GREEN-ALGAE RESILIENT ARCHITECTURE

The regenerative city uses water, land and energy in a coordinated way and in harmony with the environment, contributing to the resilience of the entire system. From an architectural point of view, the issue can be addressed according to both the eco-cultural and eco-aesthetic approach, which shifts the architectural debate into the sphere of metaphorical and paradigmatic values, far from the logic of mere energy efficiency, but utopianly connected with ecological consciousness and resilient intelligence, antidote to modernism and materialism. 
The paper presents the results of a research that has investigated the possible benefits related to the use of algae in architecture, according to the “Cradle to Cradle” approach, aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of the construction industry. From a methodological point of view, the study of “algae based grown materials” was conducted according to the Biomimetic approach, which involves the conscious transposition of natural biological processes to the artificial world, ” miming” the mechanisms that govern nature. The critical analysis of the characteristics and properties of algae used both as thermal insulators both as biomass for photo-reactors in some significant case studies, were evaluated in relation to the phases: Cradle-Operational-Grave-Cradle.