Florafelt: A Vision Of Living Buildings

My love of architecture resulted in the fortunate opportunity attend and receive a 5 year bachelor’s degree from SCI-ARC in 1992. The school was located blocks from Frank Gehry’s office, where ideas for an organic future were just beginning to blossom.

– Chris Bribach, inventor of the Florafelt System

Spontaneous Design

I was excited about organic ideas in architecture and created chaos sculptures made from many pieces of building elements connected in a free-form structure. I assembled the pieces in what seemed chaotic designs, but the goal was to create a redundantly efficient organic space frame. Similar to how a bird builds a nest, I wanted the assembly to become a process that organically helped create the scope and shape. On the human scale, I created what I called ‘performance architecture’ where the audience would create their own experience resulting in a structure.

Ancient Origins

The act of creating space with the materials at hand, quickly and efficiently, is how ancient people built dwellings. Nomadic communities living in harmony with their environment for thousands of years used very little to build comfortable homes. By passing down this knowledge, a rich architecture evolved that was sensitive to the environment and made efficient use of local materials.

The Problem

The massive industrial urban centers of today are plagued with paved and roofed surfaces that require enormous amounts of energy to create and maintain. I wondered why buildings can’t be covered with living foliage to cool interiors, prevent decay and even grow food.

Sustainable Ecology

I am committed to the use of sustainable manufacturing methods that I learned from William McDonough’s book, Cradle To Cradle, so I worked with manufacturers to develop a synthetic growing medium I called Florafelt. Made from recycled plastic water bottles, it is food-safe and will not only last indefinitely but can be re-melted to create other products.