Interspecies formations
Creators: name: Alima, Natalie
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 330102
subject: Architectural design

description: This research is situated in the field of architectural biodesign, with its interest in integrating living processes and materials into the creation of architectural forms. Specifically the project aims to explore the affordances of varying types of relationships, between the fungus Pleurotus ostreatus and a designer, in the creation of forms. While nature has been designing forms over the past estimated 4 billion years, only recently architects have begun reaching out to nature and seeking partnerships in design. Up until recently, architecture’s relationship with nature has predominantly been instrumental, where nature was conceived as the supplier of materials and context, but rarely invited to actively participate in the design, and even far less so to have agency and autonomy in the creation of forms. In adopting a bioegalitarian view related to co-designing with the more-than-human world, this study put forward the following aims: to contribute to developing our understanding regarding architect–non-human organism relationships and their affordances to architectural design, and to develop new methodologies that facilitate the agency of the non-human organisms, while contributing to design innovation. Specifically, the research was guided by four objectives. 

First, to experiment with four types of interactive relationships at three scales. These are: (i) BioEnclosures: Experimenting with restricted fungus’s design autonomy. The designer creates the form and the fungus’s mycelium responds by growing into the form. The form is developed at the macro-scale, and measured in metres; (ii) BioScaffolds: Experimenting with shared architect–fungus design autonomy. The architect designs the form and the fungus’s mycelium responds by growing into the form. However, this growth is moderated through iterative feedback loops between a robot and the mycelium. The form is developed at the meso-scale and measured in centimetres; (iii) BioForms: Experimenting in extended fungus design autonomy. The fungus initiates the form and the designer responds to the form through computer-mediated design scanning. The form is developed at the micro-scale and measured in millimetres; and, (iv) InterspeciesForms: Experimenting with design by interspecies stigmergy. The fungus creates an initial form as a stimulus for an algorithmic design response. Secondly, the objective was to develop methodologies for creating non-indexical formations, capable of hybridising the aesthetics and scale of the fungus with the architect’s design intentions. Thirdly, to characterise the attributes of the fungi as a designer and identify their affordances to architectural design. And fourthly, to consider the nature of the architect– fungus relationships by examining the thriving of the fungus under the four experimental conditions, where thriving is determined by the complexity, intricacy and details of the growth tapestry of the mycelium. 

The application of the four experimental set-ups involved the development of novel robotically mediated feedback systems for establishing a co-creational language between the fungus and the designer. The findings revealed that across the first three experimental set-ups, the relationships between the architect and the fungus ranged across a continuum of design autonomy. When more design autonomy is given to the architect, the forms created were more indexical to the architect in aesthetics and scale. Contrarily, when more design autonomy was allocated to the fungus, the opposite occurred. Further findings suggest that designing stable, predictable and replicable forms, which are applicable in human scale and that are reflective of an architect’s aesthetics, are impossible to achieve without compromising the inherent thriving patterns of the fungus. However, in the fourth set-up, InterspeciesForms, it became possible to maintain both the thriving of the fungus and architectural design intention. This was enabled through the introduction of stigmergy as a design methodology, and by reconceptualising the notion of architectural intentions, as not pre-fixed, but as continuously evolving in response to changes in stimuli left in the environment by the fungus. 

Both methodologies have generated novel and truly hybridised formations not indexical to their creators in aesthetics and scale. However, the methods by which hybridisation was achieved differed in the two projects. In BioScaffolds hybridisation was achieved through iterative behavioural feedback, by which the architect and the fungus alternate in taking the lead over design autonomy. In InterspeciesForms stigmergy was applied as a methodology for achieving character hybridisation. Here the hybridisation is an outcome of the design agents’ responses to design stimuli left in the shared form-creation environment, where the fungus is permitted to thrive while simultaneously creating a form. From this respect, the character hybrid in a sense, reflects the hybridised characters of its creators. The finding gives rise to a new definition of the concept of hybridisation in biodesign, suggesting that: hybridisation in forms co-created by human and non-human organisms must meet the criterion of presenting a non-indexical formation in relation to essential properties of the form, such as aesthetic and scale. 

The findings further suggest that the fungus’s characteristic of volatility may be understood as a transient state set by the limitations of human perception, interpretation and predictive thought. This transient state may be overcome by careful observations and ongoing dialogue with the fungus, by which the fungus gradually exposes its predictability, and possibly replicability. Finally, the study produced a series of design collections, exposing the contrasting relationships, encounters and feedback systems between biological agency and architectural intention. By co-creating with my partner the fungus, this collaborative journey has ultimately expanded my imagination as a designer and evolved my preconceived notions of architectural forms. Throughout my research I have discovered that the mycelium’s contribution to architecture is not in its material properties or application to large scale buildings, but rather in its aesthetics and agency of growth, which I seek to unlock throughout each of the four developed research projects. The implications for further studies are discussed.