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The creation of organic shape is variously approached in architecture, but in biology, there is only one system for producing environmentally stable bodies: morphogenesis. In strict adherence to the laws of science, this project operates at the intersection between biology and computation to imagine an architecture that begins from a single strand of DNA. From the system that has created dynamic and evolving bodies, sustainable cities may emerge.
As there is yet no material to build with that is as flexible as skin down to its very DNA, the application of morphogenetic systems in architecture entails total speculation on materiality and constructability. However, to not do so would limit this project to the same constraints that separate organic architectures from organic bodies.
To speculate on materiality, however, is to open the door to considering architecture on a biological scale: to measure architecture with a microscope as well as with a ruler, and to measure time not in the span of life but in the span of evolution.
Since the advent of artificial intelligence, life now belongs to two different worlds: the future of organic development is one of duality between biological and digital creation.
Morphogenetic systems – organisms – are related not only to space but to place: They are the result of constant adaptation and response to their environment and context, of ceaseless and continuous evolution.
At the biodigital border, two distinct languages of creation collide: the organism results from dualities between sensuality and rigidity, and chaos and order, that define the intersection between biology and computation.
Above all, biological shape is dynamic: adaptivity and responsiveness create dynamism, which enables evolution. In non-hierarchical, dynamic systems, what drives form and where in the system it is driven from is always in flux.
The creation of biological shape always begins in the cell: to know what separates a physical brick from a biological cell, it is first necessary to distinguish between the terms natural and organic, motion and dynamism, and stasis and stability.