From Sustainability and Interior Design to Nanotechnology

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 20^th 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.