Rachel Armstrong.
Soft Living Architecture: an alternative view of bio-informed practice.
Bloomsbury. 2018
Soft Living Architecture explores the invention of new architectures
based on living processes.
In a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary and often polemical account,
it crafts a unique intersection between the fast-developing disciplines
of experimental biodesign in architecture,
and bioinformatics and natural computing in the sciences
to explore a parallel world of living architecture.
Covering a range of approaches from the use of life-like systems in building design to utilizing living and growing cell and tissue cultures as architectural materials – the book imagines a reality in which architecture can change, learn and grow with us. Ethical and theoretical questions are considered, alongside case-studies of experimental practice, to explore what we mean by ‘natural’ in the Anthropocene, and raise deep questions about the nature of design and the design of nature.
Ultimately, Soft Living Architecture shows why it’s becoming increasingly vital to embrace living processes in architecture if we are to thrive in a sustainable future.