Topics

This note lists topics and angles or lenses for possible research and creative exploration. This is an indicative list, you are very welcome to propose other topics and directions.

Key Challenges

A simplification, but we can divide larger-scale challenges into two groups.

Threats to Existence

Loss of biodiversity
Loss of habitat
Erasure of historically accumulated complexity, in application to life and abiotic environments

Threats to Wellbeing

Loss of thriving, health, wellbeing, for humans and all life
Equity and justice, uneven distribution of benefits and suffering. Suffering and unjust treatment of nonhuman beings

Key Opportunities

What can design in general and architecture in particular improve to make their contributions more beneficial?

Better collaboration with nonhumans
Better evidence or data
Better information
Better communication
Better technology
Better knowledge
Examples of better life
Examples of imagined worlds that expand the space of possibilities

Stakeholders, Clients and Co-Designers

Consider the roles for all agents. Design by, for and with all members of more-than-human communities. Here, "more-than-human" can mean a living being, an artificial system or a self-organising abiotic system.

Examples of Living Agents

Pets and their lives, for example the access to the city/buildings for companion animals such as dogs
Plants as clients of design rather than materials, tools, building elements, or decorative elements
Near-surface habitats (mosses, lichens, insects, microbes)
Birds, especially urban and peri-urban (arboreal nesters, hollow nesters, other)
Insects
Wild/feral/pest/domesticated or citizens/denizens/sovereign nations (political and control implications)
Agricultural animals and food industry
Working animals such as police or military dogs, horses, etc.
Clients organised by
- Forms of work they do
- Services they provide
- Styles of life
- Types of community
- Relationship to humans (pets, pests, prey, food, etc.)

Examples of Artificial Agents

The common denomination would be to see artificial agents as nonliving but this boundary is porous or is increasingly seen as such by commentators.

Robots, including relationship to humans (making, services, care, sex), rights and protections for robots, governance of artificial systems, robot ethics
Software platforms
Artificial intelligence systems including confined systems and the prospects for general artificial intelligence

Examples of Abiotic Agents

Hyperobjects such as weather systems and climate, soil formation system, ecosystems and others
Local effects such as dirt, pollution, erosion, sedimentation, etc.

Places

Places understood as system of dynamic interaction in a location, aggregating into relationships, dependent on memories, cultures, etc. Synonyms: sites/ecosystems/biomes/habitats/environments/dwellings.

Land habitats
Water habitats. Marine/riverine life, urbanisation and design
- Sea
- Rivers
- Wetlands
Buildings and types of buildings
Artificial interior spaces
Cities
Dense blocks
- Suburbia
- Underground habitats
- Roofs and the air
- Parks
- Water and under water
Agricultural environments
Infrastructure (bridges, railways, dams, roads, canalisation, etc.)
Environments and ecosystems across scales
Degrees of control. Urban/peri-urban/wild, areas of inclusion/exclusion, fences and enclosures, abandoned and remodelled cities
Extra-terrestrial habitats: asteroids, other planets, interstellar space

Methods

Consider the ways you can advance your research project. How will you spend your time?

Methods will help you to answer your research questions but they can also be the object of your research.

Speculative design, design fictions, personas, cf. Science Fiction
Backcasting, forecasting, futures studies, cf. Future
Traditional and indigenous knowledge and design, cf. Indigenous
Design experiments, prototyping
Simulations, games, interactive environments

Approaches and Solutions

You can consider exploring existing approaches and outcomes of design, engineering, or management.

Walkable buildings
Permeable buildings
Prosthetic and artificial habitats (on/under water, on artificial structures, new/retrofitted, etc.)
Lifecycles and design in natural and technical systems
Continuous designing, adaptation, reuse, repurposing
Search-based design, form-finding, generative design
Connectivity of urban block and buildings
Temporary, ephemeral, modifiable and transportable architecture
Ecoliteracy in support of recognition and solidarity

Conceptual Frameworks

Conceptual frameworks govern theory and practice in many disciplines and are an interesting research opportunity. Even if you do not focus on them explicitly, you will benefit from building that into the background of your project.

Ecocentrism and design, cf. Ecocentric Design
Aesthetics of decay, impermanence, mess, and dirt
More-than-human participation
Biomimicry and bioinspiration, Biomimicry
Rewilding
One health
- Salutogenic design
- Probiotic buildings, cf. Probiotic
- One health, evolutionary medicine and design, cf. Health
- Psychological health, risk, physical activity and design
One rights, wild law, Earth jurisprudence, animal piece law

Technologies

The meaning and role of technologies in life, human and nonhuman is a topic by itself.

Beyond there, there are practical cases that can yield interesting analysis:

Techno-Optimist Approaches

These approaches generally expect that human technology can help.

Generative design
Parametric modelling
Information modelling (building information modelling, site information modelling)
Augmented reality
Virtual reality
Serious games
Interactive technologies and environments
Material computation
Mass customisation
Data collection (sensing, imaging, scanning) and analysis systems
Artificial intelligence systems, machine learning
GIS and dynamic mapping
Robotics and mechatronics
Digital fabrication
Bio- and eco-design
Geoengineering
Data science and big data
Bioinformatics