Bio-Active Concrete and Carbon-Storing Public Art: When the Structure Becomes Part of the Artwork

Key facts

• Whale on the Wharf (Skyscraper) by StudioKCA is an approximately 11–12-meter-tall blue whale sculpture made from plastic waste, installed in the Wood Wharf dock in London in 2025.
• The sculpture's underwater foundations and counterweights use a low-carbon concrete mix incorporating biochar produced from biomass and spent coffee grounds collected from Canary Wharf cafés and restaurants.
• According to Holcim UK, the biochar-based mix reduced embodied carbon compared with a conventional CEM I concrete mixture.
• A 2026 review of biomineralization-based self-healing concrete identifies bacteria, fungi, and algae as active research areas, including systems designed to precipitate calcium carbonate and repair cracks.
• A June 2026 study found that macroalgae-derived biochar used as a partial cement replacement improved several performance measures in experimental non-reinforced concrete while producing lower strength-normalized CO₂ emissions than the wood-biochar comparison mixture.
• A 2024 study published in Sustainability investigated 'living concrete' blocks cultivated with Chlorella vulgaris, a photosynthetic microalga.
• Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), working with Prometheus Materials and the University of Colorado Boulder, is developing algae-based bio-concrete as part of research into carbon-negative building materials.
• The POTSDAM letter sculpture in Germany uses concrete incorporating a carbon-negative admixture designed to permanently store biogenic carbon in the concrete matrix, described as the first city-name sculpture made from carbon-storing concrete.