Science & Technology

The Natural Building Blocks of Sustainable Architecture | Michael Green | TED

If we’re going to solve the climate crisis, we need to talk about construction. The four main building materials that humans currently use — concrete, steel, masonry and wood — have a heavy environmental impact, but what if we had a fifth option? Architect Michael Green proposes an entirely new, natural medium inspired by the…

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If we’re going to solve the climate crisis, we need to talk about construction. The four main building materials that humans currently use — concrete, steel, masonry and wood — have a heavy environmental impact, but what if we had a fifth option? Architect Michael Green proposes an entirely new, natural medium inspired by the structure of trees and plants. Learn more about the carbon-sequestering solution to our construction conundrum that’s laying the groundwork for a truly sustainable future.

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46 Comments

  1. 🎊Weird Life🎊

    June 13, 2023 at 9:44 am

    Yes

  2. Suny12

    June 13, 2023 at 9:49 am

    Carbon Neutral Stupidity Alert.

    • Tofu Yun

      June 13, 2023 at 10:32 am

      elaborate for me pls i donno much abt carbon neutral stuff

  3. BeanBurrito

    June 13, 2023 at 9:56 am

    Informative ❤

  4. Jane Foster

    June 13, 2023 at 10:35 am

    .I’ve been quite unsure about investing in this current market and at the same time I feel it’s the best time to get started on the market. i was at a seminar and the host spoke about making over $972,000 within 3 Months with a capital of $200,000. I need guidance on what investments to make.🚀🚀

    • Luca Gheorghe

      June 13, 2023 at 10:36 am

      Everybody is concerned about the market going down but refusing to take advantage of it. The best decision ever made in my life was investing regardless of the market condition. I made over 318k.USD with a start up of 43k.USD. Trust me guys, it really pays a lot.

    • Jane Foster

      June 13, 2023 at 10:37 am

      @Lee Edelen Please do you mind sharing any means of reaching out to him easily? I’m really interested

    • Lee Edelen

      June 13, 2023 at 10:37 am

      @Jane Foster he’s on TELE GRAM….

    • Lee Edelen

      June 13, 2023 at 10:37 am

      @Jane Foster @stevekorduckia
      thats 👆👆 his user>name

    • Lee Edelen

      June 13, 2023 at 10:38 am

      @Jane Foster I have made over 1.5 million dollars working with him, withdraw my profit right before the correction and now I’m buying again

    • Luca Gheorghe

      June 13, 2023 at 10:38 am

      @Lee Edelen It’s remarkable to have faith in someone who can consistently deliver profits under any circumstances, and they never disappoint. I trust STEVE A KORDUCKI implicitly, and since trading with him, it’s been nothing but victories.

  5. David Pishchik

    June 13, 2023 at 10:41 am

    Climate change doesnt exist lol

  6. Nihale

    June 13, 2023 at 11:31 am

    looks like synthetic wood. Those arches are also very similar to what you would see in gardens and older wooden buildings already. What is old is new again but with a modern sheen and novel composite material.

  7. Sibylle Leon

    June 13, 2023 at 11:38 am

    This is amazing!

  8. Vjekoslav Prebeg

    June 13, 2023 at 12:13 pm

    I am curious about fire resistance properties of such materials?

    • Lawrence Frost

      June 13, 2023 at 1:08 pm

      He mentioned he was a big proponent of Mass Timber. If it’s anything like that, it’s incredibly fire resistant.

    • weastsorth

      June 15, 2023 at 2:20 am

      Exactly my question

  9. Diana Luckysova - Sculptor and Artist

    June 13, 2023 at 12:21 pm

    Very nice:) I can’t find the company online. Can you please provide the links?

  10. Michael Green

    June 13, 2023 at 12:27 pm

    My man has the same name as me 😂😂

  11. teejatron

    June 13, 2023 at 12:55 pm

    Cool! But do you have to act like flying fully around the world in a filthy polluting plane is normal and ok? Or act like doing so is a testament to your love for nature?

    • Merlin Ran

      June 14, 2023 at 10:36 am

      No finger pointing please. Figure out the problems and provide practical solutions instead.

    • teejatron

      June 14, 2023 at 11:13 am

      @Merlin Ran  problem: fossil fuels. Solution: don’t use em. If you “gotta” use em, don’t talk about them like they’re ok.

      This is what I heard him say: ” I love nature so much that I turned 140 gallons of jetfuel into 5,600 lbs of carbon pollution so that I could see some mountains that are slightly different than the mountains in my backyard.”

    • Jorene Lei Cabrera

      June 16, 2023 at 2:09 am

      Whan an absolutely pointless response. It has absolutely nothing to do with sustainable architecture / sustainable materials.

    • teejatron

      June 16, 2023 at 8:55 am

      @Jorene Lei Cabrera  has everything to do with being a sustainable civilization. A culture that says, “someone else can deal with how much I pollute” is a very unimpressive one. Especially when that message comes from a self proclaimed environmentalist.

  12. Lawrence Frost

    June 13, 2023 at 1:08 pm

    THIS is new. Wow.

  13. Daniel Gacoin

    June 13, 2023 at 2:00 pm

    Just make easier laws and regulations for organic construction.

    • Dustin Brandel

      June 13, 2023 at 4:02 pm

      Id say it needs to be easier and cheaper to get an exemption for an experimental project, more than a change of laws and regulations, which really are there for safety reasons.
      This way, the new stuff can be built tested and proved, while other construction around it, being done by people who dont know the new ways, is still done in the safety of the regulations.

    • Rich Truscott

      June 13, 2023 at 4:43 pm

      @Dustin Brandelwell not to over simplify but bureaucracy could be the death of society. The USA came out of the end of the revival of Europe where people started to look to a broader group of people from multiple walks of life to perpetuate human society forward. Thus started the ends of single person rules (church, monarchs, dictators) but it’s obviously not over and came of it the Industrial Rev did. With now total global connectivity every country is now responsible for what happens on a world wide scale. Current laws socialize old industrial corporate way that we have literally made corporations huge of welfare and forgot about the importance of the individual same way the Soviet Union failed. We need to welfare state ideas and progression of nature/beauty not just machines and math because we have that already. The laws need to support new ways not old ones. Because effectively they do not. Law include subsidies and grants, other incentives, government partnerships, global coop, public school agendas, advertisement, etc

    • R.A. Andrews

      June 14, 2023 at 11:39 pm

      ​@Dustin Brandel Safety to begin with, then an economy comes up to surround the regulation, and the regulation becomes hardened and supports businesses, and discourages innovation.

  14. Patricia Burke

    June 13, 2023 at 2:44 pm

    Will there be bamboo farms to replace some wood products? Hopefully, fewer trees will be cut down. Even fabric can be made from bamboo. Thanks for sharing your insights.

  15. Manik Roy

    June 13, 2023 at 5:25 pm

    All of these are western scientist fault. Human would use natural things if they wouldn’t push for bricks, still, plastic for construction. Only factories could have used those material.

  16. Patrick Goldsmith

    June 13, 2023 at 5:37 pm

    Isn’t stone a good material to build with? If not, why not?

    • Merlin Ran

      June 14, 2023 at 10:33 am

      It’s heavy, requires much stronger structural support and much more energy when extracting, transporting and building. It’s brittle comparing to many other materials. Plus it’s not renewable unless in the scale of millions of years.

    • Isaac

      June 14, 2023 at 12:54 pm

      @Merlin RanI think you are very slightly confusing the meaning of renewable. There is so much stone, it might as well be infinite. Unimaginable quantities of new stone form every day under the crust, in sediment deposits, and from volcanoes. But, that is also consistent with what you said. Things are not renewable if they can be used up in short time scales. So, oil, which is plant matter millions and millions 9f years old, won’t come bavk after we use it. We could easily cut down every tree on earth if we really wanted to. But there is no way we could with stone. Stone might as well be an infinite resource. So, stone is definitely a renewable.

    • biohomie

      June 14, 2023 at 10:16 pm

      Better then constructing with stones, we can cut and stay in as cave man did. Why do you want to cut and take and instal at other place.

  17. Recks

    June 13, 2023 at 5:43 pm

    Is there a higher chance of rot if the materials are organic?

  18. ns2664philly

    June 13, 2023 at 5:52 pm

    This a good idea but it likely won’t be in our lifetime with the building codes.

  19. Saran Bhatia

    June 13, 2023 at 7:00 pm

    Nature shows the way!

  20. Coord_ inator

    June 13, 2023 at 9:44 pm

    Why is the audience so small? This should be heard by more people!

  21. trader2137

    June 14, 2023 at 8:00 am

    who cares about carbon emissions? there are more important things than some imaginary global warming, even if it exists we can not do anything about it or its simply not worth taking any effort

  22. R.A. Andrews

    June 14, 2023 at 11:39 pm

    Biomimicry

  23. Drowsy Stag • 46 years ago

    June 15, 2023 at 9:46 am

    I’ve always wondered if there could be a way to make a living building. It wouldn’t be practical in the sense of supplying buildings at the speed of people’s demands but it’d be a neat concept for a building grown and shaped as it was grown.

  24. Samson Fernendez

    June 16, 2023 at 7:15 am

    And how about cleaning and maintaining those structures? I’m all for saving resources. I have given up taste pleasure for ethics. So I’m honestly curious if this is possible in real life. Unless we let moss grow on those structures, they are gonna look not lovely very fast.

  25. Bertl Zansinger

    June 17, 2023 at 8:06 am

    wonderful speech, message and speaker!

  26. Prince Kumar

    June 18, 2023 at 6:01 am

    Truly insightful video.
    I find Ted worth for this.
    But then, look at the no. Of viewers !

  27. Nimrod Regev

    June 19, 2023 at 1:26 am

    This is a really unarticulated project. How are things connected? How do you account for irregular situations? Seems like a kind of a nothing burger.

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