This volume introduces a design approach developed by Michael Hensel and Achim Menges. Based on a synthesis of the processes underlying morphogenesis and ecological dynamics, this approach challenges the predominance of the programme as the starting point for architectural organisation and design.

Examining the complex social and material relationships between architecture and ecology which constitute modern cultures, this collection responds to the need to extend architectural thinking about ecology beyond current design literatures. This book shows how the ‘habitats’, ‘natural milieus’, ‘places’ or ‘shelters’ that construct architectural ecologies are composed of complex and dynamic material, spatial, social, political, economic and ecological concerns. With contributions from a range of leading international experts and academics in architecture, art, anthropology, philosophy, feminist theory, law, medicine and political science, this volume offers professionals and researchers engaged in the social and cultural biodiversity of built environments, new interdisciplinary perspectives on the relational and architectural ecologies which are required for dealing with the complex issues of sustainable human habitation and environmental action. The book provides: 16 essays, including two visual essays, by leading international experts and academics from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand and Europe; including Rosi Braidotti, Lorraine Code, Verena Andermatt Conley and Elizabeth Grosz A clear structure: divided into 5 parts addressing bio-political ecologies and architectures; uncertain, anxious and damaged ecologies; economics, land and consumption; biological and medical architectural ecologies; relational ecological practices and architectures An exploration of the relations between human and political life An examination of issues such as climate change, social and environmental well-being, land and consumption, economically damaging global approaches to design, community ecologies and future architectural practice.

This third AD by the guest-editors of the highly successful Emergence and techniques and technologies in Morphogenetic Design titles shifts the morpho-ecological design project into the realm of performance. Whereas the dictionary definition of performance -to 'carry out an action' or 'to fulfill a task' - invokes a tired utilitarian debate, Hensel and Menges inject the meaning of the word 'performance' with an entirely new life. In this context, form is redefined not as the shape of a material object alone, but as the multitude of effects, a milieu of conditions, modulations and microclimates that emanate from an object's exchange with its specific environment, a dynamic relationship that is perceived and interacted with by a subject. A synergetic employment of performance and morpho-ecological techniques combine to create integral design solutions that will render an alternative model for sustainability. This issue presents historical precursors and precedents for this approach, as well as the current state of the art of morpho-ecological design. Key contributors include: Klaus Bollinger and Manfred Grohmann of Bollinger & Grohmann, Aleksandra Jaeschke, OCEAN, Professor Remo Pedreschi, Defne Sunguroglu, Peter Trummer and Michael Weinstock.

A bold and unprecedented look at a cutting-edge movement in architecture Toward a Living Architecture? is the first book-length critique of the emerging field of generative architecture and its nexus with computation, biology, and complexity. Starting from the assertion that we should take generative architects’ rhetoric of biology and sustainability seriously, Christina Cogdell examines their claims from the standpoints of the sciences they draw on—complex systems theory, evolutionary theory, genetics and epigenetics, and synthetic biology. She reveals significant disconnects while also pointing to approaches and projects with significant potential for further development. Arguing that architectural design today often only masquerades as sustainable, Cogdell demonstrates how the language of some cutting-edge practitioners and educators can mislead students and clients into thinking they are getting something biological when they are not. In a narrative that moves from the computational toward the biological and from current practice to visionary futures, Cogdell uses life-cycle analysis as a baseline for parsing the material, energetic, and pollution differences between different digital and biological design and construction approaches. Contrary to green-tech sustainability advocates, she questions whether quartzite-based silicon technologies and their reliance on rare earth metals as currently designed are sustainable for much longer, challenging common projections of a computationally designed and manufactured future. Moreover, in critiquing contemporary architecture and science from a historical vantage point, she reveals the similarities between eugenic design of the 1930s and the aims of some generative architects and engineering synthetic biologists today. Each chapter addresses a current architectural school or program while also exploring a distinct aspect of the corresponding scientific language, theory, or practice. No other book critiques generative architecture by evaluating its scientific rhetoric and disjunction from actual scientific theory and practice. Based on the author’s years of field research in architecture studios and biological labs, this rare, field-building book does no less than definitively, unsparingly explain the role of the natural sciences within contemporary architecture.

Digital Poetics celebrates the architectural design exuberance made possible by new digital modelling techniques and fabrication technologies. By presenting an unconventional and original ’humanistic’ theory of CAD (computer-aided design), the author suggests that beyond the generation of innovative engineering forms, digital design has the potential to affect the wider complex cultural landscape of today in profound ways. The book is organised around a synthetic and hybrid research methodology: a contemporary, propositional and theoretical discursive investigation and a design-led empirical research. Both methods inform a critical construct that deals with the nature, forms, and laws of digitality within a contemporary architectural discourse that affects practice and academia. The chapters spiral at, from, towards, around, outside-inwards and back inside-out digitality, its cognitive phenomena, spatial properties and intrinsic capabilities to achieve, or at least, approach Digital Poetics. The book presents speculative and small-scale constructed projects that pioneer techniques and experiments with common 3D and 4D software packages, whereby the focus lies not on the drawing processes and mechanics, but on the agency and impact the image (its reading, experience, interpretation) achieves on the reader and observer. The book also features a preface by Frédéric Migayrou, a philosopher and curator, and one of the most influential cultural engineers of the contemporary international architectural scene. The book is linked to a website, which contains a larger selection of images of some featured projects.

This issue of AD introduces a new approach to architectural practice based on the interrelationship of emergence and self-organisation concepts. A sequence to the successful Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies title by the same guest-editors, it advances on the previous publication by taking on board the latest developments for fully integrated design evolution, manufacturing and construction. Emergence requires the recognition of architectural structures not as singular and fixed bodies, but as complex energy and material systems that have a lifespan, exist as part of the environment of other active systems, and as an iteration of a series that proceeds by evolutionary development. Thus the focal point of this issue will be the exploration of techniques and technologies that enable the implementation of such morphogenetic strategies, requiring a new set of intellectual and practical skills. Though the publication stands alone as an investigation and presentation of cutting-edge techniques and technologies within the design and construction field supported by examples from adjacent industries, it also introduces a new springboard for understanding and rethinking the radical changes in which architecture is now being conceived, designed and produced. While representing a timely exploration of the embedding of techniques and technology in an alternative design approach, it also presents wholly new strategies for tackling issues of sustainability.

With the onward march of science and technology, and the continuing quest for improvement, there is a growing curiosity about the world around us. Close examination of structures in nature can be rewarding and surprising Nature has shown an extraordinary capacity to develop dynamic structures and systems over many millions of years and there is still much to be learnt. Aimed at providing researchers in this subject with fresh impetus and inspiration, this book consists of papers presented at the Fifth International Conference on Design and Nature. The contributions reflect the rich variety of work currently taking place around the world and cover the following topics: Nature and Architecture; Mechanics in Nature; Natural Materials and Processing; Solutions from Nature; Biomimetics; Biomimetics and Bioinspiration; Biocapacity; Education in Design and Nature, and Helical Design in Nature.

Today, with the advent of digital media technologies and the ability to conceptualize, express and produce complex forms using digital means, the question of the status of the architectural form is once again under consideration. Indeed, the computer liberated architecture from the tyranny of the right angle and enabled the design and production of non-standard buildings, based on irregular geometry. Yet, the questions concerning the method of form expression in contemporary architecture, and its meaning, remain very much open. Performalism takes up this discussion, defines it and presents changes in form conception in architecture, followed by their repercussions. The book is supported by a wealth of case studies from some of the top firms across the globe and contributed to by some of the top names in this field. With a unique and insightful emphasis on professional practice this is essential reading for all architects, aspiring and practicing.

Today architecture and other fields in the built environment face the steep task of answering complex questions pertaining to sustainability, performance, and adaptability. How are these disciplines to accomplish these difficult tasks at such an immense pace? How might architectural practice renovate itself accordingly? Worldwide it is becoming increasingly clear that different modes of research are emerging which are triggered directly by the need to renovate practice. One significant prevailing mode is what has come to be known as ‘research by design’. This book delivers an overview of this pluralistic domain. Bringing together a range of leading architects, architectural theorists, and designers, it outlines the developments in current practice from leading individuals based in the USA, UK, Australia, Japan and Europe. Edited by a recognized expert, this book exposes the undercurrent of research, which is taking place and how this will contribute to the renovation of architectural practice.