In London, tiles infused with water-purifying algae were recently showcased at the London Design Festival.
The fan-shaped tiles, dubbed Indus, were made by the Bio-Integrated Design Lab at the Bartlett School of Architecture. They can remove chemical dyes and heavy metals from water and designed so water distributes evenly throughout each tile. The algae are held onto the tile by a seaweed-based hydrogel.
“The materials required to prepare the hydrogel along with the algae cells can be supplied in powdered form,” project lead and Bartlett PhD student Shneel Malik tells dezeen. “Much like cooking, you can add just the right amount of powder to water in order to prepare the hydrogel for application to the tiles.” Shneel adds that the hydrogels are stable for months before needing to be replaced.
“Through our site visits, we realized that the artisan workers had no space available for westernized high-tech water treatment solutions,” said Malik. “Neither did they have the economic capacity to get additional support. So we needed a system that was spatially compatible and could be constructed and maintained by them.”