Due to many overwhelming circumstances that an individual may experience daily, stress and anxiety issues have significantly affected people’s health, physically and mentally. However, the way our environment is built is not actively nurturing our well-being.

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The project aims to mediate and help our emotional stresses by augmenting therapeutic sensory into the built environment through a soft and bioresponsive architectural membrane as an adaptive wearable system.

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Although many conventional anxiety remedies are available on the market, such as psychotherapy and medication, drug dependence and withdrawal often occur. With anxiety levels rising, many studies have been made by experts, in particular Christopher Lowry, around Mycobacterium vaccae, a stress-relieving soil bacterium. These bacteria have proven to improve cognitive performance while activating brain serotonergic systems and antidepressant-like behavioural effects. Smart, interactive textiles have been rising as intelligent fabrics that convey the potential of developing changeable material systems. Stimuli responsive hydrogels have potential as a shape changing actuator when applied on fabric due to their absorption and evaporation properties. However, 3D printing techniques and the pretension of textiles may offer deformations.

 

This study aims to produce an interface using soft materials that act as a calming, breathing skin material system that enables healthcare to occur in response to water by hosting a living bacterium, Mycobacterium vaccae.

 

This second skin could be applied on two different scales while creating an innovative, biophilic dialogue between the environment and the human scale.