Meet Meat Architecture

Meat House meat model via Mitchell Joachim Archinode Studio.]

Mitchell Joachim was featured on TED expounding the virtues of building with organic matter, meat being a primary one. He has also discussed this in interviews in Harper's and the magazine, Meatpaper. Yes. there is a magazine dedicated to "art and ideas about meat." Who knew?

While the Smiths may have sung, "Meat is Murder", in this case a "victimless shelter" would be produced from the laboratory cultivation of pig cells mixed with other ingredients commonly used in the food industry. No murder necessary. No need to go out and kill and skin your own domicile.


[Section of Meat House via Mitchell Joachim Archinode Studio.]

So far, no one has actually commissioned a Meat House and there are of course a host of issues to be dealt with before putting a fleshy structure on that piece of Malibu land you have been holding onto. What happens to them in brush fires, for example? While this proposal is the perfect target for ridicule, such as this, the people at TED thought there was enough validity to the concept to make Joachim a TED Fellow and have him present it to the world.

The numerous posted comments his presentation invited inevitably point out the flaws in his system. While it is easy to engage in reasoned critique after the fact, the initial leap Joachim took to conceive of a structure generated from pig's tissue is not entirely unrealistic and there is sound science to back it up. The proposal raises interesting possibilities for architecture based more on the principles of biology and takes bio-mimicry to another level.


[Rendering of Meat House via Mitchell Joachim Archinode Studio.]

Looking beyond the shock of its literalness, Meat House raises many questions that are worth asking. Is it possible to conceive of architecture that does not involve steel framing, drywall, or concrete? Is it possible to literally "grow" a home over time? Is this an effective solution for the homeless crisis or refugees? What does it mean to be innovative in architecture? What is the value of such innovation? Is it worth doing something, or drawing something, just because you have the software to do it? How far can the concept be pushed before it collapses? While the proposal seems absurd on many levels it provokes serious inquiry and possible investigations into its underlying premises and assumptions. In this way it functions a lot like art by raising serious issues via a "shock of the new." Damien Hirst comes to mind...but to my knowledge you can't live in any of his pieces.