AIR.Office / ecoLogicStudio
Address
GSK Consumer Health (Nyon, Switzerland)
Program
Exibition
Client
GSK Consumer Health
Status
Complete
Calendar
January 2023
Team
ecoLogicStudio (Claudia Pasquero, Marco Poletto with Konstantina Bikou, Violeta Perez, Alessandra Poletto, Lucas Ursprung, Engjell Rodiqi) • Design team
Academic partners
The Synthetic Landscape Lab at Innsbruck University, The Urban Morphogenesis Lab at the Bartlett UCL, IOUD UIBK Innsbruck University)
Photos & copyright
©Matthieu Croizier
Text description provided by the architects.
AIRoffice integrates microalgae as an air purification tool within a working environment.
Air office is a unique prototypical space that is part a green, relaxing area and part a bio-factory. The system is now permanently installed as an air purifying indoor biotech garden at the Haleon headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.
The bio-space enables new nature based circular economies. It captures and stores carbon dioxide daily, while purifying polluted urban air and re-metabolizing the by-products into 3d printed plastic-free biodegradable products.
The structure of the AIRoffice creates an internal garden. This space gives opportunity for a closer connection with nature during working hours. The bubbling sound of the aeration creates a white noise that is relaxing and helps with concentration. Gardening and engaging with the algae cultures in terms of feeding and extracting biomass offers opportunities for relaxation and focus. Air office also provides a direct interaction which engages employees in the understanding of the air purification process, powered by living photosynthetic microalgae.
The created interior garden presents a different kind of collaborative work space. Desks open onto this new type of interior landscape, offering potential elements of connection with other workers for more informal work and meetings.
The direct benefit that the office brings to employees can be analyzed at this level. Raising awareness about the quality of the air they breathe can have a direct impact on their respiratory health. At the same time, proximity to nature, with the natural element, has been associated with 15% improvement in well-being, especially in creativity, and 6% increase in productivity.
These statistics also point to a new way of understanding office space more broadly. The work environment is becoming more complex and multi layered. Therefore, interaction with nature becomes a crucial and critical element as it encourages a more fulfilling connection with colleagues. These relationships become co-creators engaging in a new model of productivity that underpins the emergence of circular economies within it.
A green, dense forest of vegetation encapsulates the modular seating area. The main photosynthetic wall hosts 12 photobioreactors. These are one-meter-tall bespoke lab grade glass vessels, each filled with 10 liters of living photosynthetic microalgae. The bioreactors are supported by a series of 3D printed bespoke components that adjust to the specific requirements of hosting algae.
AIRoffice perpetuates the idea that CO2 and urban air pollution can actually be “mined from the air” and re-metabolized into valuable biodegradable products, locking in the carbon into a virtuous material cycle. The air-pot, a hanging piece designed to grow Spanish Moss is an example of this bi-product and its usability in an office space.
The office relaxing micro space is enclosed by a lightweight and reversible timber structure that hosts all the systems involved in the different phases of the air-purification and biomass transformation process. This assembling system allows for a quick and efficient constructing process as well as an easy disassembling of the structure, ensuring that the structure could be reversible and reused in the future.
The inner space of the air office hosts an urban vegetation environment, like a sanctuary from the conventional workspace that envelops the modular seating area. It is composed by frames that can be easily dismantled and installed, and we have developed a system where the rectangular pieces can be kept as a whole during transportation, and simply slid through the horizontal pieces, allowing this 5x8 meter structure to be installed within hours. The structure is assembled with butterfly wing bolts, deceiving the beauty of transparency in the viewed unions.
The Air Office at this stage is the beginning of a process that will unfold and influence every aspect of the interior design of an office, from the way the space is designed, the light, the aeration, the filtration, and it's construction. It will as well be conscious of the materials it is made, the products that are used to clean it, and the behaviors of the people that inhabit it throughout the day.
Being productive at work will take on a whole new set of ecological meanings towards its truly sustainable re-definition.
