{"id":2594,"date":"2026-02-18T15:45:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/?p=2594"},"modified":"2026-02-24T19:45:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T19:45:36","slug":"project-biolumcity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/case-studies-nature-based-solutions\/project-biolumcity\/","title":{"rendered":"Project: BioLumCity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>&#8220;Bioluminescent city panels&#8221; by Jae-Seong Yang, image\/information source:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cragenomica.es\/crag-news\/230929_JaeSeong_BioLumCity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CRAG<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>Bioluminescent Pavilion Lighting (bacteria-based)<\/strong> refers to an experimental design concept and ongoing research project aimed at creating self-sufficient, passive urban lighting using living organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Project: BioLumCity<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>This initiative is a collaboration between the <strong>Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG)<\/strong> and the <strong>International University of Catalonia (UIC)<\/strong>, co-led by Jae-Seong Yang and Alberto T. Est\u00e9vez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Core Concept:<\/strong> The project aims to replace electric urban lighting with &#8220;living light&#8221; (bioluminescence) to reduce energy consumption and light pollution. It involves designing architectural elements\u2014such as pavilions, urban screens, and streetlamps\u2014that host bioluminescent microorganisms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Biological Agent:<\/strong> The research focuses on <strong>Aliivibrio fischeri<\/strong>, a naturally bioluminescent marine bacterium.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Mechanism:<\/strong> These bacteria emit blue-green light (~490 nm) through a chemical reaction involving the enzyme luciferase. This is a form of chemiluminescence that does not require light absorption to emit light (unlike fluorescence).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Application:<\/strong> The bacteria are cultured in a &#8220;bioink&#8221; and seeded onto customized 3D-printed scaffolds (tiles). The design of these tiles features a specific &#8220;field-diffusion pattern&#8221; with peaks and wells to optimize bacterial attachment, oxygen access, and light visibility.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Pavilion Integration:<\/strong> The sources mention the development of <strong>3D-printed urban tiles<\/strong> that function as &#8220;bioreceptive&#8221; screens. These tiles can be assembled into larger structures, such as pavilions or facades.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Performance:<\/strong> In experiments, the bacterial bioink on the 3D-printed scaffolds emitted visible light for up to <strong>10 days<\/strong> without needing a nutrient recharge.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Enclosure:<\/strong> To be viable in an urban environment, these bacterial cultures would be enclosed within architectural elements (e.g., using ion-exchange membranes or dense polycarbonate) to protect the colony while allowing light to escape.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Other Bacterial Bioluminescence Concepts<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The sources also briefly mention a project by <strong>Panasonic<\/strong> called <strong>&#8220;BioLight&#8221;<\/strong>, which similarly investigates the use of luminescent bacteria to create &#8220;bioreceptive&#8221; pavilions and furniture, though fewer details are provided compared to the BioLumCity project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Future Goals<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>While the current focus is on bacteria for their natural light-emitting properties, the BioLumCity project is also researching the genetic modification of microalgae (<em>Chlamydomonas reinhardtii<\/em>) to create organisms that are both bioluminescent and photosynthetic. This would create a system that illuminates cities at night while actively capturing CO2 during the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-btn__default-btn uagb-btn-tablet__default-btn uagb-btn-mobile__default-btn uagb-block-7a6ae438\"><div class=\"uagb-buttons__wrap uagb-buttons-layout-wrap \">\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-buttons-child uagb-buttons__outer-wrap uagb-block-3dbdc47a wp-block-button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__wrapper\"><a class=\"uagb-buttons-repeater wp-block-button__link\" aria-label=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cragenomica.es\/crag-news\/230929_JaeSeong_BioLumCity\" rel=\"follow noopener\" target=\"_self\" role=\"button\"><div class=\"uagb-button__link\">Go to project page<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Bioluminescent city panels&#8221; by Jae-Seong Yang, image\/information source:&nbsp;CRAG The Bioluminescent Pavilion Lighting (bacteria-based) refers to an experimental design concept and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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city panels&#8221; by Jae-Seong Yang, image\/information source:&nbsp;CRAG The Bioluminescent Pavilion Lighting (bacteria-based) refers to an experimental design concept and [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2594"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2733,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions\/2733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianibric.eu\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}