Rachel Armstrong: Architecture that repairs itself?

Here is an interesting video, Venice, Italy is sinking. To save it, Rachel Armstrong says we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself.

All building today have something in common, they are made with Victorian technology, this involves industrial, manufacturing, blueprint, all involve team of worker. This is not sustainable! – Rachel Armstrong

How long it would take to produce a foot of limestone? According to Wikipedia, the process that produces limestone today is called chemical precipitation, and it is a very slow process. Based on scientific measurement, they’ve indicated that it took thousands of years to make a foot of limestone in quiet areas of today’s seas.

Assuming the new method may accelerate the formation of limestone, how much faster can it be? 100 years?

If we wait for a perfect system, nothing can be done – you adopt the best system and improve it as you go along” – Mahathir Mohammad (Malaysia’s Ex-Crime Minister)

Bendable Concrete

Image Source: National Geographic

First they have bendable concrete, then these engineers introduced light transmitting concrete to the world, now we have a self-healing concrete that is bendable.

A team led by Victor Li of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has developed a new type of concrete that bends under pressure and the best part is, it can repair itself! The self-healing concrete develops many hairline fractures when bent, distributing the pressure over its area. The tiny cracks will seal themselves with calcium carbonate when exposed to rainwater and carbon dioxide.

A slab of self-healing concrete bends under 5 percent tensile strain, the force needed to stretch a material by 5 percent of its initial size. While ordinary concrete would crumble under such pressure, the new material forms micro-cracks that can then auto-seal after being exposed to water and carbon dioxide, researchers said in March 2009. Source

A safer building during earthquakes.