Why should architecture continue to look, feel and function almost exactly as it always has, in spite of a dramatically changing world? Sticking to established conventions is often the easy and inexpensive way to do things, and it’s backed up by decades or centuries of practice. But as we move into a future of climate crisis and other challenges, perhaps it’s time to be bold.

Experimental architecture explores new paths and imagines new ways to meet the needs and challenges of humans in relation to the natural world. It’s not easy to break out of our assumptions about what we think architecture should be; radical new paths often don’t seem possible until we see them in action. Visionary architects and designers make the abstract into reality when they not only conceptualize extraordinary new ways of sheltering ourselves, but test them out in the real world, even on a small scale.

Breaking out of conventions might mean changing how we use our built environments, how they’re oriented, what they’re made of, their shapes or how they’re put together. After a while, if it’s successful, the experimental can become conventional, asking to be questioned and bucked and broken again in favor of something tailored to emerging circumstances. It never stops evolving.

Experimental Shapes & Materials

Reducing waste and pollution should be a major objective of architecture from this point forward, and that might mean shifting away from current construction norms altogether. What if all new buildings were made out of things like super-strong renewable wood, fungus-based self-healing concrete, nano cellulose made of waste materials and 3D-printed sandstone? Bendable concrete, water-saving bricks, cement that absorbs CO2 out of the atmosphere: all of this is possible and more. The ‘Concrete Vessel’ home pictured above, by Atelier FCJZ, features translucent glass fiber reinforced concrete made from recycled construction debris.

Some of the most impressive examples of experimental shapes and materials in architecture result from biomimicry, examining how nature’s forms and processes can help us develop more effective, efficient (and often more beautiful) structures. We see this in Singapore’s spectacular solar-powered Supertrees, a mechanical forest of vertical gardens, rainwater collection systems and conservatories that could theoretically also contain shops, restaurants or housing.

The University of Stuttgart’s carbon fiber pavilions are another striking example, inspired by the lightweight shell encasing the wings and abdomen of a beetle. Woven by robots, the pavilions are able to achieve highly unusual proportions, and they’re unusually strong. Imagine if we built custom structures like this and covered the surfaces with protective membranes to make them into walls and ceilings.

Experimental Construction Methods

Robots will continue to transform the construction industry in the near future, whether they’re building prefabricated load-bearing timber modules, undulating brick walls or 3D-printed fiber composites based on the behavior of spiders and silkworms. Robots can set building materials into place with unprecedented precision, achieve complex geometries and eliminate the need for waste-producing concrete molds.

Another bold move toward truly sustainable architecture is the Design for Disassembly (DfD, or Design for Deconstruction) movement, which considers and plans for the entire life cycle of a structure before it’s built in the name of adaptability and waste reduction. Ways to reuse or recycle every component of a structure using existing recycling streams are built into the designs, which are typically pre-fabricated, pre-assembled and/or modular. Closed-loop construction systems encourage innovation and produce unique aesthetics, as seen in Kieran Timberlake’s Cellophane House and Kengo Kuma’s Cafe Kureon.

Experimental Usage

Conventional architecture is nearly always distressingly ableist. Designed around the needs of a hypothetically “normal” person, it fails to address the reality of diverse bodies and abilities. Accessible architecture and interior design shouldn’t be “experimental,” it should already be a core element of every design, but alas, here we are. Architects can help the world catch up by adhering to the principles of Universal Design, serving as many people as possible without segregating those with different needs and working directly with people who are most impacted by inaccessible structures. The Universal Design Living Laboratory, the top-rated universal design home in North America, offers one example of what this can look like.

Other forms of user-centered design might center upon a social element, like Soar Design Studio’s residence converted to a communal space for local students, or the so-called “dementia villages” granting patients a degree of freedom and community they don’t experience in a typical nursing home setting. Experimental structures might also be placed in unexpected settings to expand access to housing in overcrowded cities, like Matthew Chamberlain’s “street tree pods.”

Top image: robot-built metallic structures by Prix

A material once seen as a breakthrough innovation that could benefit the environment by replacing animal products now litters the Earth to the tune of approximately 6.3 billion metric tons, most of it in the world’s oceans. Forty percent of that plastic is single-use packaging.

While recycling might seem like the most obvious way to deal with the problem, the fact is, less than a fifth of all plastic is recycled globally – and even once it’s recycled, plastic typically just degrades into smaller pieces that are harder than ever to clean up. The smallest particles discovered in new research measure about the width of a human hair, small enough to penetrate membranes in the gut and bloodstream. We still don’t know what effects these contaminants have on our health, but it’s clear that they’re harming and killing marine life and other animals that accidentally consume them.

In a world accustomed to convenience and disposability, scaling back the use of plastics seems virtually impossible. That’s why the key to finding a way out of this mess might lie with products that function a lot like plastic, but behave entirely differently when their life cycle meets an end, whether they’re used for beverages or buildings.

Edible Options

Single-use plastics are manufactured for a fleeting purpose, maybe an hour or two protecting your beverage from spills or a few moments of swabbing cotton over your skin. A lot of these items are used for hygienic reasons – like a pair of disposable gloves or the packaging that keeps certain items clean as they’re shipped and displayed on store shelves. Most of them can’t be recycled at existing facilities. But what if they were able to serve the purpose they’re made for, and then practically disappear before our eyes? A host of promising new plastic alternatives made of organic materials are able to do just that.

Plentiful and sometimes even edible, seaweed might just become the packaging of choice for food and beverage uses, cosmetics and other applications. It’s cheap, easy to harvest and doesn’t require fresh water or fertilizer to grow, and can biodegrade in soil in less than six weeks. Seaweed beds are also natural carbon sinks, de-acidifying water. Different varieties of seaweed have different properties that make them ideal for one purpose or another, like flexible red seaweed for disposable plates and cups or agar for clear, jelly-like edible pouches.

Biocompatible Materials for Medical Applications

Some bioplastics might even have a future in hospitals for tissue engineering or suturing wounds. A material called “Shrilk” comes from the wings and outer skeletons of arthropods like crustaceans, spiders, beetles and caterpillars, which are made up of protein and a polysaccharide polymer called chitin arranged in a plywood-like structure. It’s translucent, resilient, pliable and strong. Shrilk could be used to create everything from garbage bags, diapers and packaging to scaffolds for tissue regeneration or growing organs for transplants in laboratories.

Other forms of bioplastics made from chitin can be mixed with cellulose from wood or cotton to create environmentally friendly barrier coatings for food, water-resistant paper, ceiling tiles and wallboards. No living creatures have to be harmed to produce them, either, since insects naturally shed their exoskeletons and humans produce mountains of discarded lobster, crab and shrimp shells after consuming them.

The University of Bath found that biodegradable plastics can be made using sugar and carbon dioxide, too, and it’s cheap and easy to produce using low pressures and room temperature process. The resulting material is strong, transparent and scratch-resistant and can be biodegraded back into carbon dioxide and sugar using enzymes from soil bacteria. Like plastics made from chitin, this bioplastic is bio-compatible and can safely be used for tissue engineering.

Made of tiny plant fibers, nanocellulose is also technically edible – though it probably doesn’t taste all that great. Sourced either from forestry or agricultural waste products, it’s stronger than steel per weight and stronger than the Kevlar that’s used in bulletproof vests since the fibers stick together into small, solid structures. When it’s broken down into nanocrystals with the help of strong acids, it can be made transparent and applied to surfaces to smooth and strengthen them, creating a better oxygen barrier than plastic. It’s especially well-suited to flexible electronic components, bone regeneration and wound healing.

Organic Materials in Plant-Based Binders

One of the biggest concerns about replacing plastic is the fact that it’s currently so cheap to produce. Can any other material quickly step in and take its place using the same manufacturing equipment? It turns out, the answer to that question is yes. Sulapac is a material made from FSC-certified wood and natural binders, and it has plastic-like properties while being totally biodegradable and leaving no micro plastics behind. Sulapac products are water-, oil- and oxygen-resistant and can be produced on most existing production lines, so companies can instantly switch from their current plastic materials to a sustainable alternative.

Even cow’s milk can be made into a sort of plastic. Casein plastic, made of milk proteins, is so easy to make you can do it at home as a kid-friendly science project. In fact, milk was commonly used to make various plastic objects like buttons, beads and combs in the early 1900s. It readily takes surface dye, so it’s easy to mix into a wide variety of colors including pearlized and faux-tortoiseshell effects. After the advent of newer plastics, its use declined, but casein plastic could make a comeback. The vessels above were designed by Royal College of Art graduate Tessa Silva-Dawson for a project called “Protein.”

Molded Mycelium

Since pretty much nothing would ever biodegrade without the help of bacteria and fungi, it’s fitting to use the linked cells of mycelium as a replacement for materials that can’t be broken down naturally. Mycelium is the underground portion of fungi we see growing out of the soil, and it can be used to produce a surprisingly strong substrate that can be grown into molds of virtually any size and shape. The secret is in its tiny chains of tubular cells, binding together with natural materials like leaves and mulch to create dense mats.

A company called Evocative Design uses several species of fungi along with farming byproducts like seed hulls from rice and cotton gin waste to create a sort of styrofoam alternative that’s actually more UV-stable than foam and just as water-resistant. They break down within 180 days, whether in a landfill or somebody’s backyard.

Another biodegradable material called Mycoform is made from a composite of Ganoderma lucidum mushrooms, wood chips, oat bran, gypsum and other organic components. Also grown in molds, these networks of mycelia become strong enough to support significant weights, so they can be used to make furniture, insulation and interlocking walls for architecture. Some designers are even experimenting with ways to use them as a primary building material.

Considering that 18 billion pounds of plastic waste flows into the oceans every year from coastal regions and microplastics are actively endangering the entire food chain, refining biodegradable alternatives like these and producing them on a mass scale can’t happen soon enough.

Top image: Ooho edible water pouches made from agar

Stretched or hung around the skeletons of buildings, these membranes made of plastic, fabric and metal mesh act like architectural clothing, diffusing light and obscuring the original forms. From Christo and Jeanne Claude’s iconic Wrapped Reichstag to homes enveloped in translucent ETFE, these veiled structures have an air of mystery, their second skin often made of unexpected materials like plastic bottles or camouflage-printed textiles.

Lucas Cultural Arts Museum by OMA

Once it’s finally built, after a long delay that saw its planned building site changing from Chicago to California, the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum (LCAM) could be veiled in a dome-like transparent membrane made of ETFE plastic. Designed by OMA, this second layer creates a sheltered, freely accessible sky park, and can also function as a giant movie screen.

Wrapped Reichstag by Christo + Jeanne Claude

Virtually any structure with a membrane of some sort wrapped around it evokes the iconic work of artistic duo Christo and Jeanne Claude, particularly ‘Wrapped Reichstag.’ In 1995, the artists completely covered the entire Kunstmuseum Bonn with more than a million square feet of aluminum-colored fabric as a symbol for the new Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The project cost $15 million USD and remained in place for two weeks.

Shrink-Wrapped Storefront by SO-IL

Brooklyn-based studio SO-IL literally shrink-wrapped the famous Storefront for Art and Architecture’s facade in white plastic, creating a mysterious series of bulges and a single entryway. Taking inspiration from the seasonal storage of boats, SO-IL plays with the concept of artistic preservation. It’s actually not unusual for entire buildings to be shrink-wrapped for various purposes, like sensitive renovations, but the company that helped carry out the project noted that artistic usage of the wrapping method is rare. The new facade gave the storefront a snow-white and pristine look that lasted just days as it proved a tempting surface for vandals.

Glowing Home in Japan by Suppose Design Office

Plastic sheets wrapped around the exterior of a three-story steel home in Hiroshima filter light and create a lantern-like effect at night when illuminated from within. This translucent envelope enables a light-filled home on the inside, which was no small task for architecture firm Suppose Design Office as the narrow property is boxed in on three sides. Reed shades are hung in the upper stories during the summer to keep them from overheating.

Exterior Curtains on an Australian Home

In a reversal of the usual curtained windows, Herzl Arkitekten of Austria covered an entire two-story building in oversized outdoor draperies, veiling the outside of the duplex from view. Pegs hold the curtains open around windows and doors.

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Thats A Wrap 15 Building Facades Veiled In Plastic Cloth

Ultra-strong and incredibly versatile carbon fiber can be woven by robots in a scale as small as furniture and as large as a stadium, a technological advance that could represent the fourth industrial revolution. This fiber-reinforced composite is typically formed in molds, but programming robots to weave it could totally change the way objects and buildings are designed and created. These carbon fiber creations represent this new construction method as well as 3D-printed carbon fiber products and the more time-consuming technique of hand-wrapping up to a mile of carbon fiber for just one piece of furniture.

Robot-Woven Pavilion by ICD + ITKE

Architect and researcher Achim Menges, who heads up the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) at the University of Stuttgart, is developing software to make robotic construction more intuitive, and his team has built a series of carbon fiber pavilions to show off the technology. We’re at a phase where the full capabilities of the material and method haven’t yet been unlocked, he says, because experiments are still mimicking old materials. To build the pavilions, they robots draw lengths of carbon and glass fiber through a resin bath and wind it around metal scaffolding in a particular pattern. The resin-coated structures are cured in a massive oven and then detached from the framework.

3D Printed Cirin Rubber Band Car

Carbon fiber has been around for decades, typically made by bonding carbon atoms into crystals and then forming the result into loose or woven carbon filaments. It’s often mixed with polymers to create composite materials, and we’re used to seeing it in cars, gloves and all sorts of everyday items, but new technology is broadening its applications. Take, for example, the Cirin, a modern take on the rubber band-powered toy car. A group of college students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA made its shell with a 3D printer, giving us a peek at the capabilities of this particular forward-thinking combo.

Hammock-Shaped Carbon Fiber Bathtub

One example of the ‘mold’ technique of forming and curing carbon fiber is this stunning hanging bathtub by Splinter Works, which is fixed to walls with steel brackets and paired with a tall faucet. Layers of carbon fiber are arranged on top of a foam core to insulate the tub, which can be adjusted in size to fit a specific space.

Carbon Fiber Eames Sofa

Designer Matthew Strong replicates the classic Eames shell sofa of the late 1950s in carbon fiber form, but instead of using a robot to weave it, he has woven it himself by hand using a traditional chair caning pattern for a lightweight yet strong result.

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4th Industrial Revolution 12 Futuristic Carbon Fiber Creations

Wood may be most closely associated with cabins, stick-frame housing and other conventional forms of architecture, but a new wave of architects is adapting its usage for this century and beyond, using it as a primary material for large commercial structures, pavilions, energy-saving facades and even skyscrapers. Lightweight, flexible and renewable, wood is having a moment in modern architecture, transcending its rustic origins as one of the world’s most ancient building materials.

Curving Timber Shell for Swatch Headquarters by Shigeru Ban

A sinuous timber shell structure stretches between buildings owned by sister companies under the Swiss watch giant Swatch umbrella in this concept by Shigeru Ban. Connecting older buildings with new ones and forming semi-enclosed public spaces, the new addition will act as the company’s headquarters. Large pale crosses dot the lattice in a nod to the company’s brand identity.

Metropol Parasol by J. MAYER H. Architects

“Realized as one of the largest and most innovative ended timber-constructions with a polyurethane coating, the parasols grow out of the archaeological excavation site into a contemporary landmark, defining a unique relationship between the historical and the contemporary city,” says J. Mayer H. Architects of their creation Metropol Parasol. The waffle-like structure in Seville, Spain incorporates the archaeological site as well as a farmer’s market, bars and restaurants over 18,000 square meters. The parasols form plazas and also offer an elevated rooftop walkway from which to view the city.

Contemporary Hillside Home by Jose Ulloa Davet + Delphine Ding

This mountain home in Tunquen, Chile is anything but a rustic cabin despite its raw timber construction, with a path snaking its way from ground level all the way up onto the roof. Conceived as both a private space and a platform for outdoor activities, the “Metamorfosis” house is raw and modern at once, providing breathtaking views of the scenery.

Space Lab by Kohki Hiranuma Architect & Associates

Stacked cedar planks alternate with glass to create an irregular pattern of light inside the ‘Space Lab,’ a temporary structure at the University of Tokyo made of discarded wood. The experimental space makes a statement on the use of diminishing resources and will also investigate the strength of this construction method over four years. “This ‘Azumaya” architecture of today does not separate inside and outside, and is expected to be variably used for a promotion of domestic materials to just a resting space. And finally this architecture, which utilizes domestic thinned materials, shows one way of regeneration the balance of nature we have destroyed.”

Woven Lattice Dessert Shop by Kengo Kuma + Associates

Thin, criss-crossing timber beams create the effect of a dense forest in this latticed wooden facade on a dessert shop in Tokyo by Kengo Kuma + Associates. The basket-like arrangement ploys an ancient Japanese construction technique called ‘jiigokugumi,’ which joins the individual pieces of wood together without using glue or fasteners.

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Wooden Architecture In The Modern World