Nanocore Technology Sdn. Bhd.
Architectural Design and Nanotechnology Applications
Claude Bérubé, Interior Architect
郭儒贝
Managing Partner
After eight years teaching interior architecture/design
at the American University of Sharjah and as Chair of the interior design
department at Ajman University, before heading up the interior design division
of the State of Sharjah Directorate of Public Works, I decided to move to
Malaysia and establish my nanotechnology consultation practice nearly 3 years
ago.
All during these teaching years I was
nevertheless pursuing a related passion for nanotechnology. A good number of years
ago, I became convinced that nanotechnology could be a key contributor in the
creation of a more sustainable society. For this reason, Nanocore Technology
was established in Malaysia to help manufacturers develop and commercialise
nanostructure materials for the architectural, construction, fashion and design
fields.
Someone once asked me “Why did you
decide to become an interior architect?”
The answer
was not as easy since my
father wanted me to become an archaeologist.
He was an electronic engineer,
but was more interested in archaeology,
antiques, numismatics and philately.
Thus, I grew up surrounded by artefacts, and developed a strong
interest in our interior surroundings.
That became a real love for making the
interior environment reflect ones
individuality. Creating furniture was
a way to express my contemporary culture
– just as those who had designed the artefacts
I had around me.
I studied product and interior design in
Montreal, Quebec and in Birmingham, England, where I received my Master degree.
I returned to Montreal and after two years opened my own office which, after
a few years had become a major player in the design scene in Canada. After a
few years I decided to explore the world; this exploration took me from Canada
to South Africa and then to Denmark followed by the United Arab Emirates and
finally Malaysia; a 15 years venture around the world.
As I
mentioned before, several
years ago, I came to the conclusion that interventions by interior and industrial
designers, as well as architects, were highly important in ensuring the balance
between our material culture and a more sustainable society.
Unfortunately, that came with a cost that
several clients were just not ready to pay.
Just have a look at the Copenhagen Conference
on Climate held in December 2010 and you can see the concerns of countries
wanting to balance infinite human needs based on continual unsustainable economic
growth, with the social equity our environment requires. It became evident to
me that economic concerns were not going to fade out and be replaced by a
sudden desire to become unconditionally sustainable.
The fact remains that the ‘deciders’
will not subscribe to a solution that leaves
them in an economically weak position.
I believe that the designer’s ethical concerns contribute to the authenticity and
elevation of our profession, and therefore decided to investigate other avenues.
I have been fascinated for nearly ten years by nanotechnology.
Elevating the profession is not a goal
in itself but a process of inner growth in which working toward a sustainable
environment can play an important part.
Our profession has changed in recent years
and, just as we change ourselves, the world around us also changes. I
believe that nanotechnology will lead to dramatic changes in the use of natural
resources, water and energy production, and distribution. Waste and pollution
will be minimized and therefore a major impact on a sustainable environment can
be expected.
Nanotechnology offers major potential
benefits in numerous fields, and holds the promise of contributing significantly
to sustainability, based on enhanced properties with decreased use of
materials, energy and reduced waste.
Nanotechnology also forces us to review
over a century of industrialisation but also requires us to reconsider irreversibly our cross-disciplinary approaches and perhaps brings up the
need for integrating a more scientific approach
in the design-development-construction process.
How can
nanotechnology be incorporated into design?
Nanotechnology developments will have
a major impact on how we design public places and, perhaps more particularly, hospitals,
hotels, resorts, restaurants, offices or cinemas. Nanotechnology scientists are
achieving every day major technological breakthroughs that is now showing the
way to the production of strong, light and flexible ‘smart’ yarns for clothing
and covering materials used in architectural and interior design projects; fabrics
with the ability to conduct electricity and heat, eliminate pests,
have anti-bacteria hygienic surfaces and provide self-cleaning properties.
Some of these textiles are, for
example, impregnated with silver nanoparticles.
Silver possesses natural
anti-bacterial qualities that are strengthened at the nano scale, thus giving textiles the
ability to deactivate many harmful bacteria.
The silver infusion reduces the need to
wash the fabric as frequently, since it destroys bacteria, and prevents soiling
and stains.
Nanotechnologies can already make these
new textiles more cost-effective, more resistant, more energy-efficient and
more in tune with their environment. What this means for interior architecture is a
new breed of materials with properties only dreamed of until now, such as Nanogel,
the strongest and lightest material known to man, anti-graffiti paint, and
several new materials integrating a more scientific approach to the design-development-construction
process.
So, don’t be surprised when soon your
interior architect asks you: “What would you like your selected material to do?”
or “Would you like your exterior building surface finish to be self cleaning or
to destroy the carbon dioxide in the air around your building?”
The façade of the Jubilee Church in Rome
for example, designed by architect Richard Meier 7 years ago, has a
self-cleaning surface and even absorbs pollutants from the surrounding atmosphere
and breaks them down into benign elements.
It is to
help integrate this technology in Malaysia that I founded Nanocore Technology to act as
a vehicle to identify, integrate and commercialise value-added products in the
field of architecture, construction, fashion
and interior design, in order to commercially exploit the properties of nano-structure
materials.
Is awareness of
nanotechnology growing in the design community?
Kathy Jo Wetter, PhD from ETC Group, a
group dedicated to sustainable advancement, recently said: “When the nanotech
wave comes to shore, it will bring rapid,
monumental, inescapable and potentially devastating change.
Nanotechnology is a ‘platform
technology’, meaning that it has the potential to alter or completely transform
the current state of the art in every major industrial sector”.
Therefore, to answer this question, I
do not think that the design, architecture and education sectors are sufficiently
aware of the changing and potentially devastating effect of nanotechnology in
our everyday practice.
Nanotechnology will revolutionize the way we work, the
way we manufacture products, the way we do models, the way we build and more
than anything the way we design as it will supersede all existing technologies.
It is right to say that nanotechnology is a “paradigm shift”. What happens to
those who are not ready for the “shift”?
So far, principally in Malaysia, I
have seen more real estate groups educating
architects and designers on the use of
nano-materials than the other way around. This position will soon have
to change if our profession is to pretend to be at the forefront of development. Nano-materials
are only some of the new discoveries used by researchers to make better use of
the materials we have. Designers can play their part in participating to this
change and seize the rewards of embracing sustainable development – or they can
keep delivering incremental changes through a ‘business as usual’ position, and
be unprepared for the inevitable.
Will nanotechnology be a threat or an
opportunity for designers? We shall soon know!
Do you have any
advice for students who are studying design?
It is unfortunate to notice in most design
schools or universities that I visit around the
world, for forums or talks, that most education
systems are based on 20th century technology, with very little space
for changes in economics, technology and sustainability.
Designers involved in such educational
systems will find themselves singled out when they get into the world of
practice, which involves new materials and innovative concepts. It is likely that
nanotechnology will change our way of practice as engineers, architects or
designers in the near future. That means that upcoming designers, rather than
designing according to the specific properties of various materials, should be able to
define the performance criteria they
are looking for and then have
materials designed to meet these criteria.
Design is not a practice; design is a
way of life, a way to perceive the environment we live in and respond to
it imaginatively. When you are a designer, you do not retire, you die doing it;
if you do not feel this way, don’t get into design or architecture.
My advice to young designers is to make
it a way of life from the moment they engage in their studies: surround
yourself with design and do not hesitate to propose alternative material
studies to your educational organisation, or to suggest projects involving sustainable and
nanotechnology principles.
Be curious, read, get on the net and investigate
the development of new materials and new properties, in order
to expand your traditional palette.
