Collaborating with living organisms in design / regenerative design principles

Human is in direct process of redesigning the environment. Design cannot make sense without considering biodesign, the self-conscious design of new life-forms within a genetically engineered environment. With biodesign, the sense of the human redesigning itself and every element of the living environment is direct and palpable. It is as if the human brain has touched and transformed everything it encounters. (Colomina, Wigley, 2016).

If all lives are interconnected, we must develop a more interconnected way of thinking about design, which could be offered by navigating biodesign and material ecology. Design should incorporate scientific insights and incorporate microbes as valuable allies who since they are neither inside nor outside, function as a continuum between organisms and the environment (Institute for Postnatural Studies).

Colomina, B. & Wigley, M. (2016) Are we human? notes on an archeology of Design. Zürich, Switzerland: Lars Müller Publishers. Institute For Postnatural Studies. (2021) De-stirilizing design: Towards non-anthropocen- tric strategies beyond the inert. YouTube.

Climate crisis and anthropocene

Anthropocene as a new geological epoch has formed itself due to human impact on the environment. How to make sense of design in this era? Decentering design is about looking at design in its broader context of complex issues to address and gain holistic perception of the world.

Circularity / waste as a resource

Materials interfere with our life on different levels and matter on many different basis on a day to day life. They are perpetually integrated in design, manufacturing, research, innovation, and development. We do not consider material impact beyond human consumption. The real material ecology must be prioritized in design thinking, researching and producing. As we place new materials into the current system, people could start to resonate with them. Perhaps we have to start understanding ecosystems around it to understand how we can relate to them and start focusing on waste in the design discourse.

Designers create future waste, so we have to look closely at the wrong semantic connotation of the word itself. The object considered as waste only ends its life in the user’s eyes – it does not disappear from our planet.

We have a chance to recover natural materials and feed them back into the economy. It has to be narrative-driven, behaviour-driven, system driven. It will benefit biodiversity as this model is what nature can teach us.

Information

Climate crisis and anthropocene

Circularity / waste as a resource