• Water-driven Membranes
Object Space Agency | Doctoral Program | Climate | Fungi/Mycelium | Water | More-Than-Human

Water-driven Membranes

Methods of Activating the Building Envelope for More-Than-Human Commoning

Diagram of energy and material relationships and negotiations between the inside and the outside. Copyright: Dimitra Almpani-Lekka

Concept for a bio-cybernetic water remediation device that raises questions about the ways in which we experience interior spaces, our reliance on hidden infrastructures of the built environment and the re-thinking of our relationship with other species. Copyright: Dimitra Almpani-Lekka

The aim of Dimitra’s research is to investigate emerging architectural design protocols of activating the building envelope with the treatment of water in order to restore and promote ecosystemic functions and local biodiversity. In this framework the building envelope is approached as a voluminous, programmatic and infrastructural space of opportunity for integrating the building into the metabolic processes of the ecosystem. The envelope is explored as a porous membrane rather than a barrier, a vehicle for mutually beneficial human and non-human symbiosis that allows for material and energy negotiations and exchanges between the outside and the inside. Therefore, the envelope is re-thought as a potential space of communing for all local species.

The actuator of the envelope is water, one of the most vital resources for the sustenance of ecosystemic activity. This approach requires the study of water related functions, properties and phenomena across different scales (macro- (urban fabric), meso- (building/device), micro-(study of microorganisms and properties of matter). With the use of dynamic design tools, the architectural design is formed by the dynamics and temporalities of water. Alliances between the fields of biotechnology, natural sciences and environmental engineering as well as humanities, landscape architecture, animal aided design and biomimetics are employed to incorporate biological growth and water treatment methods in an architectural design method that addresses the topic of co-habitation in contemporary cities, especially in the context of pressing climate related problems such as droughts, floods and the contamination of natural water resources.

Over the last years Dimitra has been working in Berlin in the field of Landscape Architecture with a focus on the creation of socially and environmentally sustainable public spaces. She joined the Cluster in 2021 and is working on the Myko.Plektonik project in parallel to her PhD, exploring fungal mycelium as a co-designer in the architectural context.

Hosting University

University of Ioannina (Greece), Department of Architectural Engineering

Research Assoc.

Matters of Activity. Cluster of Excellence ⁄ Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Supervision

Prof. Dr. Yannis Zavoleas (Architectural Engineering)
Prof. Dr. Claudia Mareis (Design, Cultural History & Theory)
Prof. Sven Pfeiffer (Architecture)

Research Period

Since 2022 ongoing