This research explores how biological systems can be integrated into architecture to create regenerative urban skins that respond to environmental challenges and promote ecological balance, resilience, and sustainability.
Summary
Drawing on Gregory Bateson's ecological thinking, this research investigates how architecture can evolve into a regenerative, living interface within our rapidly changing environment. As cities grow denser and climate awareness increases, new design approaches envision the building envelope—the skin of the city—as a site for ecological action. Biological organisms offer promising solutions: from producing biodegradable materials to purifying water, reducing air pollution, generating energy, and even supplying food. By embedding living systems into architecture, this work seeks to redefine sustainability as a symbiotic relationship between the built and natural worlds.
"If the organism ends up destroying its environment, it has in fact destroyed itself." Gregory Bateson,Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972)
This quote from Bateson highlights the inextricable link between organisms and their environment—a principle that is increasingly relevant to architecture today. Contemporary design discourse calls for architecture to become not only resilient, but also regenerative: capable of contributing to environmental repair rather than merely minimising damage.
As urban density increases and ecological awareness deepens, a new vision emerges in which the city's skin transforms into a living, responsive landscape. Architectural surfaces—such as walls, roofs, and façades—are reimagined as active ecosystems that can host biological life and perform environmental functions.
Biological organisms can play a vital role in this transformation. They offer sustainable solutions across multiple domains:
Energy production and savings through photosynthesis or thermoregulation
Air pollution reduction and carbon absorption
Water purification through natural filtration systems
Biodiversity enhancement in dense urban contexts
Biodegradable and bio-based material production
Alternative food systems through urban agriculture or algae-based systems
Substitution of polluting construction materials with bio-integrated ones
This line of research explores the intersection between biology and design, seeking to integrate living systems into the built environment to create a more symbiotic, sustainable, and responsible architecture for the future.
SCIENTIFIC COORDINATOR
Prof. Ingrid Paoletti
TEAM
Olga Carcassi, Franko Garrido, Kasra Behforouz
PROJECTS
Microalgae, Living photosynthetic materials, Circular Economy, Smart Cities
