Tree.ONE is not a technological version of a tree. Rather it pioneers the naturalization of design and technology.
Tree.ONE exhibited at Habitat One in Hundayi Motor Studio, Busan, South Korea celebrates this epochal transition.
On the one hand, it is a living tree, the most potent symbol of Nature. On the other, it embodies a new kind of technological life, designed by artificial intelligence and bio-digitally grown. One of the most significant aspects of contemporary technological evolution is its inevitable convergence with living Nature. Non-human intelligence and artificial life are emerging as the critical forces shaping our future.
The concept of Shelter manifests humans’ most fundamental and primordial need for protection from the environment.
Such anthropological condition was first explored in the “primitive hut”, originally brought to life in the mid-1700s, and further developed by Marc-Antoine Laugier in his work “An Essay on Architecture.”
It contends that the ideal architectural form embodies what is natural and intrinsic, such as in the structure of a tree. Today as biotechnology is redefining the boundaries of the natural, we observe what repercussions it will have on our future life, the architecture of domestic spaces and the use of natural resources. The Shelter thus evolves from an element of protection into our primary interface with Nature and the living world.
From this perspective, the concept of Shelter, embodies several scenarios. In the works of ecoLogicStudio these take multiple forms. From the small photosynthetic system that enables us to live in self-sufficiency, such as the Bio.Bombola and the Photosynthetica walk, to hi-density metropolitan clusters that support urban re-metabilization, like HORTUS XL and the PhotoSynethetica Tower. It also envisions capsules for mobility enabling the emergence of fluid and dynamic urban networks, bio.cities that can grow to form a sustainable global Urbansphere, as in the case of GAN-Physarum.
In the project Tree.ONE, artificial and biological intelligence combine. Its main structure is a 3D Voxel grid developed by a trained AI algorithm whose recognition of arboreal systems negotiates the logic of the architectural column, the original archetype of the Shelter.
Tree.ONE is robotically “grown” with algae based biopolymers. It is the world’s tallest 3D printed, self-supporting, carbon capturing and storing structure.
The robotically printed trunk is 10m tall and supports the inoculation of living photosynthetic microalgae cultures into 8 glass reactors with no additional structural reinforcement. Its strengths derived solely from the unique pleated morphology of the fibrous trunks of actual trees.
The fibrous system then continues in the large 3D printed canopy, hovering above and shading an area of more than 25 square meters.
Tree.ONE has the same photosynthetic and carbon capturing potential of a mature tree. It metabolizes and stores the carbon molecules into its 3D printed bio-plastic structure while releasing Oxygen in the atmosphere.
As such Tree.ONE is the testimony of the dawn of a new technological era, pollution and waste free, carbon neutral. An era where the contemporary digital and robotic infrastructure is repurposed to fabricate or grow soft, wet, living, bio-digital architectures.
With Tree.ONE, Bio.Bombola and PhotoSynthetica Walk, HORTUS XL and PhotoSynthetica Tower, visitors of the exhibition currently at the HMS Busan can experience the dawn of this new era, the dawn of a carbon neutral civilization where bits, atoms and cells fuse into ONE biotechnological landscape.
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