Development of the core nanotechnologies and synthetic biology is leading to results that are extremely interesting for production of the buildings on the nano level, thus growing buildings on site from the nano into the meter range. Although areas like nanorobotics, programmable materials, and programmable cells are still considered to be speculative to some extent, their fast development encouraged us to start systematic research of new ways for modeling and construction of buildings using bio-nano-technologies. The main motivation, however, was the recognition that, if designed in a sustainable way, the new ways of nano-to-meter-scale building (n2m building) could significantly reduce the many negative impacts of traditional construction and operation of buildings on the environment (production of cement and other building materials, waste, resource transportation, and energy consumption and pollution during construction and operation). Currently a group of researchers from University of Maribor and Stanford University is exploring concepts of top-down design of a n2m building system to speed-up the process of developing new building technologies by formulating the requirements and thus encourage researchers in bio- and nanotechnology to direct their bottom-up research towards them, and in this way help the construction industry to reach that ultimate goal, fully automated nano-to-meter-scale building. With the interdisciplinary top-down and bottom-up research we want to construct testbeds in which we will be able to study the concepts of n2m building and develop technologies that will enable automated building from nano to meter scale in the future, which will have a huge impact on the reduction of pollution and energy consumption caused by the building industry. For more information about this seminar, please contact: Michael Wetter(510) 486-6990