Designing architecture with kombucha cellulose, case study: Building envelope

The green building phenomenon stimulates new green material production to optimize the sustainable design quality goal. While the issue lies in the limited exploration and production of local biomaterials, the acceptance is still problematic in actual practice mainly because of the unfamiliarity. One of the most promising green materials comes from household waste, especially food. Its availability, degradability, and low potential allergy gained popularity as it is user-friendly yet can be directly produced and used at home. Despite the common perception suggesting it is unrelated, odd, or less resilient, global trends have recommended otherwise. It is made from edible materials, and the movement includes kombucha cellulose to be potentially developed as a biomaterial. This research explores the kombucha sheets as a building envelope. The aim is to study its texture which exhibits a specific ambience. The method is customized traditional Indonesian tea fermentation to test sheet in mock-up; the steps are as follows;

·         The material production

·         Building the envelope

·         Capturing spatial experience

The output is a miniature building enclosure using rigid, semi-rigid, and flexible structures; the result is atmospheres generated by translucent textures, natural patterns, and colours of kombucha. The novelty is the spatial experience constructed by the sheet.