An Embodied Architecture
Authors: Downing Frances , Nanda Upali , Laiprakobsup Narongpon , Mohajeri Shima B. 
Published: March 2015

An architecture of the body is emerging out of theories of biology, complexity, and systems through the use of an evolving organism as its metaphor. Autopoiesis is the term used by biologists to describe the realm of existence for a living organism as it slides between the interchange of structure and information. Incoming information is filtered through the organism for its usefulness in the art of staying alive. Structural or organizational changes evolve as the organism adjusts to new information. To remain a viable organism”to survive”means that an entity must keep evolving without surrendering identity. Humans must maintain an embodied identity, often referred to as an organized self (Maturana & Varela, 1980, 1987), while viably exchanging information with other entities and the environment. This operation creates a topological boundary across which the communication takes place. Cognitive theorists and researchers have proposed that the animal condition is one of Embodied Realism; that is, animals such as we humans, are embodied, using our bodies to create basic metaphors, and, that we do this in a"real” world. The role of cognition in this equation is to allow humans the use of embodiment to explore abstract ideas through metaphor”such as "grasping an idea” (Lakoff &Johnson, 2003). In doing so, it allows the invention of an evolving language that refers to things "outside” our skin,like other entities and places. Autopoiesis describes the activities at the "edge” or boundary of an organism. The linguistic act can, therefore, be identified as fundamental medium for communication in the edge, between inside and outside, that assures the autopoiesis of place.In our own bodies, flesh is the biological manifest of the edge or boundary condition. Our understanding of flesh is that it is another of our organs; and at the same time, all organs are also bounded by flesh. It serves as a porous filter, delicate and complicated”it is our body boundary. The "flesh” or the lived body (Merleau-Ponty, 1968) is moreover, an inbetween concept that articulates the subjective mind to the objective world. It bridges the boundaries separating inside from outside. Thus, it could act as a metaphor for introducing the notion of edge in architectural place. The edge itself then, embodies the embodied being. Buildings have boundaries of foundation, wall, or roof, parts of which could be thought of as the"skin.” In today's practice, the various skins of a building have become more complicated and porous as the field of architecture extends itself into "systemic” conditions, within and without. It follows then that the body survives the interaction and communication between mind and theexternal world if it inhabits the edge of place embodying localized boundary metaphors. Architecture is beginning the process of aligning itself with a new moral code”one that is inclusive of our biological reality, the embodiment of ideas, systemic evolution, and ecological necessities. This paper is situated within this new moral code of systemic ecological and biologicalinteractions.