by Kimberley D. Mok, Montreal, Canada 
on 05.18.10
The first 6 out of 12 steps to create Ginger Dosier's bio-engineered brick (Images: Metropolis)
Growing bricks out of bacteria, sand, calcium chloride and pee? Well, thanks to a recent discovery by an American architecture professor in Abu Dhabi, we may be looking forward to bio-engineered bricks that will be grown out of a laboratory at room temperature, rather than fired in a kiln using tons of trees and coal.
The brick breakthrough happened almost by accident: after years of research beginning with crystal growing kits and experimenting with various chemistry recipes, 32-year-old Ginger Krieg Dosier, an assistant architecture professor at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, chanced upon her first Lego-sized "baby brick" after throwing the remnants of other failed trials and waiting a week.
Bricks major source of carbon emissions
Cheap, sturdy and easy to produce, kiln-fired bricks have been around for a long time. But the process required for this widely-used traditional material means rampant deforestation and vast amounts of carbon emissions spewed into the atmosphere.
See more at: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/architect-grows-brick-out-of-bacteria-sand-urine.php
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