Negotiating Living Interfaces: Protocols for Biodigital Architecture

Negotiating Living Interfaces: Protocols for Biodigital Architecture

Master Dissertation Studio 2026–27

Ghent | Tutor: Rachel Armstrong Language: English

Researchers

Anna Vershinina, Marie Melcore, Işıl Yücel, Jannes Moons, Zhongya Sun, Rosie Broadhead, Ezgi Ögün, Tria Amalia Ningsih, Mattie De Jonghe.

Image: Computational Fluid Dynamics simulating water runoff from a bioreceptive panel, digital modelling experiment by Jannes Moons, 2026.

Studio Description

The dissertation builds on the Biocraftsmanship studio foundation, creating a cross-cutting learning trajectory for biomaterials investigation. It is situated within the Architectural Design Office (ADO) “architecture for living on a damaged planet” which proposes to rethink how our design contributions can mitigate Anthropocene impacts. While it is an advantage for students to have followed the Biocraftsmanship studio, it is not a prerequisite. The studio also welcomes those without prior biodesign or advanced computing experience. All technical methods – from hand-crafting to digital fabrication – are introduced through workshops, and students may choose the level of computational engagement appropriate to their skills and research question.

Part I: The Ecological Imperative & The Collapse of Binaries

In the ecological era buildings are integrated with their host ecosystems to provide environmental benefits: filtering air, cycling nutrients, hosting non-human life, and participating in planetary metabolism. This regenerative turn toward enhanced ecological performance has catalysed the advent of living materials that possess some of the properties of living organisms such as metabolism, growth, and sensitivity. As these complex, dynamic design substrates gain complexity, they collapse the distinction between built and made entities.

The regenerative turn poses a challenge for design that conventionally uses a top-down approach imposing form and order on a passive substract. While digital tools can help architects navigate complex geometries and manage performance parameters such as solar radiation, structural load, airflow, and material optimisation in buildings, the dynamics of living materials resist parameterisation. A living mycelium network, for example, does not obey a CAD pathway, while microbial communities behave in emergent and contingent ways that are vastly more nuanced than any computer simulation. With increased processing power, digital approaches are now used to directly interrogate life’s qualities using massive datasets, new algorithms, machine learning and embedded AI.

This design studio explores this biodigital convergence, and how new relationships between matter, information, modeling can be negotiated via different scales and media, within an informationally-enabled regenerative architectural design practice.

Two architectural precedents attempt to capture the essence of living systems by engaging organic morphologies. Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House (1959) envisages an elastic, “endless” flow of connected curved surfaces without sharp corners (Niblock et al., 2022), while Greg Lynn’s Embryological House (1997–2001) generates infinite geometric variations from a core formal logic. However, both systems become inert the moment the form is realised using conventional materials.

Kiessler’s Endless House (1960), available via license: CC BY-NC, see Hidayat and Piera, 2022.

Greg Lynn, Embryological house (1997), courtesy CCA. https://www.docam.ca/conservation/embryological-house/GL3ArchSig.html

Today, a new class of “living materials” offers a means to address this persistent gap between design intention and material construction. Operating from the bottom up, living materials maintain their generative qualities through local interactions and emergent behaviour, responding to and subverting design’s top-down constraints. A site of negotiation must be established to reconcile the agency of the substrate with the design vision, using feedback loops that can be guided directly by a machine (for example, a robotic arm) or by a human who observes emergent tendencies and iteratively adjusts the design logic to guide the design outcome. This biodigital interface thus creates a design-readable, manipulable loop via advanced technological platforms such as machine learning and digital fabrication. The result is the formation of dyanmic material complexes (human-machine-substrate) as temporary assemblages that gather information from their environment to guide the next iteration of production through the choreography of living substrates. Thus, living materials are always in a state of becoming.

Part II: The Biodigital Realm & The Role of Computation

The Regenerative Architecture Arts and Design (RAAD) research studio provides a foundation for investigating biodigital slippages that are inherent between the biomaterial and computational worlds. The studio task is to theorise and critique these observations to establish how the iterative design of ‘living’ architectural elements becomes a site of continuous negotiation, enabling new design expressions, modes of production and compositional languages.

Post-processed photograph of a bioreceptive wooden panel made in the Biocraftsmanship studio using AI. The rendering depicts the link between physical object and digital representation through the parameters of bioreceptive research inquiry. Image development by Zhongya Sun, 2026.

Students will work with researchers investigating algae façades, moss walls, mycelium composite stones, bioreceptive wood, printed clay volumes, salt-cured polymers, smart textiles, and advanced computing systems, to explore the biodigital interface. For example, students might explore how waste streams can be transformed into energy through bioelectrical systems, or how surface patterns might regulate rainfall or thermal flux while hosting biocolonisation. Across all investigations, the slippage between digital modelling and material behaviour is treated as a design resource and a productive outcome: clay curing that defies simulation, spontaneous microbial colonisation, algorithmic outputs that cannot be fabricated as modelled. Questions of authorship such as how agency is distributed across humans, algorithms, and living materials, are key to theoretical inquiry. These generative frictions become central to each critical framework.

Phase 1: Deep Systemic Research & Translation Stakes

The studio centres on making a 1:1 prototype that is based on either a personal trajectiory already established elswhere, or by engaging the studio’s interrogation of the ‘organic’ house logics of Kiessler and Lynn. In the first phase of the course you will identify, extend and critically situate your existing experiments, or initiate new ones if you are joining the studio for the first time. This phase requires:

• A systematic review of your chosen area, establishing a specific gap in current knowledge (e.g., “no existing protocol for integrating feedback loops with mycelial growth patterns”; “inadequate understanding of how bacterial cellulose responds to surface geometry”).
• Development of a translation framework that articulates what can and cannot be carried across between digital and biological registers. Which properties of a living material can be modelled? Which escape representation? Your dissertation will occupy this gap.
• A clear research question that emerges from your material encounters rather than being abstract, or imposed from theory alone.

Bioreceptive wood design developed with Rhino 3D and Grasshopper, and surface scan. Organismal analysis shows SEM imaging (right) of topological detail performed at CIB-CSIC in Madrid. Bio+W research and image by Marie Melcore, 2026.

Phase 2: Iterative Prototyping & Material Feedback

Through hands-on making, using fabrication methods ranging from manual techniques to digital tools, you will test how your design interacts with living materials and environmental forces. The emphasis is on iterative feedback between what you observe in the prototype and how you adjust your design.

In the production process you may choose to incorporate computational tools (such as Blender, Rhino, or Grasshopper) or simulation software e.g., Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), agent-based modelling (ABM), if they serve your research. These are optional. The core requirement is a rigorous material inquiry, documented through studio log books, photographs, and data collection.

Fabrication methods available (workshops available)

Each student will identify the materials and methods they wish to explore and will do this with input and supervision by one of the studio researchers. Making opportunities include:

• Manual and hand-crafted techniques (clay modeling, plaster casting, mold-making)
• Digital fabrication (robotic clay extrusion, 3D printing with biopolymers, CNC milling, laser sintering)
• Biological cultivation (mycelium, algae, microbial fuel cells, under formal laboratory conditions)

You are not required to use all or any specific method. You will choose what method best serves your research question and extend your design skills through a focussed inquiry.

Phase 3: Critical Theorisation & Biodigital Aesthetics

Develop a written dissertation (5,000–8,000 words, max 40 pages including images) that reframes your practical findings within a theoretical framework addressing:

• Epistemology of biodesign: What counts as knowledge when designing with living systems?
• Redistributed agency and authorship: How do humans, machines, microbes, and algorithms co-produce design decisions?
• Aesthetic dimensions of biodigital architecture: What new aesthetic languages emerge when architectural surfaces are alive and changing over time?

The dissertation must include:

• Formal academic introduction establishing research questions and stakes.
• Detailed methodology accounting for your prototyping process.
• Results section integrating material logs and observations.
• Critical discussion situating findings within the broader discourse of biodigital architecture
• Complete bibliography following Harvard referencing style.

 

Key Questions

• On translation: How can regenerative architecture move beyond symbolic representations of “nature” to become a genuine language of ecological performance, where the slippage between digital modelling and material behaviour is treated as generative?
• On agency: How does material and computational agency redistribute authorship among humans, machines, algorithms, and microbes?
• On aesthetics: What new aesthetic languages emerge when architectural surfaces possess organismal intelligence?
• On computation: What forms of computation are appropriate to living systems? (Students may answer this theoretically without having to work with computer programming. Unconventional modes of computation will be discussed in the studio.)
• On practice: What does it mean to position the practitioner as a negotiator among incompatible systems?

 

Deliverables

You will produce:

1. Written Dissertation: An illustrated 5,000–8,000-word thesis (maximum 40 pages including images) following Harvard referencing style, with formal academic structure: introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusion, bibliography.
2. Experimental Prototype or System: A physical prototype (e.g., mycelium-biocomposite panel, 3D-printed clay tile, responsive concrete sample, microbially active textile, or scaled metabolic model) demonstrating life-supporting capacity or bio-digital interface. Scale and complexity are negotiable; the prototype must show evidence of iterative making and material feedback.

Optional (for students who wish to extend their work):
Site-specific design proposals (drawings, models, diagrams).

 

Studio Support

• Workshops on robotic fabrication, bioreceptive materials, and computational methods – all optional, with alternatives for hand-based techniques.
• Guest lectures from biodesign and computational experts.
• Access to KU Leuven’s digital fabrication labs (LUCA) and to basic material workshops.
• One-to-one tutorials to help each student define their own level of technical engagement.

 

Learning Goals

In alignment with KU Leuven’s 30 ECTS thesis framework, students will:

• Develop independent design-research strategies through iterative prototyping.
• Critically engage with ecological and ethical material practices.
• Communicate findings across textual, visual, and oral formats.
• Cultivate intercultural perspectives on technology and craft.

 

Core Theoretical Frameworks & Key References

On Living Architecture & Biodesign

Armstrong, R. and Beckett, R. (2026) ‘Biodesign’, Architectural Design, 96(1).
Armstrong, R. (2023) ‘Towards the microbial home: An overview of developments in next-generation sustainable architecture’, Microbial Biotechnology, 16(6), pp. 1112–1130. doi: 10.1111/1751-7915.14256.
Armstrong, R. (2020) Safe as Houses: More-than-Human Design for a Post-Pandemic World.
Armstrong, R. (2018) Soft Living Architecture: An Alternative View of Bio-informed Practice. London: Bloomsbury.
Armstrong, R. (2015) Vibrant Architecture: Matter as a Codesigner of Living Structures. Berlin: De Gruyter.

On Distributed Agency & Material Vitality

Tsing, A.L., Swanson, H.A., Gan, E., & Bubandt, N. (eds.) (2017) Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Braidotti, R. (2013) The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

On Making, Craft & Co-authorship

Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017) Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ingold, T. (2013) Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge.
Naisbitt, J. (1982) Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives. New York: Warner Books.

On Computation, Biology & Biodigital Systems

Breed, Z., Karana, E., Bozzon, A. and Song, K.W. (2026) ‘Entangled Life and Code: A Computational Design Taxonomy for Synergistic Bio-Digital Systems’, arXiv preprint. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2601.15804.

On High-Touch & Digital Craft

McKendrick, J. (2021) “High-tech/high-touch: The more we rely on machines, the more we need humans.” Forbes, 29 December.

On Kiesler & Lynn (Historical Context)

Niblock, C., McGuire, L., Harding, J., Zillner, G., Hamill, C. and Whitney, A. (2022) ‘An augmented and interactive exhibition of an archived model for Frederick Kiesler’s Endless House, 1959′, Frontiers of Architectural Research, 11(6), pp. 993–1006. doi: 10.1016/j.foar.2022.04.002.
Hidayat, R. and Piera, J. (2022) ‘Surrealist Aesthetics in Sensory Actuated Spatial Systems: A theoretical evaluation on Surrealism and Living Architecture under Krauss’s Surrealist Principles’, in ICON ARCCADE 2021: The 2nd International Conference on Art, Craft, Culture and Design. Atlantis Press. doi: 10.2991/assehr.k.211228.072.
Lynn, G. (1999) Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Kiesler, F. (1966) Inside the Endless House. New York: Simon & Schuster.