Bio-Moon Lab emerges as a visionary interdisciplinary project led by multidisciplinary artist Laura Benetton, pushing the frontiers of bioluminescence in contemporary art and sustainable design.

Project Core

Bio-Moon Lab cultivates living organisms like Vibrio fischeri bacteria and algae in controlled lab environments, processing their growth to produce \”bio-light\” as a zero-energy alternative to artificial lighting. This ongoing research explores bioluminescence\’s future applications, conceptualizing light as a creative, organic interface that bridges art and science. By manipulating quorum sensing—where bacteria glow only at high densities—the project creates ethereal illuminations mimicking lunar phases, fostering speculative experiments on sustainable energy within artistic practice.

Scientific Foundation

At its heart, Vibrio fischeri emits light via the lux operon, oxidizing luciferin without external power, offering a renewable contrast to energy-intensive LEDs. Benetton grows cultures in petri dishes and liquid media, shaped like butterfly wings to symbolize metamorphosis, yielding real-time glows for immersive installations. This \”living light\” reduces carbon footprints by eliminating electricity, aligning with ecological goals through closed-loop systems fed by simple sugars. Outputs include digital Giclée prints, light machines, and public-engagement sculptures that evolve nightly.

Artistic Outputs

The centerpiece, Bio-Moon, reflects moon cycles in bioluminescent patterns, inviting viewers to witness emergence firsthand. Installations span petri-dish arrays and dynamic projectors, transforming galleries into breathing ecosystems. These works provoke dialogue on nature-positive art, where light becomes a medium for ecological consciousness rather than consumption.​

Key Publications

Bio-Moon Lab gained prominence in i-Science magazine from Imperial College, highlighting its biohacking innovations. It features in the Future Materials Bank at Jan van Eyck Academie, cataloged as a pioneering \”bacteria\” material for design. The Conscious Colours Collection by UA also showcases it, emphasizing conscious, bio-sourced palettes. Recent accolades include the 2024 crQlr \”Bio Awakening Prize,\” affirming its role in sustainable illumination.

Broader Impact

Talks at BioClub Tokyo and FabCafe (2025) extended its reach, with exhibitions demonstrating scalability to architecture—like pavilion lighting from prior discussions. For urban regenerators, it inspires parametric facades in low-VOC projects, echoing alveolar bioreactors or BIX media skins.

EXHALE (also known as the Bionic Chandelier) is an evolution of the Silk Leaf technology developed by design engineer Julian Melchiorri.

• Silk Leaf Roots: In 2014, Melchiorri created the \”Silk Leaf,\” the world\’s first artificial biological leaf. This prototype stabilized chloroplasts extracted from plant cells within a silk protein matrix to allow them to photosynthesize—absorbing CO2 and producing oxygen.

• Evolution: While the Silk Leaf successfully demonstrated that materials could photosynthesize, Melchiorri evolved the technology for EXHALE to use living microalgae (living micro-plants) instead of stabilized chloroplasts to ensure longevity and scalability.

EXHALE: The Bionic Chandelier

EXHALE is described as the world’s first living \”bionic chandelier\”. It explores how biotechnology and engineering can be integrated into everyday objects to establish a symbiotic relationship between people and their environment.

• Function: The chandelier functions as a natural air purification system. It consumes carbon dioxide (CO2​) and releases breathable oxygen (O2​) while illuminating the space.

• Mechanism:

    ◦ Living Algae: The fixture contains living green microalgae housed within 70 glass leaf modules (petals).

    ◦ Photosynthesis: The algae are activated by a mix of daylight and LEDs, stimulating photosynthesis to purify the air.

    ◦ Life Support: The system is connected to a life-support device developed by engineers at Arborea (Melchiorri\’s biochemical technology company) that drip-feeds nutrients to the microorganisms to maintain the ecosystem.

• Design & Aesthetics:

    ◦ The chandelier features a radial pattern inspired by natural plant shapes and the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum’s Art Nouveau and Islamic Art collections.

    ◦ It is constructed from tempered and formed stainless steel using a biomimetic approach of \”form through function\”.

    ◦ The modular \”petals\” are arranged in three different sizes.

Recognition

• Permanent Collection: EXHALE was acquired as part of the permanent collection at the V&A Museum in London.

• Awards: The project won the 2017 Emerging Talent Medal and was displayed during the London Design Festival

\”Photo.Synth.Etica Curtain\” by ecoLogicStudio, image/information source: ecoLogicStudio

PhotoSynthetica is an innovation venture led by ecoLogicStudio (Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto), developed with academic partners such as UCL’s Urban Morphogenesis Lab and the University of Innsbruck’s Synthetic Landscapes Lab. The platform aims to integrate living photosynthetic systems into architecture and public space, treating buildings as active carbon sinks and bio-power plants rather than passive envelopes.photosynthetica+2

Photo.Synth.Etica Curtain Prototype

The flagship Photo.Synth.Etica installation is a large-scale “urban curtain” composed of 16 bioplastic photobioreactor modules, each roughly 2 × 7 m. Each module encloses serpentine tubes filled with a water–microalgae medium, creating a lightweight, translucent façade that can be hung on existing buildings or scaffolds.dezeen+3

How the System Works

Unfiltered urban air is drawn in at the bottom of the curtain and bubbled upward through the liquid inside the tubes. As air rises, microalgae absorb CO₂ and pollutants via photosynthesis, growing into biomass while oxygen is released at the top back into the urban microclimate. The resulting algal biomass can then be harvested and used to produce bioplastic raw material, effectively closing the loop between façade structure and its own metabolic output.scalemag+5

Materials, Components, and Digital Control

PhotoSynthetica panels are based on ETFE-like or bioplastic cladding elements that are lightweight, robust, transparent, and chemically inert, but repurposed as habitats for algal cultures rather than mere weather skins. The system integrates “hardware, wetware, and software”: custom modules and piping, specific microalgae strains, and a digital control system that monitors microclimate and growth conditions while predicting carbon-capture performance. Sensors and a robotic design–fabrication workflow allow tailoring of panel geometry, surface pattern, and density to each façade orientation and site.photosynthetica+2

Role in Regenerative and Urban Design

Photo.Synth.Etica demonstrates how façades can become productive environmental infrastructures that reduce energy use, filter air, sequester carbon, and generate biomass within dense urban settings. As part of the broader PhotoSynthetica family, it serves as a demonstrator for future scalable systems—curtains, cladding, or canopies—that fuse architectural expression with measurable climate and air-quality benefits.worldarchitecture+6

What the Eco Machine Is

\”Eco-Machine wastewater treatment\” by John Todd, image/information source: Omega Institute

The Eco Machine is a custom-designed ecological wastewater treatment system that uses living organisms—bacteria, fungi, plants, and sometimes small animals—to purify water without relying on synthetic chemicals. At the Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL) in Rhinebeck, New York, it processes all of the campus’s grey and black water inside a greenhouse-like building that also functions as an educational space.​

How It Works

The system channels wastewater through a sequence of tanks, constructed wetlands, and lagoons, each hosting diverse microbial and plant communities that break down pollutants. Gravity, sunlight, and biological processes drive treatment stages such as anaerobic and aerobic digestion, plant uptake, and final polishing through sand or filtration units before the clean effluent is returned to the local aquifer or reused for irrigation.​

Biomimicry and Design Logic

The Eco Machine is explicitly inspired by natural aquatic ecosystems, where wetlands, ponds, and microbial communities collectively filter and transform organic waste into nutrients and biomass. Instead of a single engineered component, it uses a diverse assemblage of species arranged in series, mimicking the way water passes through different habitats in a healthy watershed and gaining resilience through redundancy and complexity.

Performance and Role at Omega

At Omega, the Eco Machine treats all campus wastewater and has processed tens of millions of gallons over its lifetime, meeting or exceeding regulatory standards for effluent quality. The OCSL building is certified under the Living Building Challenge, and the Eco Machine is central both to its net-positive water strategy and to its public education programme on ecological infrastructure.​

Why It Matters for Regenerative Design

The Eco Machine turns an invisible liability—sewage—into a visible, productive landscape that supports biodiversity, education, and local water regeneration. As a precedent, it shows how future buildings and districts can integrate “living machines” into courtyards, atria, or greenhouses so that treatment, habitat creation, and public engagement co-exist in a single regenerative system.

Philips Bio-Light is a conceptual lighting system developed by Philips as part of its Microbial Home project around 2011.

Concept Overview

It uses bioluminescent bacteria housed in hand-blown glass cells to produce a soft green glow, mimicking fireflies or deep-sea creatures. The bacteria feed on methane gas generated from household waste like composted kitchen scraps and bathroom solids via a bio-digester, creating a closed-loop, electricity-free system.

How It Works

Thin silicon tubes connect the glass cells to a base reservoir supplying nutrients, allowing indefinite operation as long as waste is provided. The light comes from a chemical luminescence process using enzymes like luciferase, generating no heat unlike traditional bulbs.

Applications and Limits

Designed for ambient mood lighting rather than full room illumination due to its dim output, it highlights sustainable use of household waste for energy. This remains a prototype, not a commercial product, aligning with eco-innovative ideas in architecture and design.

Physee Technologies is a Dutch company specializing in innovative glass solutions for sustainable buildings. Their technologies transform ordinary glass into energy-generating and smart components without sacrificing aesthetics.

Company Overview

Physee, founded in 2014 at Delft University of Technology, developed products like PowerWindow—transparent solar windows using luminescent coatings to capture sunlight and generate electricity via edge-mounted PV cells. They also created SENSE, a system leveraging sensors for natural light and temperature control to boost energy efficiency and indoor comfort. In February 2024, Physee merged with EDGE Next to form Next Sense, focusing on AI-driven decarbonization for real estate.yesdelft+6

Key Technologies

• PowerWindow: Transparent photovoltaic glass that produces power while allowing full visibility, ideal for facades.[thegreenvillage]​
• SENSE: Sensor-based platform optimizing building climate using outdoor conditions, aiding certifications like BENG and GRESB.[physee]​
• PAR+: Luminescent coating for greenhouses converting UV to usable light, boosting crop yields by 8%+.[physee]​

Relevance to Sustainability

These solutions align with energy-neutral buildings, supporting EU goals for ESG compliance and urban regeneration—highly relevant for architects working on eco-innovative projects in sustainable urbanism. Next Sense continues this via data-driven platforms for retrofitting.cbinsights+2

ecoLogicStudio specializes in innovative architectural installations that harness algae and microorganisms for biomass production and renewable energy, aligning with sustainable urban design principles. Their projects integrate photobioreactors to cultivate microalgae, enabling carbon capture, oxygen generation, and biofuel creation within built environments.

Key Projects

• Bio.Tech HUT: A prototype dwelling featuring an algae photo-bioreactor room clad in growing microalgae like Schizochytrium, producing about 1.12 kg of dry algae daily—enough for 672g of oil yielding 10.3 kWh of biofuel energy, sufficient for an average home.
• Tree One: A 10-meter 3D-printed biopolymer \”tree\” from harvested microalgae biomass, incorporating 500 liters of cyanidium cultures across 40 photobioreactors; it matches the photosynthetic output of 12 mature trees by metabolizing CO2 into stored carbon.​
• PhotoSynthetica System: Building-integrated facades with algae panels that sequester CO2 (equivalent to one mature tree per 2 sqm), producing harvestable biomass for bioplastics, biofuels, fertilizers, and superfoods while releasing oxygen.​

Energy and Biomass Outputs

These installations demonstrate microalgae\’s efficiency: for example, Urban Algae Folly 2.0 yields 91 kg biofuel, 102 kg protein, and 949 kWh annually from a compact system. Urban Algae Canopy adapts ETFE cladding into bioreactors, where algae growth varies with sunlight for adaptive shading and harvestable biomass.

GreenField textile coatings refer to sustainable, eco-friendly finishing technologies applied to fabrics, often emphasizing water repellency, durability, and reduced environmental impact without perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs). These coatings enhance natural textiles like cotton, silk, or linen for applications in apparel, upholstery, and technical fabrics, aligning with green building and urban regeneration projects.

Coating Technology

Developed through innovations like MIT\’s initiated chemical vapor deposition (iCVD), GreenField-style coatings deposit thin polymer layers that follow fiber contours without clogging pores, preserving breathability. They repel water, oils, acids, and stains while enduring repeated washings and abrasion tests up to 10,000 cycles.​

Key Benefits

• PFC-free for lower bioaccumulation and better sustainability.​
• Maintains fabric breathability; no secondary pore-reopening needed.​
• Versatile for cotton, nylon, linen, and even paper substrates.​

Architecture Applications

In sustainable architecture, these coatings suit interior textiles like curtains, acoustic panels, or upholstery in retrofitted buildings, improving moisture resistance and longevity. For EU-funded urban projects in Bucharest, they support LEED certification by enabling PFC-free, recyclable fabric finishes in public spaces or hotels.