Panelists: Dan Nocera, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chris Nagel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Marc Kirschner, Harvard University
This session will offer a speculative platform to three prescient research scientists who are exploring energy, material property and biological systems. Each area of research seems radical from the current perspective, and as such perhaps offers a counterpoint to much current debate in architecture, especially as concerns environmental issues. Dan Nocera’s work on photosynthesis suggests a radical alternative to current energy perspectives, suggesting that much of global energy needs can be met by artificial photosynthesis, using only water and sunlight: pilot projects are beginning in India. Chris Nagel’s work on high temperature/pressure molten metal synthetic gas convertors suggests ultra low-carbon clean coal production, with prototype reactors in process; and his startling work on atomic ordered materials suggests dynamic and broad variability of base material property in the periodic table under influence of low levels of light (in other words, real-time variable material property). Marc Kirschner is a biological researcher gaining insight into the manner in which biological systems create variation via base genetic logics, which offers vivid insight into rule-based parametric generative systems. All three perspectives would seem to require new aptitudes are their insights to be absorbed and adopted.
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