Page 59 - META

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ISSN 2309-0103 www.archidoct.net
Vol. 7 (2) / February 2020
ical processes and to manipulate them. It also triggers a more complex notion of ecology by implying an entanglement also with new meta-life forms created through the use of synthetic biology and biotechnology.
Bio-informed architecture: buildings as meta-living or- ganisms
A Petri dish is a shallow transparent lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells: the potential role that biosynthesis can play in advancing architecture and urban design opens new future scenarios in which architecture itself could be produced in a Petri dish. The combination of digital design with biology and biotechnology, but also the increasing production of bio- materials from organic life forms (such as mycelium, microal- gae, bacteria or protocells), can represent a gamechanger in “bio-informed” design practices. In fact, it opens to the pos- sibility to recognize an agency also to architectural matter, thanks to the overlapping with the organic layer. Architecture can therefore act as a living system pointing to the develop- ment of a hybrid ecology.
The concept of architecture as evolving living system was pi- oneered by John Frazer in his publication “An Evolutionary Ar- chitecture” (1995), where he underlined the importance of us- ing construction materials responsive to external conditions, in order to establish a mutualistic relationship between the build- ing and the environment. As clearly stated by the cyberneti- cian Gordon Pask in the preface of Frazer’s book, this approach has nothing to do with the “often frenetic practice of copying the works of nature in architectural forms” 3 , rather it is about developing new models which are both tangible and rational, alive and in evolution. Frazer’s goal is therefore clear: archi- tecture fits into the natural construct as an artificial life form that triggers a symbiotic behavior with the environment and a metabolic balance that is proper to natural systems. Above all, the very interesting thing that emerges from the publication is the emphasis that an evolutionary architecture can be pursued not exclusively in terms of natural selection, but throught pro- cesses of self-organization and metabolism.
At this point, following bioartisitc experimentations, we can assume that also as designers we need to develop a heuristic point of view to redefine the boundaries of the discipline in its interaction with the “natural”, to favor complex relationships: ultimately, we need to embrace the emergence of a new col- laboration between architecture and the fields of life sciences,
3. Frazer, J. (1995) An Evolu- tionary Architecture. Archi- tectural Association, London, p. 7
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Architecture in a Petri dish: co-programming Meta-Life in design through biointegration and synthetic biology
Selenia Marinelli