This is one of those stories / articles / posts that simultaneously fascinates me and freaks me out a bit and for which I fluctuate wildly between those two points of view:
bioME – RSA Human By Nature Entry on Behance By Candice de Aguiar
Her basic design idea here is to allow for more microbial diversity in indoor air via a custimaizable system to have terrariums inside a filtration bubble basically (I think). With lichens providing some of the air filtration.
I talked to her a bit a while back and there is a section in here with what seem like quotes from me. I think these are almost certainly her summaries of what I said since I cannot imagine having said some of those things and some of what I am reported to have said makes me cringe. Be that as it may, the conecpt is fascinating. And potentially worrysome. But rather than pre-bias people’s interpretations too much – I suggest you go check out her site.
This sounds a bit like taking existing ideas, regarding for example the work from Jessica Green on hospitals and then extrapolating that into areas beyond what is warranted by the data. Since when do lichens “mirror the activity of microorganisms in the room”? No discussion of the chemical nature of indoor air pollution (as opposed to the indoor microbiome). And it shouldn’t matter… but typos on the website raise flags.
It should be noted this is a design project, not an actual plan. See the sidebar where she writes
“This project was my entry into the RSA Student Design Competition 2015 for the brief Human by Nature which can be found here: http://sda.thersa.org/en/challenge/rsa-student-design-awards-2015/phase/ideation-phase-2/track/human-by-nature-en I designed a bioinformed ventilation system that provides a constant fresh air supply, creating a more diverse built environment microbiome, similar to that found naturally outside”