"Niches for Organic Territories in Bio-Augmented Design" - NOTBAD

How can beneficial microbes be physically integrated into buildings in such a way as to encourage positive health benefits and discourage potential aesthetic or cultural objections that building occupants, users and designers might have? This is the primary question this project aims to address.

"Niches for Organic Territories in Bio-Augmented Design" - NOTBAD, is an interdisciplinary research proposal that brings together a team with expertise in architecture, microbiology and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The project will explore a novel approach towards preventing the spread of AMR Microbes by reversing the notion of sterilisation and encouraging the growth of other benign, beneficial microbes that serve to outcompete them. This will begin with a proof of concept study to develop beneficial bioreceptive concrete as an indoor material which is inoculated with Bacillus spps that reduces AMR burden by preventing the spread of AMR pathogens. This serves as a starting point for the main aim of the project which gears towards changing current attitudes toward cleanliness and negative associations with microbes for future application of such living materials within architecture, towards healthy buildings.

Advances in microbiology and improved understanding of the human microbiome is resulting in a change of opinion on the utility of a rich microbial diversity towards health within the medical field. The medical community now warns that overprescribing antibiotics also kills beneficial microbes which benefits the formation of resistant strains. As our understanding of the built environment microbiome improves through research in the sciences, it is becoming clear that the design of buildings, including material choice and spatial design plays a large role in the types of microorganisms that inhabit spaces. Yet currently, a similar shift in opinion has not occurred in the way we design and construct our buildings.

Current negative attitudes to microbes and a preference for cleanliness are historically and culturally engrained. The acceptance of germ theory and the hygiene revolution of the 19th Century promoted cleanliness and hygiene as the solution to disease. Buildings and their surfaces were seen as breeding grounds for microbes. Dust and dirt meant illness, which all together became a driver of the modernist movement's obsession with cleanliness that still prevails today and is a key factor in the current kill all attitude to microbes. As designers and architects begin to consider the microbiome as part of the design process, as shift in perception is needed in order reverse the kill-all mentality that currently exists and to promote and maintain microbial diversity as a strategy to reduce AMR burden and as potentially beneficial for health.

During the project we will undertake iterative design research alongside scientific methodologies to explore the feasibility, requirements, environmental niches and aesthetics for growing beneficial bacteria in buildings. The interdisciplinary nature of the work and dissemination to wide ranging audiences will be a step towards ensuring that translation of the scientific learning and data can become understandable and useable by designers. This serves to ensure that new design processes can be defined that consider the constitution of the microbes within our buildings and importantly design for beneficial levels of human/microbial interaction. The final outcomes will be a series of papers, a project Wiki with details for reproducing and developing the work and a final exhibition of a "Living Kitchen" containing materials with living, beneficial microbes as a test bed for instigating change in our understanding of microbes and health.

In particular we anticipate three kinds of non-academic beneficiaries of the research

1. Professional architectural associations (UK)

Organisations for architects and built-environment professionals engage with how buildings affect health. The Design Council (CABE), promotes architecture and design at the heart of health and well-being, and works with a wide range of organisations to inform the design profession. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) promotes healthy buildings at a policy level and in the profession and the UK Green Buildings Council is an industry led-network that alongside sustainability, promotes the best and latest information on the building design features that are known to have positive impacts on the health and wellbeing.

2. Government Health/AMR Policy makers
The proposal suggests that there is a potential source of innovation by merging laboratory and design research practices which can lead to material outcomes and applications which have not been though of yet. Such innovations may have economic as well as social and material impacts and will be of interest to government departments such as Defra and PHE as well as influencing further strategic funding initiatives.

3. The General Public as home owners and building occupants
The unique and provocative nature of his project will strike a chord with the general public at large as the general principle - of knowingly having bacteria growing in houses and kitchens will go against everything we believe and practice in our homes in relation to cleanliness. The creation of images (including microscopy and visualisations) and physical objects both hand made and digitally prototyped is likely to gain widespread public interest in a provocative manner.

We aim to engage with these groups via our dissemination strategies and will be inviting members of RIBA and The Design Council to the final exhibition, aiming to have an impact on their existing body of knowledge. The research will benefit these groups by providing an alternative approach to limiting the spread of AMR microbes in indoor spaces by suggesting a beneficial role for microbes in buildings that relates to health and has not been done before.