Architect envisions “living homes” that keep you warm if you feed them (but may occasionally sneeze)

In Argentina, architect Juan Manuel Prieto has used artificial intelligence to conceptualize “Habitable Monsters” to draw attention to the potential of living architecture.  Made of organic materials such as muscle tissue, fur, scales, tentacles, and even fangs, the living but (hopefully) non-sentient structures would be energy-efficient, feeding off of the waste of its inhabitants.

In a submission to online publication design boom, Prieto says Habitable Monsters urges humanity to “move into the warm womb of a living organism” that may drool or sneeze but doesn’t require environmentally damaging materials like concrete or metals to construct. When its inhabitants move, the monster/house simply dies and decomposes.

Prieto believes such structures are possible, thanks to biotechnologies similar to those being used to grow meat in labs. “Although we are still far from the cultivation (or breeding?) of buildings, there is no doubt that sooner or later it will happen and that it will be the next revolution in architecture,” he tells design boom.