Healing the Earth: Quasi-Living Material Designs that Connect With Each Other and Educate Us in Ecology

This article presents a reflection on what it means to educate and how to incorporate ecological issues into architectural practices. It analyzes the experience of an architecture course that simulates interspecies cohabitation processes as attempts at bioremediation in degraded territories, where each designed artifact is not a simple object but vibrant matter that cooperates with a certain degree of responsiveness within the group. The method explores co-design strategies; incorporates play as a way of ‘engaging with’ the landscape; explores the relationship between fabrication techniques and design; and applies kinetic principles to simulate life in the models created. The resulting companion species are assessed through the ecopoethics proposed by Puig de la Bellacasa. The importance of the classroom as a co-production framework, informed by perspectives from science and technology studies, feminism, and environmental humanities, is highlighted.