A More-Than-Human Architecture

Puli Li, Pille Bunnell, and Claudia Westermann

The presentation explores the relationship between human awareness and natural order in the complex, interwoven systems around us, and how aesthetic awareness emerges out of this relationship. We propose that the human sense of beauty arose in the context of our embeddedness in nature and is thus grounded in the forms of nature. However, in our daily lives, we have become disconnected from the natural world and have thus lost the opportunity for re-invigorating a sense of the aesthetic. Based on a studio project, the presentation explores how nature could be reintroduced into people’s urban living spaces, recreating a sense of connection that is interwoven with our consciousness. The project explores the possibility of stimulating human perception and creating new stories at the intersection of architecture and nature.

This presentation is part of the Ecopoetic Formations for Transgenerational Collaboration scheme for which four junior designers were paired with four senior members of the American Society for Cybernetics. The scheme was initiated in July 2023. It aims to provide the junior designers with an introduction to the relationship between systems thinking and design and to assist them in developing aspects of their existing graduation projects by integrating systems concepts and systemic design principles.

This presentation begins with an overview of the undergraduate design project and an associated essay by Puli Li (junior collaborator) on the order of nature, which serves as a basis for the collaboration with Pille Bunnell (senior collaborator). Following this introduction, the presentation reports on the ideas, designs and thoughts that have arisen through their collaboration from July onwards. As the transgenerational collaboration meetings have just begun, the main body of the submitted document comprises the essay as originally developed by the junior collaborator.