project, called Organic Remediation Materials, the team proposes using different colored tiles in patterns that mimic the country\u2019s textiles.<\/p>\n

In more commercial or industrial settings, the project MyStep from Arizona State University<\/a> proposes using mycelium flooring tiles embedded with sensors that aim to transform foot traffic into kinetic energy.<\/p>\n

Parents would probably be alarmed at the thought of more bacteria near where their baby sleeps. But a team of students from UC Davis has created a fully biodegradable diaper made from citrus waste<\/a> that has been transformed into bacterial cellulose\u2013which feels a bit like plastic, but you can toss it in the garden when you\u2019re done. There\u2019s also an absorbent layer of Aerogel that the students grew using the bacterial cellulose to soak up any liquid (or solids).<\/p>\n

Then, when the diaper\u2013called Sorbit\u2013is full and needs to be thrown out, you could toss it into another student project called Wee Grow. Invented by students at the School for the Art Institute of Chicago, the Wee Pail\u2013which looks just like a trash receptacle\u2013sits in the nursery and speeds up the composting time for biodegradable diapers using algae blooms, which transform the diapers into fertilizer. While the Wee Grow team designed the product to work on the biodegradable diapers that are already on the market, Sorbit\u2019s team points out that even these kinds of diapers have a large environmental impact and often use similar kinds of materials to regular diapers.<\/p>\n

Bathroom bacteria sensor
\nA concept from the Parsons School of Design aims to take some of the more naturally occurring bacteria you\u2019d find in the home\u2013that which is in the toilet\u2013and analyze it to help you better understand your health. The team describes the idea, called Bactoyou, as a \u201cmicrobial time machine,\u201d where you can understand the history of your microbiome, or your gut bacteria. It works like this: After using the bathroom, users take a pad from a device next to the toilet and use it to wipe their bum. Then, they feed it back into the device, which uses the sample to asses the user\u2019s microbiome.<\/p>\n

The concept also entails a service that would allow you to reconstitute your microbiome from a previous point in time\u2013perhaps to aid in digestion\u2013based on the data by taking oral capsules.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the author
\nKatharine Schwab is an associate editor at Co.Design based in New York who covers technology, design, and culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Textiles, wood, plastic, glass, paper\u2013these are the kinds of materials we\u2019re used to having in our homes. But there are new experimental materials coming, and they\u2019re made of something that sounds grosser than it is: bacteria. That\u2019s right\u2013these are tiny microorganisms that you want in your home. At the 2018 Biodesign Challenge Summit, an annual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[13383,5838,14672],"supplier":[541,14670,14671,14669,14668,2875],"class_list":["post-54172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bacteria","tag-bioeconomy","tag-design","supplier-arizona-state-university","supplier-art-and-design-school-in-nyc-parsons-the-new-school","supplier-school-for-the-art-institute-of-chicago-saic","supplier-universidad-de-los-andes","supplier-universidad-del-istmo","supplier-university-of-california-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54172"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=54172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}