Nowadays, much is said about the importance of collaborative design processes that involve joint creation, affirming a context in which there is less and less room for individual work and much more for the logic of collective and co-creation. Therefore, the idea that the work is created exclusively by the architect is already understood as a distortion of the complex reality of designing a project, going beyond the technical staff and also adding the community and its users.
This spirit of collaboration is undoubtedly one of the new century’s great guidelines, a moment in which it is necessary to join forces to reverse climate change and deal with the problems generated by the exacerbated exploitation of natural resources. In this sense, collaboration has reached another level that includes relationships among humans but also between different species. It is possible to perceive a “return to nature” in our attitudes that allows us to be attentive to what surrounds us, inspiring us to seek simple and intelligent solutions for our spatial innovations. This interspecies collaboration may seem somewhat utopic, but it has proven to be an interesting way to generate resilient projects that rescue and recognize the value of non-human life.
Progress has always been intertwined with alienation techniques that turn humans and other beings into resources throughout history. These techniques have segregated species and obscured collaborative survival. Many efforts are being made to abandon anthropocentrism and move away from the human-animal paradigm to address this issue. A "biocentric" world centered on the multiplicity of species and built on collaborative relationships based more on interdependence and less on exploitation.
In architecture, biomimicry is one of the first reflections of this new relationship. It can be understood as a form of collaboration in which one seeks to understand the functioning of some structures created by nature to apply them in civil construction. One of the most famous examples is the passive cooling system in Mick Pearce's Eastgate Center building in Zimbabwe, which mimics the shape of African termite mounds to maintain a constant internal temperature despite the region's wide temperature variations. It uses cool night air to cool the interior spaces; during the day, this air rises from the ground floor towards the upper floors through chimneys. In addition, numerous parameterized projects inspired by insect shells, cellular microorganisms or organic structures allow you to adjust the structural components to open or close according to solar orientation, weather or the internal program. Many even can react to the environment, fitting to different conditions. Apart from a sustainable fad, biomimetic architecture makes room for creating objective responses that reveal a mode of cooperation between humans and non-humans through observing nature.
Beyond understanding nature as a source of inspiration, some projects are incorporating other species to face some challenges. An interesting example is the Billion Oyster project, which aims to introduce oysters into New York waterways to form reefs that, in turn, tend to slow down the water movement and the impact of storms. Kate Orff, director of the program, says the project would be "replicating the activity that would happen naturally in a healthier body of water." Oysters can be understood as part of a ‘living infrastructure’ and assume a fundamental role in urban functioning.
From nature as inspiration in biomimicry, through the use of living infrastructures for urban improvement, we arrive at another kind of involvement between species, which are interventions designed for other animals. In this case, one of the most instructive examples is the wildlife migration corridors. As a way of retracting and mitigating the impacts that human infrastructure has caused on nature, these corridors aim to facilitate circulation in areas that have already been segmented by human action. In this way, healthy environments are promoted, supporting and respecting natural processes.
Our impact on the environment has reached enormous proportions, which confronts us with the urgency of developing methods to help deal with this new reality. Architecture, like other disciplines, has sought to reimagine its role by turning to nature in different instances, whether as inspiration, cooperation or portrayal. In this sense, understanding the non-human infrastructures makes one think of the role of other species as active co-creators, symbolizing the union toward a more sustainable future.
