Nature constantly adjusts to novel conditions and maintains the balance between urbanisation and living systems. This workshop will explore how to co-design with nature creating architecture for human and non-human agents using local materials. It is a study about co-habitation across species to improve ecosystem performance, introducing biodiversity and circularity to the urban tissue.
Our relationship with nature is fundamental, and we must operate sensibly as a part of the ecosystem. Our Anthropocentric presence is altering or establishing all systems, and we must rethink our co-living strategies and speed. The shift between the Anthropocene and Biocentrism, from hard to soft powers, requires flexibility to improve co-habitation across species. The goal is to form environments that balance analogue and computation, natural and artificial, where we can collaborate with nature and let its intelligence fully unfold.
All physical projects start from the materials being used, building methods and decomposition of the object. Moreover, it is essential to evaluate material carbon footprint, energy consumption, transportation and production processes. It is time to re-evaluate how we use resources and how it affects the environment. We can improve urban metabolism by focusing on local opportunities, rethinking our material culture and taking a closer look at their infrastructure.
The workshop expertise covers different scales, from urban landscapes to digital fabrication. We will explore a connection between the urban tissue and the surrounding natural landscape to create a new layer, a dynamic structure that evolves through time. The skills taught during the workshop include exploring physical experiments, novel material applications and, setting up the rules for digital algorithms, working with computational methods. We are going to simulate natural dynamic processes using grasshopper and additional plugins.