Unique Chameleon Woody Vine Discovered in Chile!!!

Move over, Sherlock Holmes. There is a new master of disguise—and it’s a plant. Camouflage and mimicry are usually reserved for the animal realm. The hawk moth caterpillar scares away predators by resembling a snake. Myrmarachne jumping spiders imitate ants as they creep up on unsuspecting insects—fangs ready. Fewer examples of mimicry—or crypsis—are known for plants. But as in some mistletoe species in Australia, all of these imposters copy only one other species. That’s not the case with the woody vine Boquila trifoliolata, which transforms its leaves to copy a variety of host trees. Native to Chile and Argentina, B. trifoliolata is the first plant shown to imitate several hosts. It is a rare quality—known as a mimetic polymorphism—that was previously observed only in butterflies, according to this study, published today in Current Biology. When the vine climbs onto a tree’s branches, its versatile leaves (inset) can change their size, shape, color, orientation, and even the vein patterns to match the surrounding foliage (middle panel; the red arrow points to the vine, while the blue arrow indicates the host plant). If the vine crosses over to a second tree, it changes, even if the new host leaves are 10 times bigger with a contrasting shape (right panel). The deceit serves as a defense against plant-eating herbivores like weevils and leaf beetles, according the researchers. They compared the charlatan leaves hanging on branches with the leaves on vines still crawling on the forest floor in search of a tree or scaling leafless trunks. Herbivory was 33% and 100% worse for the vines on the ground and on tree trunks, respectively. It is unclear how B. trifoliolata vines discern the identity of individual trees and shape-shift accordingly. The vines could read cues hidden in odors, or chemicals secreted by trees or microbes may transport gene-activating signals between the fraud and the host, the researchers say.

Source: Science Magazine

Robotic Construction Crew Needs No Foreman

The TERMES robots can carry bricks, build staircases, and climb them to add bricks to a structure, following low-level rules to independently complete a construction project.

Credit: Eliza Grinnell, Harvard SEAS

On the plains of Namibia, millions of tiny termites are building a mound of soil -- an 8-foot-tall "lung" for their underground nest. During a year of construction, many termites will live and die, wind and rain will erode the structure, and yet the colony's life-sustaining project will continue.

Inspired by the termites' resilience and collective intelligence, a team of computer scientists and engineers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University has created an autonomous robotic construction crew. The system needs no supervisor, no eye in the sky, and no communication: just simple robots -- any number of robots -- that cooperate by modifying their environment.

Harvard's TERMES system demonstrates that collective systems of robots can build complex, three-dimensional structures without the need for any central command or prescribed roles. The results of the four-year project were presented this week at the AAAS 2014 Annual Meeting and published in the February 14 issue of Science.

The TERMES robots can build towers, castles, and pyramids out of foam bricks, autonomously building themselves staircases to reach the higher levels and adding bricks wherever they are needed. In the future, similar robots could lay sandbags in advance of a flood, or perform simple construction tasks on Mars.

"The key inspiration we took from termites is the idea that you can do something really complicated as a group, without a supervisor, and secondly that you can do it without everybody discussing explicitly what's going on, but just by modifying the environment," says principal investigator Radhika Nagpal, Fred Kavli Professor of Computer Science at Harvard SEAS. She is also a core faculty member at the Wyss Institute, where she co-leads the Bioinspired Robotics platform.

Most human construction projects today are performed by trained workers in a hierarchical organization, explains lead author Justin Werfel, a staff scientist in bioinspired robotics at the Wyss Institute and a former SEAS postdoctoral fellow.

"Normally, at the beginning, you have a blueprint and a detailed plan of how to execute it, and the foreman goes out and directs his crew, supervising them as they do it," he says. "In insect colonies, it's not as if the queen is giving them all individual instructions. Each termite doesn't know what the others are doing or what the current overall state of the mound is."

Instead, termites rely on a concept known as stigmergy, a kind of implicit communication: they observe each others' changes to the environment and act accordingly. That is what Nagpal's team has designed the robots to do, with impressive results. Supplementary videos published with the Science paper show the robots cooperating to build several kinds of structures and even recovering from unexpected changes to the structures during construction.

Each robot executes its building process in parallel with others, but without knowing who else is working at the same time. If one robot breaks, or has to leave, it does not affect the others. This also means that the same instructions can be executed by five robots or five hundred. The TERMES system is an important proof of concept for scalable, distributed artificial intelligence.

Nagpal's Self-Organizing Systems Research Group specializes in distributed algorithms that allow very large groups of robots to act as a colony. Close connections between Harvard's computer scientists, electrical engineers, and biologists are key to her team's success. They created a swarm of friendly Kilobots a few years ago and are contributing artificial intelligence expertise to the ongoing RoboBees project, in collaboration with Harvard faculty members Robert J. Wood and Gu-Yeon Wei.

"When many agents get together -- whether they're termites, bees, or robots -- often some interesting, higher-level behavior emerges that you wouldn't predict from looking at the components by themselves," says Werfel. "Broadly speaking, we're interested in connecting what happens at the low level, with individual agent rules, to these emergent outcomes."

Coauthor Kirstin Petersen, a graduate student at Harvard SEAS with a fellowship from the Wyss Institute, spearheaded the design and construction of the TERMES robots and bricks. These robots can perform all the necessary tasks -- carrying blocks, climbing the structure, attaching the blocks, and so on -- with only four simple types of sensors and three actuators.

"We co-designed robots and bricks in an effort to make the system as minimalist and reliable as possible," Petersen says. "Not only does this help to make the system more robust; it also greatly simplifies the amount of computing required of the onboard processor. The idea is not just to reduce the number of small-scale errors, but more so to detect and correct them before they propagate into errors that can be fatal to the entire system."

In contrast to the TERMES system, it is currently more common for robotic systems to depend on a central controller. These systems typically rely on an "eye in the sky" that can see the whole process or on all of the robots being able to talk to each other frequently. These approaches can improve group efficiency and help the system recover from problems quickly, but as the numbers of robots and the size of their territory increase, these systems become harder to operate. In dangerous or remote environments, a central controller presents a single failure point that could bring down the whole system.

"It may be that in the end you want something in between the centralized and the decentralized system -- but we've proven the extreme end of the scale: that it could be just like the termites," says Nagpal. "And from the termites' point of view, it's working out great."

This research was supported by the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

What can a TERMES robot do?

- Move forward, backward, and turn in place
- Climb up or down a step the height of one brick
- Pick up a brick, carry it, and deposit it directly in front of itself
- Detect other bricks and robots in immediate vicinity
- Keep track of its own location with respect to a "seed" brick

What instructions do the TERMES robots follow?

- Obey predetermined traffic rules
- Circle the growing structure to find the first, "seed" brick (for orientation)
- Climb onto the structure
- Obtain a brick
- Attach the brick at any vacant point that satisfies local geometric requirements
- Climb off the structure
- Repeat

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140213142134.htm

The Genius of Biome

What three 2013 climate-related events have left us with $53 billion in damages? In addition to the enormous dollar amounts they racked up, the Tasmanian bushfires, Hurricane Sandy, and the EF5 Oklahoma tornado, together, left thousands homeless. Lives and the economy were disrupted. And that’s just the beginning of the droughts, heat waves, and super-storms that experts predict for the near future.

Our species has survived on Earth for 200,000 years. Yet, we are babies compared to 3.8 billion years’ experience of other living organisms. So as we struggle to be resilient, why not ask the species that, for eons, have been able to manage the same challenges? Let’s ask ourselves this: “What would nature do?”

The Genius of Biome report starts this conversation. How does nature design resilient forests to manage windstorms? What does nature do when faced with catastrophic disruption?

One example of amazing resilience in nature is the story of the American chestnut tree. The species once formed 25-50% of the temperate broadleaf forest canopy in the northeastern U.S. A major source of food for hundreds of species, the chestnut disappeared from this ecosystem 40 years after a new fungus, imported on non-native trees, arrived on the continent.

In the 1940s, when the chestnut trees died, the forest canopy opened up, the food web deteriorated, and soil erosion ensued. However, many tree species in those forests were not susceptible to the fungus and were also abundant food producers and soil stabilizers. Oak trees, sugar maples, serviceberry, and black cherry have now replaced the American chestnut and serve as primary food sources for forest creatures. A dense understory took over, assisting in soil stability. This catastrophic biological event was resolved because of the redundant functional roles existing in the community of species in the ecosystem.

How can we emulate this redundancy principle? We, too, experience catastrophic events that destroy our built environments; what could we do to foster resilience?

http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/June-2013/The-Genius-of-Biome/

With Nature and Justice for All

Researching simulated environmental imagery to improve prison life.

Credit: Randy Lyhus

When a new inmate is booked into jail, it can be a pretty dismal experience for everyone involved. The prisoner may be angry or despondent, suffering from acute mental stress or illness, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. On-duty staff attending to prisoner intake may feel tired or threatened (or both). It’s a combustible atmosphere, to be sure, and in the early hours and days of a prisoner’s term, concepts such as “rehabilitation” and “redemption” may not take hold.

At a Northern California jail, however, a relatively simple intervention has already improved conditions for staff and inmates. Based on research that illustrates the calming effects of simulated nature views, with support from the Academy of Architecture for Justice (AAJ) and the National Institute of Corrections, the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility now boasts a large-scale photo mural of bucolic grassland on one wall of the booking area. Just six weeks after the mural was installed, the team of researchers—led by Jay Farbstein, FAIA, Melissa Farling, AIA, and Polytechnic Institute of New York University environmental psychology professor Richard Wener, with assistance from arts and neuroscience researchers Upali Nanda and John Sollers—found measurable reductions in stress levels among both groups.

Since the 1980s, studies have shown that medical patients with views of nature—whether real (as in a garden) or simulated (as in a photographic mural)—experience accelerated recovery, lower blood pressure, and less anxiety. In the prison setting, at least one study has similarly demonstrated that prisoners with external views of nature have lower blood pressure than those who view only internal courtyards.

In October 2006, a group of architects, corrections administrators, and neuroscientists gathered to discuss the growing body of evidence that suggests that correctional environments affect inmates and staff. “We looked at several aspects of the prison environment and how they might affect the brain,” Farbstein says, “including the visual environment, the acoustic environment, the impact of light on circadian rhythms, crowding and social functions, and staff–inmate ratio.” The Sonoma County project grew out of that exercise.

Compared to most other jails, the Sonoma County detention center was already considered a next-generation facility that placed greater emphasis on human comfort. The intake space was bright and airy, with a waiting-room atmosphere in which most inmates are booked across an open counter rather than shuffled down dark corridors. “It already was a less stressful environment than 80 to 90 percent of intake areas,” Farbstein says. “There were a lot of things about it that already suggested a lower level of stress.”

It was an ideal environment in which to test their hypothesis. The team initially considered adding live houseplants to the space, which could have been a security risk (as pots and twigs could be used as weapons), and the idea was ultimately deemed less effective than a large-scale mural. Once they centered on that approach, the team chose a mural of savannah grassland that was previously used in a medical setting to positive effect. In addition to the main mural, which measures about 9 feet by 24 feet and was installed in the waiting room, an additional mural of the same image was mirrored to fill a longer and narrower 2-feet-by-38-feet space near the ceiling in the holding-cell area.

The depicted landscape has all the hallmarks of a calming nature scene, Farling says, including open views, enough trees to provide shade and shelter, and a still, nonturbulent water source. Again, the team pointed to previous research indicating humans’ primal connection to the savannah landscape. Architects may also appreciate that the mural simply represents the classic design principle of “prospect and refuge.”

To determine stress levels, the research team chose to record a particular measure of staff heart rates (inter-beat intervals), which was considered less invasive than, say, testing for levels of salivary cortisol—another stress indicator that would require users to chew on a piece of cotton. Comparing heart rates of staff pre- and post-mural showed a measurable reduction in stress at the end of their shifts after the mural was installed. There was also a marked reduction in the staff stress indicators from the beginning to end of their shifts from the pre-mural to the post-mural period.

Farbstein said they are intrigued by the implications that the research may have for the potential of such interventions to reduce stress levels in inmates and that, if stress and other factors are reduced, inmates may be better able to participate effectively in rehabilitation programs. He and his colleagues are seeking more funding to take their research further
.
“If you are in a jail that believes in rehabilitation and offers rehabilitation programs,” Farbstein says, “when you have inmates who are less stressed, getting more sleep, and are better able to learn, I think it’s a reasonable hypothesis that they would ultimately have greater success.”
Learn more about the AIA Academy of Architecture for Justice at aia.org/aaj.

http://www.ecobuildingpulse.com/performance-metrics/with-nature-and-justice-for-all.aspx

Green Fades to Blue: Would You Rather Sustain or be Restored?

Mention restoration and most minds go to some historical building project. I subscribe to a much broader definition that encompasses the ability of a building to generate a positive effect. Beyond green design, which at best seeks neutrality, and at worst comes with practically a whole religion’s worth of moral baggage, restorative design, including “blue” principles, seeks to replenish us in body, mind and spirit. William McDonough has written about the power of architecture to be restorative and at the 2008 Sustainable Brands International Conference, Bob Isherwood introduced the term Blue design, to reflect the need for strategic and innovative solutions that give something back. In other words, it’s not enough to have the cache of being sustainable. To really impact people’s lives, we have to show them what’s in it for them- we need to provide restoration.

Think about the buildings in which we live, work and play: How do these environments contribute to the stress in our lives? How do they cost us too much money to maintain while giving us largely inadequate shelter and support to live our lives? How often might they actually be harmful to our well being through contaminants in the air or water, noise or light pollution? 

Blue as an Expansive Approach

 Many early adopters of the term Blue Design or the phrase “green to blue” focus on the power of design to give something back to the community by having a net positive effect on air quality and energy (in the meantime, we have been hard pressed to even design net-zero, or energy neutral buildings). This narrow definition of blue loses sight of a much larger goal that we should be striving for in our built environment, the ability to be restorative, even therapeutic. While contaminants in that environment can contribute to a lack of focus and well being, cultural impacts are far greater. We inhabit a world of sensory overload. We lead isolated and independent lives in the processed, overproduced stage set of life. Depleting days feature streaming information in the form of constant interruptions and demands on our attention. The resulting level of stress that we experience impacts our ability to focus our attention, creating a state of persistent mental fatigue that impairs our quality of life. The antidote: a restorative environment.

Building for the Senses

It’s unlikely that life in the information age is going to change anytime soon, or that its cultural impacts are necessarily negative. They just feel that way because there is such disconnect between our lifestyles and the spaces in which we live. The industrial age city and post-industrial sprawl has created both interior and exterior spaces that exacerbate our state of depletion. Our built world needs an overhaul.

Architecture, landscape and urban design elements can recharge our direct attention capabilities and restore balance and wellness in our lives if our designs reconnect users with nature and other living things through biophilic design strategies. Work towards solutions that encourage interaction and that provide relief from unwanted or irrelevant stimuli. While specific design strategies will arise from specific design problems, you should approach every project with the goal of restoration in mind. Some characteristics of restorative environmental design as defined by Stephen Kellert in his book Linkages: Understanding and Designing Connections between the Natural and Human Built Environments include:

Human Built Environments include:

1. Prospect- the vista
2. Refuge- the safe place
3. Water-actual water or design elements that provide glimmer, movement or symbolic images representing water
4. Biodiversity- a rich palette of natural materials supplied through both interactive spaces (gardens, planters) and views.
5. Sensory Variability- response to the changing times of day and seasons
6. Biomimicry-natural materials, natural forms and structures
7. Sense of playfulness-things that delight, surprise and amuse
8. Enticement-complexity that encourages exploration

When was the last time a building brought you joy? What if every building could?

http://thepatronsaintofarchitecture.blogspot.com/2011/02/green-fades-to-blue-would-you-rather.html

Nanoleaves; Technology Breeding New Ways To Harness Energy

In a relatively modern field, known as “Biomimicry”, nanoleaves are being construed to harness renewable energy. These “leaves” are attached to artificial plants and trees to capture solar energy. The nanoleaves are constructed with miniature thermovoltaic and photovoltaic modules that absorb the light and heat provided via solar energy, and thereafter converts it into electricity.

Overview of Nanoleaves Technology
One of the emerging nanotechnologies related to renewable energy is nanoleaves and stems of artificially created trees or plants. They are intended to harness energy provided by the wind and sun, thereafter converting it into electrical energy. Moreover, to better understand the fundamental of nanoleaves, we have to dig into an innovative field of technologic development, called Biomimicry.

Overview of Biomimicry Technology
The nanoleaves have been specially designed to imitate the natural process of photosynthesis. A mechanism by which, typical plants absorb the light emitted by the sun and CO2 in the atmosphere. The artificial trees do even copy the natural re-cycling process of oxygen. It is very recent that nanoleaves technology started to reap even more advanced levels. It can now harvest thermal energy as well. Moreover, the leaves fixed on artificial trees are also able to collect energy derived through movement of the wind, known as kinetic energy, which is as well converted into electrical energy.

Compositions of Nanoleaves
The nano-technology was initially developed to harness solely solar energy. However, nowadays it has widespread uses. It exploits various alternative sources of energy like wind, solar and thermal energy. Furthermore, these highly advanced artificial plants and/or trees use tiny cells to capture energy:

Thermal Energy - Tiny thermovoltaic cells are used to capture thermal energy via semi-conducting material which converts the heat into electricity.

Light Energy - There are also tiny photovoltaic cells (PV) incorporated in the nanoleaves. These small PV cells capture the light rays emitted by the sun. The light is then converted into electricity.

Kinetic Energy - Kinetic energy is harnessed through movement. The wind produces motion in stems and branches. This motion is collected via piezovoltaic (PZ) cells. The PZ has semi-conducting devices incorporated into the artificial structure of trees and plants. The PZ and the semi-conducting devices convert typical wind energy (kinetic energy) into electricity.

Best Places to use Nanoleaves
The use of piezvoltaic, thermovoltaic and photovoltaic cells does effectively convert an amalgamation of energy sources into electricity. Artificial energy trees can be used for both domestic or even industrial purposes. According to Solarbotanic, erecting an approximate of six meter area of nanoleaves can produce enough energy for an average household. More, intricate is that, artificial trees can be constructed at various areas, like;

Desert - The earth has large areas of unexploited deserts which can be used to generate a massive amount of electricity, if artificial trees were planted. The energy produced could be used to solve the most predominant challenge in desert; provide electricity to power desalination. The desalinated water could thereafter be used for irrigation and drinking purposes. The fragile desert environment would hardly be affected by such a project yet the benefits are extensive. To further minimize the environmental impact on desert, the artificial trees could be planted alongside roads, coasts and other areas where it would protect inhabitants from sandstorms and provide constant shade form the sun.

Golf Courses, Recreation Grounds and Parks - Artificial golf courses, recreational grounds and parks could have artificial plants and trees planted to supply electricity for at least a portion of recreational parks. For golf course, the nanoleaves could fuel ground maintenance vehicles.

Office Parking and industrial Zone - The multi-fold benefits of planting trees near office parkings and industrial zone are numerous. It provides with electricity to office, parking lights and other uses. Moreover, it does also provide with shade from the sun and offers an aesthetic landscaping.

http://www.renewablepowernews.com/archives/1371

Cities of the Future: Built By Drones and Bacteria

By Chris Arkenberg

As scientists make huge strides in robotics, natural building materials, and new construction methods, our urban architecture could take on a much different form than the rigid construction we’re used to. As complex ecosystems, cities are confronting tremendous pressures to seek optimum efficiency with minimal impact in a resource-constrained world. While architecture, urban planning, and sustainability attempt to address the massive resource requirements and outflow of cities, there are signs that a deeper current of biology is working its way into the urban framework.

Innovations emerging across the disciplines of additive manufacturing, synthetic biology, swarm robotics, and architecture suggest a future scenario when buildings may be designed using libraries of biological templates and constructed with biosynthetic materials able to sense and adapt to their conditions. Construction itself may be handled by bacterial printers and swarms of mechanical assemblers.

“Buildings may be designed using libraries of biological templates and constructed with biosynthetic materials.”

 Much of the modern built environment we experience began its life in CAD software. In the Bio/Nano/Programmable Matter lab at Autodesk Research, engineers are developing tools to model the microscopic world. Project Cyborg helps researchers simulate atomic and molecular interactions, providing a platform to programmatically design matter. Autodesk recently partnered with Organovo, a firm developing functional bioprinters that can print living tissues. This pairing extends the possibilities from molecular design to biofabrication, enabling rapid prototyping of everything from pharmaceuticals to nanomachines.

Tools like Project Cyborg make possible a deeper exploration of biomimicry through the precise manipulation of matter. David Benjamin and his Columbia Living Architecture Lab explore ways to integrate biology into architecture. Their recent work investigates bacterial manufacturing--the genetic modification of bacteria to create durable materials. Envisioning a future where bacterial colonies are designed to print novel materials at scale, they see buildings wrapped in seamless, responsive, bio-electronic envelopes.

From molecular printing to volume manufacturing, roboticist Enrico Dini has fabricated a 3-D printer large enough to print houses from sand. He’s now teamed up with the European Space Agency to investigate deploying his D-Shape printer to the moon in hopes of churning lunar soil into a habitable base. Though realization of this effort remains distant, it’s notable to show how the thinking--and money--is moving to scale 3-D printing well beyond the desktop.

 

While printers integrate new materials and scale up to make bigger things, another approach to construction focuses on programming group dynamics. Like corals, beehives, and termite colonies, there’s a scalar effect gained from coordinating large numbers of simple agents towards complex goals.

The Robobees project at Harvard is exploring micro-scale robotics, wireless sensor arrays, and multi-agent systems to build robotic insects that exhibit the swarming behaviors of bees. They see a future where “coordinated agile robotic insects” are used for agriculture, search and rescue, and (of course) military surveillance. Taking a cue from mound-building termites, the TERMES project is developing a robotic swarm construction system. The team is working to get cooperative robots building things bigger than themselves by mapping the rules underlying emergence in autonomous distributed populations. Mike Rubenstein leads another Harvard lab, Kilobot, creating a “low cost scalable robot system for demonstrating collective behaviors.” His lab, along with the work of researcher’s like Nancy Lynch at MIT, are laying the frameworks for asynchronous distributed networks and multi-agent coordination, aka swarm robotics.

All of these projects are brewing in university and corporate labs but it’s likely that there are far more of them sprouting in garage shops and skunkworks across the globe. They each recapitulate the efficiency and conservation of natural systems through the convergence of biology and computation. Looking at the threads of algorithmic chemistry, bacterial manufacturing, and swarm robotics, and refracting them through our resource constraints, environmental degradation, and human security, we can develop some intriguing scenarios for the future.

“Within a decade or so, the barriers between biology and technology will start to fall."

 Assuming a fairly linear scenario, the next decade should show steady progress in molecular modeling, yielding more breakthroughs in designer bacteria, nanosystems, and the hybridization of organic and inorganic materials. The software stack for algorithmic chemistry and synthetic biology will start to formalize, enabling better collaboration around libraries of biosynthetic design patterns. Additive printers will evolve to meet the demands of manufacturing at both volume and scale. Deployment of 3-D printers into the field for maintenance, disaster relief, and remote engineering projects will further drive their development.

Within a decade or so, the barriers between biology and technology will start to fall. At the atomic scale, nanosystems will bridge organic and inorganic structures while biologists engineer rudimentary cellular computers and bacterial printers. At the macro scale, robotic swarms will become more sophisticated, with the steady integration of bio-physiology into their mechanics, lifted by lightweight sensors and the rules underlying autonomy and multi-agent coordination.

Further out on the horizon, this scenario means a greater coupling of biosystems and computation to evolve the living city. Bacteria will be engineered to target specific materials, like aging concrete. Released into cities, they will replace the old stuff with new bacterial glue that’s structurally sound, networked, and computational. Other bacteria could perform similar maintenance by retrofitting aging utility conduits and faded solar skins. Protocell computers could also be released into ecosystems, sensing chemical properties and transmitting them on mesh networks to remote dashboards. Vats of bacteria will pump out fuels, protein resources, and water.

 “Architecture will lose its formal rigidity, softening and flexing and getting closer to the life we see in plants."

 Future architects will work in modeling systems that stream biotemplates into their designs, solving for resource dependencies by ecosystem mapping in simulated environments. Their designs will exploit responsive meta-materials to confer sensing and adaptation to biomimetic curtain walls and building envelopes that flex and fold, opening and closing pores based on environmental conditions and population movements. Fleets of swarm constructors will assemble special scaffolding that guide bacteria specialized to grow the bones of the building, the vasculature, and the skin through which secondary swarms will plumb utilities. Printers will churn out conditioning systems and appliances and furnishings in adaptive materials. Architecture will lose its formal rigidity, softening and flexing and getting closer to the life we see in plants.

These vignettes are merely suggestive of how things may unfold from current trends. But the steady convergence of biology and computation will inevitably guide our hands to more closely align with natural systems. Precision design of programmable matter and a robust environment for simulation and rapid prototyping will reveal entirely new kinds of materials to build the world of tomorrow.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681891/cities-of-the-future-built-by-drones-bacteria-and-3-d-printers