Computational design logics for bio-based design.

This paper examines how the central contributions of the computational design field can be understood as central steppingstones into an age of sustainability to engage with new renewable, regenerative and restorative material systems. By taking departure in the conceptualisation of an extended digital chain by which architecture can address fabrication at the low scales of the material, this paper asks how these methodological innovations can be transferred to new questions arising from a bio-based material paradigm. The paper outlines the three central contributions of the computational design field: advanced information modelling, functional grading and integrated sensing, and suggests how these can be extended to allow new means of instrumentation for bio-based materials characterised by the heterogeneous, the behaving and the living.

Towards a transformational eco-metabolistic bio-based design framework in architecture.

This paper discusses the foundations of a bio-based material paradigm for architecture. It argues that moving from a current reliance on the non-renewable materials of the geosphere, to the renewable and fundamentally cyclical materials of the biosphere can establish alternate foundations for thinking alternative sustainable building practices. By positioning architecture and the built environment as a particular case for bio-based materials, where the longer life spans of buildings support better carbon storage, this paper identifies the bottlenecks that limit their adaptation into the way architecture is thought, designed and built.