SOM’s Urban Sequoia Is at the Forefront of Environmentally Sustainable Architecture

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Imagine if new buildings could help heal the planet. SOM has developed a prototype—the first step to achieving this goal—that can be built today. Taking inspiration from natural processes and ecosystems, Urban Sequoia envisions forests of buildings that create a new carbon-removal economy. Leveraging existing technologies and emerging solutions and backed by research that has been years in the making, Urban Sequoia envisions an architecture that employs bio materials (made of cyano-bacteria, hydrogel, sand, warm water), nature-based micro algae systems for carbon sequestration and technologies that can transform their buildings into sources of biofuel.

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