Bioluminescent micro-architectures: planning design in time, an eco-metabolistic approach to biodesign

By hybridising the principles of the living with the methods of design, the emerging field of biodesign is exploring how to radically transform the ecological imprint of contemporary material culture while questioning the creative opportunities induced by the appropriation of metabolic processes. This new bio-based foundation challenges architects and designers to rethink the way in which architecture is imagined, represented and materialised. This paper presents developments in the speculative collaborative project Imprimer la lumière examining living bioluminescent bacterial substrates as an architectural building material. In order to appropriate the light performance of these living organisms, the paper asks how to characterise and control these within an architectural design context and reports on efforts to develop computational models for simulating the behaviour, growth rates and life span of living materials and interface these with architectural representational framework. Within nature, bioluminescence is predominantly produced by marine organisms. In this context, the emitted light is a chemical reaction, part of a metabolic system that needs to be sustained. Working with bioluminescence therefore implies taking into consideration the ecosystem in which the light-emitting metabolisms take place as much as their limited lifespan. As a consequence, time must be understood as a key dimension of the architectural design process and wet lab tools and critically implemented into the palette of architectural design instruments and protocols.This paper reports on the examination of how living materials and their environment can be represented, simulated and predicted as part of an eco-metabolistic model developing mechanisms of functionalising and steering a living architectural material.