Hy-Fi Queens, New York, NY, United States

Le MoMA a commandé une oeuvre architecturale que l'on pourrait nommer "compostable" avec un nouveau type de briques composées de déchets de maïs et de champignons.

Tours désignées pour être construite autant que déconstruite.

(FAAST)

FIRM

The Living

TYPE

Cultural › Pavilion

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2014

Hy-Fi, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, is a circular tower of organic bricks. It offers a captivating experience for the museum and a new paradigm for sustainable architecture. The structure is an extension of the natural Carbon Cycle, with a revolutionary new construction material that grows out of living materials and returns to the earth through composting at the end of the structure's lifecycle. In contrast to typical short-sighted architecture, it is designed to disappear as much as it is designed to appear.

If the 20th Century was the Century of Physics, then the 21st Century is the Century of Biology. Biotechnologies are advancing exponentially and offering new possibilities for medicines, fuels, and the built environment. Our project uses biological technologies combined with advanced computation and engineering to create a new construction material, a new method of bio-design, and a building that is almost 100% grown and 100% compostable.

We designed a new type of brick through an innovative combination of corn stalk waste and living mushrooms with root-like growth. This organic mixture grows into solid bricks in five days with no added energy. The bricks are lightweight, low cost, and extremely sustainable. When our building is deconstructed, the bricks are composted and the resulting soil is used by local community gardens.

Our building offers a familiar-yet-completely-new structure in the context of the glass towers and typical brick construction of New York City. Our approach offers a new vision for our society's approach to architecture and physical objects. It also offers a new definition of Local Materials. All of the project?s raw materials, manufacturing, construction, deconstruction, composting, and rebirth as vegetation take place within 200 kilometers.

Overall, the structure offers shade, light, views, and a future-oriented experience that is refreshing, thought-provoking, and full of wonder and optimism.