BioBerlin 2100
Sustainable future cities: Imagining Berlin 100 years in the future, as aliving bio-factory for the production of bioluminescent algae.
Bio Berlin 2100 is a speculative design project that envisions future Berlin as a colossal living
bio-factory, where the entire city functions as an intricate organism cultivating bioluminescent algae.
This project envisions a new concept of sustainable urban infrastructure, examining how Berlin’s distinctive cultural and historical features—its lively club scene, industrial-era factories, and extensive network of pipes and waterways—could be strategically harnessed to support sustainable large-scale cultivation of algae. It takes into account how the city's residents might interact with this future urban environment, how their regular daily activities contribute to the operation of the city-bioreactor, and its future impact on life and culture in Berlin. As a result, it serves as a blueprint as to how a city like Berlin might become a cultural, environmental, and economic powerhouse in the emerging bio-economy of the next century, and establishes a utopic vision for the city.
bio-factory, where the entire city functions as an intricate organism cultivating bioluminescent algae.
This project envisions a new concept of sustainable urban infrastructure, examining how Berlin’s distinctive cultural and historical features—its lively club scene, industrial-era factories, and extensive network of pipes and waterways—could be strategically harnessed to support sustainable large-scale cultivation of algae. It takes into account how the city's residents might interact with this future urban environment, how their regular daily activities contribute to the operation of the city-bioreactor, and its future impact on life and culture in Berlin. As a result, it serves as a blueprint as to how a city like Berlin might become a cultural, environmental, and economic powerhouse in the emerging bio-economy of the next century, and establishes a utopic vision for the city.
It is the year 2100. Berlin, Germany's capital, is thriving as a bio-economic powerhouse and a model sustainable city, having established itself as one of the world's top cultivators of algae and bio-products.
In crafting “Bio Berlin 2100,” AI generative design played a pivotal role in shaping imagery that envisions the future of Berlin. Employing artificial intelligence as a co-designer allowed for the exploration of innovative sustainability solutions within the cityscape. This collaborative process between human creativity and AI algorithms served as a testing ground for the potential of AI in contributing to sustainable urban design. The incorporation of AI in generating visuals for “Bio Berlin 2100” exemplifies how emerging technologies can be harnessed as powerful tools in envisioning and implementing eco-conscious urban solutions.
The city has been particularly successful in cultivating a unique strain of
bioluminescent algae, Pyrocystis fusiformis, from which it extracts luciferin and luciferase, valuable biochemicals that are used to create bioluminescent objects and materials. These materials, which function as an electricity-less light source, are considered to be one of the greatest innovations of the 22nd century.
bioluminescent algae, Pyrocystis fusiformis, from which it extracts luciferin and luciferase, valuable biochemicals that are used to create bioluminescent objects and materials. These materials, which function as an electricity-less light source, are considered to be one of the greatest innovations of the 22nd century.
Bioluminescence is a form of light produced by organisms that is most prevalent in the oceans. Bioluminescent organisms can produce and convert biochemicals into light energy, making them of special interest to sustainability applications, due to their ability to convert energy with near 100% efficiency.
In the year 2100, fresh water is one of the most valuable natural resources on the planet. Berlin's natural ecology as a marshland, fed by the Spree, has a unique advantage for water-intensive urban agriculture. Since the integration of the citywide algae factory, the Spree is the cleanest it has ever been, making it a biodiversity hotspot for a wide variety of regional species.
Without water, there is no life. As climate change causes shifts in weather patterns that include both droughts and flooding, future sustainable cities will need to pay particular attention to water capture, utilization, and treatment as freshwater sources decrease globally. The blueprint of Bioberlin proposes a new set of rules for how water networks are managed both inside and outside city limits: 1) The water network is not treated as a disjointed system, managed by individual actors, but instead is governed as one whole system, from source to end. 2) Commercial operators carry a clear responsibility to not only avoid polluting but to actively regenerate the water system. 3) Priority is placed on creating and protecting the water network as a clean, pristine ecology to support humans, flora, and fauna.
A fundamental tenet of the system is that it leaves the environment better than it found it, contributing to a regeneration of the water and the surrounding ecology.
In the case of the algae factory, this provides benefits both on the input and output side. Water from the Spree going into the algae system is first cleaned and treated to provide clean water to the factory system. Algae blooms caused by rising temperatures are skimmed off the Spree and harvested as biomass, helping keep ecological balance. Microplastics, heavy metals, and other pollution sources used in technological cycles are carried to a different are to be treated and mined. The cleaned water then cycles through the city, for use by citizens and the factory, then on the output, the algea is harvested and filtered, leaving only clean, pure water to be discharged into the city.
Berlin's robust industrial culture of the 20th century, and its rapid expansion as a city in the following 200 years, left behind many industrial ruins that served as the perfect skeletons for developing a citywide algae factory, including its abandoned factories, and extensive network of underground tunnels, once part of the cities U-Bahn system.
The mantra reduce, reuse, and recycle can also be applied to infrastructure. As overexploitation of our worlds natural resources causes us to run out of certain materials, and as the focus on carbon emissions in construction increases, we will need to rethink how we build things. The systems that existed in the industrial era, and were used to build largely and rapidly, often came at a steep price to workers and the environment. Those practices can no longer be implemented today in the same way, due to new laws and regulations, as may continue to be the case moving forward. Therefore, the practice of repurposing and recycling existing infrastructure is a clever way for us utilize existing remnant systems to their full potential.
In 2100 Berlin, the culture of Berlin's legendary club scene has developed a unique symbiotic relationship with the city's bioluminescent algae. The sound and lighting systems encourage growth and stimulate the algae to produce a pulsing, blue light. Dance floors harness kinetic and heat energy from club goers and feed it back into the system, providing creating a net-zero feedback loop.
Berlin's club scene is part of its unique cultural heritage as a city and has served as a symbol of its free and rebellious spirit through the oftentimes tumultuous phases of the city. Additionally, it has become one of Berlin's most lucrative sources of income, bringing in nearly 1.5B in revenue in 2018. However, Berlin clubs also face enormous sustainability challenges in the city as occupiers of in demand space, electricity sucks, and general criticism from people outside the scene.
To prevent the algae system from crashing in case of contamination, a master, or "Mother" culture is maintained at all times, in several locations across the city. Due to the positive revitalizing effects of the algae factory on the city's ecology and economy, these cathedral-like spaces have taken on a sacred reverence for the citizens of Berlin, who refer to them as the church of algae.
By returning our environments to a pristine state, even in urban settings, we create the opportunity for people to feel happy and healthy in their environments.
Is BIOBERLIN 2100 a realistic vision?
Maybe, maybe not. In the end, it will depend on a lot of factors- including the vision of its residents and politicians. But every point and insight made on this exploration was first based on a piece of scientific information encountered in my research. So, while it might seem unlikely to some, this future is not altogether unattainable.
