Victimless Meat. Victimless Architecture. Perhaps.
Meat becomes 'victimless' by biopsing muscles cells, placing them on a biodegradable armature within an artificial womb, and growing a steak that has never been an animal.
Efficiencies and environmental advantages abound - no birth, no feeding, no mucking, no sheltering, no transporting, no slaughtering, no butchering, no packaging. Tissue Culture & Art is a scientifically savy artists collaborative that is dedicated to this stream-lined manner of providing protein to the diets of exploding human populations.
Now Mitchell Joachim, a visionary designer and architect who founded Terreform ONE, has applied this prudent environmental tactic to architecture. He is envisioning 'victimless' buildings that he refers to as "IN VITRO MEAT HABITATS".
His outrageous proposal calls for the fabrication of three dimensional forms with pig cells that multiple over an armature shaped into a shelter.These structures earn the adjective 'organic' three times. Once for their forms, which tend to be curvilinear. Once for their process of fabrication, which is cell duplication. Once for their materiality, which is actual pig skin.
What are the hurdles?
Victimless Meat. Victimless Architecture. Perhaps.
Preservation is not an issue regarding the meat which is produced to be consumed, but it is a challenge for architecture. While both TC & A and Terreform One proclaim that no sentient beings are sacrificed to harvest the animal resources, TC &A reveals that fetal cells are used in the nutrient solution that feeds the muscle cells, and Terreform One admots that substances designed to kill yeasts, bacteria and fungi are essential to preserve the architectural edifice.
Furthermore, while both experimenters demonstrate that technology based on cell multiplication is feasable, the price of conducting these processes is prohibitive.
However, think of how quickly computers and cell phones and electronic readers went from being super luxury items to become affordable to the middle classes.
Perhaps, the future of victimless technologies can be described as, “Perhaps!”.