Rachel Armstrong, professor of Experimental Architecture at Newcastle University, conducted a lecture Architecture for the Ecocene.

According to Armstrong, architecture for the Ecocene examines how biologically active metabolisms can help us design and engineering new approaches for the production of architecture.

Such an ambition has been made possible in the last 30 years through advances in biotechnology that enable us to consider life’s operations as a technology.

Finding ways to directly ‘compute’ with Nature using the language of physics and chemistry may enable us to challenge established conventions that provoke different kinds of ecological outcomes that are realized through the technosphere – in which life and machines potentiate each other.

Through active experiment and iterative reflection on these developments made possible by the Experimental Architecture platform, it may be possible to generate prototypes that speak of new futures for humankind, which enhance, rather than destroy, our life-giving ecosystems.