Legal Constructs Lab

An exploration of novel issues raised by mechanically adaptive living building materials.

The Legal Constructs Lab received National Science Foundation funding for its role in a project that will enable the production and deployment of mechanically adaptive living building materials. The manufacturing and application of materials used in construction and building materials is energy intensive, generating substantial costs in dollars and carbon emissions. The supply of natural resources used to make the most common construction materials such as concrete is expected to decrease in the coming decades, resulting in a need for new, more sustainable building materials. This project, involving researchers from UC-San Francisco (Lead PI Christopher Hernandez), Cornell University, and Montana State University, will establish building materials that are less energy intensive during manufacturing and also reduce the costs of heating/cooling over the lifetime of the completed building. These materials will adapt to mechanical stresses during use by increasing density and stiffness at regions of greatest mechanical demand through mechanically-induced biomineralization in hempcrete, a sustainable building material with negative carbon emissions. By creating these materials, the project aims to enhance the performance of sustainable materials used for insulation by increasing the ability of the material to contribute to the structural demand. 

Within this context, the Legal Constructs Lab will consider the legal challenges associated with the use of such materials in building codes. Unlike other building materials, living building materials are purposely designed to change their mechanical performance. Applications of living building materials will only be commercially viable and scalable if laws actually allow them to be utilized. An analysis of the legal implications of living building materials is a critically important part of this project, and it will be the first legal treatment of the viability of living building materials. The Lab will analyze building code content, processes for amendment, and potential revisions, and will analyze consumer protection laws governing products similar to living building materials.