Agustin Otegui is working on a resourceful way to get the most green out of a building’s façade. He is developing a “skin” that covers buildings and utilizes solar, wind, and carbon-zapping powers. Here's the idea thus far:

The skin is a zero-emissions material that absorbs sunlight with its photovoltaic layer, transferring the energy through nano-wires to be stored at the end of each panel. The skin is also covered in tiny turbines that have a very different take on wind power generation. First, the inner skin of the turbines soaks up CO2 as wind passes through. Second, they utilize “polarized organisms” that create chemical reactions, generating power when the turbine makes contact with the structure. Wonder bugs, me thinks. Yet they are not genetically altered – rather, Otegui says, they are trained to work together towards specific tasks. Like a colony of circus ants, I suppose.

But here is the Star Trek-y kicker – Ortegui is designing the skin to be self-healing. When a turbine malfunctions or is damaged, a signal will be sent to a material reservoir and new organisms will replace the old, regenerating the damaged turbine.

The theory of integrating solar and wind – and CO2 elimination – on buildings’ surfaces is excellent, and it’ll be interesting to see how this particular concept pans out. For now, you can keep tabs on concept development at Otegui’s blog.

Via Inhabitat

Comments (9)

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written by theirritablearchitect , June 06, 2008

The tense in which this piece is written would lead someone to think that this "skin" is somehow a real and current thing.

It is nothing more than someone's idea at this point.

How is this stuff to be made?

Out-in-Left-Field ideas aren't going to solve any problems, are they?

This site loses much credibility publish
written by Mark , June 06, 2008

Leave that crap to science fiction writers.

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written by spfl49 , June 07, 2008

Let me know in 15 years when this thing is only 10 years away from reality.

Chill out, people
written by Jon , June 07, 2008

There's nothing wrong with posing creative and futuristic ideas, especially on slow news days. It is pretty obvious what developments are concrete and which are a bit fanciful, and ecogeek readers can successfully navigate between them.

looking to the future
written by richard , June 08, 2008

We should enourage this type of thinking. So it sounds crazy - but then we know how many other things sounded crazy when they were first voiced. If there were not ideas like this earoplanes would still have propellers, cars would have solid tyers, potatoes would have been left in South America and computers would still be main frames.

Ironic isn't it?
written by A Power Engineer , June 09, 2008

"Leave that crap to science fiction writers."

And look at all the "predictions" of Star Trek that have come to pass so far... remember, Science Fiction eventually becomes Science Fact. But to get there, first one must imagine the unimaginable.

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written by Matthew , June 11, 2008

I genuinely don't get this sure it's cool but at what point did we lose touch with reality.
This 'technology' already exists they are called leaves they do this amazing thing called photosynthesis, they remove C02 from the air, self-heal self replicate and require minimal maintenance. Granted they may not power the building but that can be done by regular solar panels. There really doesn't seem to be any need for this 'technology' and the time and resources would be better spent improving solar efficiency.

Also leaves don't need manufacturing, any further R&D and only very basic resources already found in soil.

But hey if we just want to keep proving how 'superior' we are to nature then at least we can enjoy that superior feeling while our ice caps melt I guess

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written by z , June 19, 2008

We should enourage this type of thinking. So it sounds crazy - but then we know how many other things sounded crazy when they were first voiced.

This is indeed something we can all agree on, but coupling helices to a turbulent flow is a bit more different than simply rendering pretty graphics and hoping that others figure out the equations..

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written by Rojelio , June 28, 2008

What do you mean by "polarized organisms"? That sounds bogus. Specifically, what chemical reactions are envisioned?

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