Systemic Architecture

This is a manual investigating the subject of urban ecology and systemic development from the perspective of architectural design. It sets out to explore two main goals: to discuss the contemporary relevance of a systemic practice to architectural design, and to share a toolbox of informational design protocols developed to describe the city as a territory of self-organization.

Collecting together nearly a decade of design experiments by the authors and their practice, ecoLogicStudio, the book is organized into three design domains: environments, machines and behavioural spaces. The conversation touches disciplinary definitions, often perceived as oppositions, such as sustainable development versus ecologic urbanisation, algorithmic [process driven] versus critical [narrative driven] architecture, bottom-up tactical versus top-down strategic design, space as patterns of use versus behavioural space, low-tech materiality versus high-tech design, the boundary of the natural and the artificial realms within the city and architecture.

A new kind of emergent "real-time world-city" is presented in the book in the form of an operational design manual for the assemblage of proto-architectures, the incubation of proto-gardens and the coding of proto-interfaces. These proto-types of machinic architecture materialise as synthetic hybrids embedded with biological life [proto-gardens], computational power, behavioural responsiveness [cyber-gardens], spatial articulation [ecoMachines and Fibrous structures], remote sensing [FunClouds], and communication capabilities [Footprint Grotto].

With this manual, ecoLogicStudio illustrates a form of know-how that constitutes the basis for its critical practice. Such a mode of practice is better understood through the actual application of the manual, by experiencing architecture as an experimental practice devoted to promoting a critical understanding of our society through the evolution of a personal architectural knowledge; a new individual modus operandi able to be shared and interconnected to trigger new appetites, new hungers in crafting a better environment.

Supporting the authors' own essays and projects are contributions from key innovators in contemporary architecture and urban design – Michael Batty, Andrew Hudson-Smith, Michael Weinstock and Patrik Schumacher.