BioCraftsmanship: Regenerative Architecture & Social Ecologies
Instructor(s):
Rachel Armstrong (and second tutor TBC)
Engagement:
Craftsmanship
Location:
Gent
Language:
English
Semester:
Semester 3, Fall 2025
Description:
This studio reimagines architecture as a symbiotic practice, transforming Ghent’s Vooruit Arts Centre into a prototype for regenerative design. Students will explore bioreceptive materials, hydro-logical systems, and socialist legacies to create living architectural interventions that support multispecies collaboration. Through research, prototyping, and community engagement, the studio investigates how buildings can evolve into dynamic ecosystems that metabolize waste, generate biodiversity, and promote ecological justice.
Line of Inquiry:
Practice as Study, Material Reality
Topic, Thematic Focus:
Bioreceptive design, regenerative architecture, social ecology, microbial materials, post-carbon futures, Living Architecture / Ecological Kinship /
Key Questions or Provocations:
How can architecture embody collective care and ecological equity?
What materials and processes enable buildings to host life?
How does biocraftsmanship differ from conventional preservation or reuse?
How can a building’s lifecycle contribute to ecosystem health?
Methodologies or Formats:
Site analysis, biomaterial research, prototyping, stakeholder engagement, manifesto writing, fieldwork (optional Venice visit)
Design / Expected Outcome(s):
Students will develop spatial interventions and living prototypes that integrate bioreceptive materials and ecological programs into Vooruit’s architecture. Designs will reflect regenerative principles and support more-than-human communities.
Deliverables:
Final architectural project (drawings, models, bio-design experiments)
1:1 bio-receptive prototype
Group model of Vooruit’s façade
Personal BioCraftsmanship manifesto
Reflection document on research and co-design processes
- Find the full studio brief as pdf here.
Living Stones, Venice, photographer Rachel Armstrong, 2012.