Humans design with the help of a variety of tools. Designers and architects are supported by a network of many other (human) contributors. However, we may ask: what is the role of other living beings in the design process? Don’t we, as humans, co-design with several non-human species and are also designed by them? This seminar will discuss the presence of the non-human in the history of design and architecture. It will also assess how scholars write about the role of animals, plants, fungi, and bacteria in the making of spaces, cities, objects. Furthermore, the seminar will question our inner positionality as members of the human species, which may prevent, limit, but also challenge a critical understanding of the agency of non-humans. As scholars, architects and designers, how can we reflect on the ethics behind the exploitative uses of non-human features (as biotechnologies, building materials, even aesthetic models)? This seminar aims to foster a critical discussion on the entanglements between architecture, design, and forms of life beyond the human. The seminar has two main objectives: 1) it will trace the presence of non-human actors in architectural and design history/theory; 2) it will critically analyze the complex relationship between humans and non-humans in current design practices. We will ask: to what extent has architectural history been shaped by non-human entities? How do we design with and for non-human clients? Where is the boundary between coexistence and exploitation? The seminar will build its arguments upon readings from architectural and design history, ethnography, critical animal studies, environmental history, and other disciplines. This seminar is addressed to all PhD candidates who are willing to explore the multifaceted interconnections between humans and non-humans in the design process. It is open to PhD students at all levels (first, second, and third year) and from all disciplinary fields. The seminar consists of six in person meetings (Zoom can sometimes be used, when necessary). The seminar includes lectures, collective discussions of assigned readings (see references) and a research exercise to carry out individually or in small groups. The exercise will focus on the critical analysis of a source (a book, a journal article, a project, a prototype, an exhibition, etc.) that resonates with the topics of the seminar. If satisfactory, the outcomes of the research exercise (an oral presentation and a short essay) will become the core of a publication project.

The seminar will be in English. A good knowledge of English (read, written, and spoken) is an essential requirement to attend the seminar.

1. Introductory lecture: Design with/for non-humans (3h) This lecture will provide a brief introduction on the topic through a series of key readings and case studies. Selected readings Boddice, Rob, ed. Anthropocentrism: Humans, Animals, Environments. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. Colomina, Beatriz, and Mark Wigley. Are We Human? Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2016. Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press, 2016. Ingraham, Catherine. Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition. New York: Routledge, 2006. Shukin, Nicole. Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times. Minnesota University Press, 2009. Tironi, Martín, ed. Design for more-than-human futures: Towards Post-Anthropocentric Worlding. Abingdon: Routledge, 2024. 2. Industrialized and slaughtered: Livestock and fish (3h) Collective discussion of the selected readings (choose min. two items). We will ask: who designs the cage? Are farmed animal bodies design products? Do livestock and fish make architecture? Selected readings Blanchette, Alex. Porkopolis: American Animality, Standardized Life, and the Factory Farm. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2020. Muñoz Sanz, Victor. “Genes, Robots, and Toxicity: The Haunted Landscapes of Milk Production.” Solitude Journal 1, issue “Collective Care and Response-ability” (2020): 58–67. Pachirat, Timothy. Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight. Yale University Press, 2013. Piazzesi, Benedetta. Del governo degli animali. Allevamento e biopolitica. Macerata: Quodlibet Studio, 2023. Schrepfer, Susan R., and Philip Scranton, eds. Industrializing Organisms: Introducing Evolutionary History. New York/London: Routledge, 2004. Tavares, André. Architecture Follows Fish: An Amphibious History of the North Atlantic. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2024. 3. Fragile and colonial: plants, weeds, and wildlife (3h) Collective discussion of the selected readings (choose min. two items). We will ask: What are the colonial roots of zoos and botanical gardens? Who designs the forest? Do weeds design wastelands? Are organicist motifs the aesthetics of late capitalism? Selected readings Baratay, Eric, and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier. Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. Doucet, Isabelle. “Interspecies Encounters: Design (Hi)stories, Practices of Care, and Challenges.” In Environmental Histories of Architecture, edited by Kim Förster. Montréal: CCA, 2022. Gandy, Matthew, and Sandra Jaspers, eds. The Botanical City. Berlin: Jovis, 2020. Krivý, Maros, and Matthew Gandy. “Zany beetroot: architecture, autopoiesis, and the spatial formations of late capital.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 41, no. 6 (2023): 1058-74. Marder, Michael. Grafts: Writing on Plants. Minneapolis: Univocal, 2016. Tavares, Paulo. “Architectural Botany: A Conversation with William Balée on Constructed Forests.” In Environmental Histories of Architecture, edited by Kim Förster. Montréal: CCA, 2022. 4. Scary and interconnected: Fungi and bacteria (3h) Collective discussion of the selected readings (choose min. two items). We will ask: do bacteria design architecture? Do mushrooms create landscapes? Should humans exploit microorganism for design and construction purposes? Do non-human entities have a biopolitical agency over humans? Selected readings Bunyard, Britt A. The Lives of Fungi: A Natural History of Our Planet’s Decomposers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2022. Colomina, Beatriz, and Mark Wigley. “The Bacterial Clients of Modern Architecture”. Docomomo Journal, no. 62 (August 2020): 6–17. Fish, Kenneth. Living Factories: Biotechnology and the Unique Nature of Capitalism. Montréal: McGill University Press, 2013. Fletcher, Kate, Louise St. Pierre, and Mathilda Tham, eds. Design and Nature: A Partnership. London: Routledge, 2019. Pugliese, Joseph. Biopolitics of the More-Than-Human: Forensic Ecologies of Violence. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. 5. Review of the research exercise (3h) 6. Oral presentation of the research exercises by the students and concluding lecture with an invited guest (tbc) (5h) Readings Please note that the reading lists are still tentative. The definitive reference list will be handed out to the students enrolled to the seminar. For the collective discussions, a selection of excerpts will be provided as .pdf to the students.

On site

Oral presentation - Written report presentation

P.D.1-1 - January

Course calendar: 1. Tuesday 14/01, h. 10-13 2. Tuesday 21/01, h. 10-13 3. Tuesday 28/01, h. 10-13 4. Wednesday 5/02, h. 10-13 5. Tuesday 11/02, h. 10-13 6. Thursday 19/02, h. 10-13 and 14-16 All lectures will be held in Sala Mollino, Castello del Valentino. There might be some minor changes in the schedule. For any questions about the seminar, please send an email to sofia.nannini@polito.it