Bio-Inspired Design: Self-Healing Buildings and Fungal Coatings ft. Anna Sandak

Last reviewed and updated on 21 October 2026.

Engineered living materials could soon give buildings the ability to heal their own cracks, filter city air and block UV, all without a drop of paint. On the latest Under the Microscope Podcast, Anna Sandak, Head of the Materials Group at the University of Primorska, explains how she embeds living fungi, algae and bacteria into building coatings. The result: facades that behave more like organisms than surfaces.

What are engineered living materials?

Anna’s background is in biology, not architecture. That’s precisely why her living fungal coatings work differently to conventional building materials. Instead of adding a protective layer once and hoping it lasts, her coatings stay biologically active. They self-heal scratches, absorb air pollutants, and produce natural UV protection through melanin, the same pigment that protects human skin.

In this episode

• How Anna’s biology background led her to engineer living fungal coatings for building facades
• Why these coatings self-heal, absorb pollutants, and provide UV protection via melanin
• The difference between her ERC Consolidator grant ARCHI-SKIN and the EIC Pathfinder project REMEDY
• What “living tattoos” mean in architecture, and how high-resolution bio-printing brings decoration and function together
• Why her team is sending fungal biofilms to space to test resilience under microgravity
• Her take on AI adoption for scientists, ahead of the EU AI Act taking effect in August 2026

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Key takeaways

Buildings become active, not just static. Anna’s coatings are designed to reduce the building sector’s carbon footprint throughout its operational life, not only during construction.

Good fungi, not mushrooms. The fungal biofilms are microscopic and selected to outcompete harmful organisms, much like a healthy microbiome protects the human body.

Aesthetics and sustainability go hand in hand. The ARCHI-Biome “tattoo” technology lets architects print high-resolution designs that also clean air and resist weathering.

Cross-disciplinary teams accelerate innovation. Anna’s EIC Pathfinder project sits inside a ten-project portfolio on engineered living materials, spanning architecture to human health, all working together on regulatory and market-readiness questions.

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About the guest

Anna Sandak leads the Materials Group at the University of Primorska (formerly InnoRenew CoE) in Slovenia. She holds an ERC Consolidator grant for ARCHI-SKIN and leads Slovenia’s contribution to the EIC Pathfinder project REMEDY, alongside a national ARIS-funded project sending fungal biofilms into space.

Listen to the full episode

Catch the full conversation on the Under the Microscope Podcast, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Anna’s story shows what’s possible when biology and materials science meet, and you’ll come away with fresh ideas for your own interdisciplinary research proposals.