Biodesign in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Deep Green investigates the potentialof nature-based technology for shapingthe evolution of contemporary architectureand design. It takes on the now pervasivetopic of design intelligence, extending itsdefinition to encompass both biologicaland digital realms.
As in their first title, Systemic Architecture: Operating Manual for the Self-Organizing City, the authors engage the topic throughthe specific lens of their innovative designpractice, ecoLogicStudio, and their researchat the University of Innsbruck and at theBartlett, UCL. Part One of the book, entitledPhotoSynthetica™, illustrates designsolutions that engage the urban microbiomeand seek to achieve an immediateimpact, while Part Two, entitled DeepGreen, includes synthetic landscapes andoperates within a much larger spatio-temporalframe, going beyond human perceptionand life span to envision design as ageographical and geological force.
In the age of catastrophic climate change,such perceptual expansion helps to clarifythat change cannot simply be stoppedor rolled back. We must instead establishmore positive dynamics of change withinthe living world. To this end, this book proposesto engage with design and architectureas an extended cognitive interface, asentient being that is co-evolutionary andsymbiotic with the living planet, contributingto its beauty and to our continued enjoyment of it.