Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Architecture, Structures and Construction https://doi.org/10.1007/s44150-022-00038-9 ORIGINAL PAPER Bioluminescent micro‑architectures: planning design in time, an eco‑metabolistic approach to biodesign G. Tyse 1  · M. Tamke 1  · M. Ramsgaard Thomsen 1  · A. F. Mosse 2 Received: 15 November 2021 / Accepted: 17 March 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Abstract By hybridising the principles of the living with the methods of design, the emerging field of biodesign is exploring how to radically transform the ecological imprint of contemporary material culture while questioning the creative opportunities induced by the appropriation of metabolic processes. This new bio-based foundation challenges architects and designers to rethink the way in which architecture is imagined, represented and materialised. This paper presents developments in the speculative collaborative project Imprimer la lumière examining living bioluminescent bacterial substrates as an architectural building material. In order to appropriate the light performance of these living organisms, the paper asks how to characterise and control these within an architectural design context and reports on efforts to develop computational models for simu- lating the behaviour, growth rates and life span of living materials and interface these with architectural representational framework. Within nature, bioluminescence is predominantly produced by marine organisms. In this context, the emitted light is a chemical reaction, part of a metabolic system that needs to be sustained. Working with bioluminescence therefore implies taking into consideration the ecosystem in which the light-emitting metabolisms take place as much as their limited lifespan. As a consequence, time must be understood as a key dimension of the architectural design process and wet lab tools and critically implemented into the palette of architectural design instruments and protocols.This paper reports on the examination of how living materials and their environment can be represented, simulated and predicted as part of an eco- metabolistic model developing mechanisms of functionalising and steering a living architectural material. Keywords Architecture · Biodesign · Bioluminescence · 3D modelling · 3D printing · Simulation Introduction By placing living organisms at the centre of the fabrica- tion process, biodesign asks how the organism—whether in a synthetic or existing biological system and no matter its size—can be connected to steer material performance [1, 2]. This creates a radically new departure from which materials are traditionally conceived, fabricated and appropriated in architecture and design as an inert reality [3] and asks new questions not only of its design and crafting processes but also of its ethical and ecological roles [2, 4]. In ‘Imprimer la Lumière’ we use the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fis- cheri [5] as a model organism to probe principles for a living architecture, functionalising its life as an architectural light source [6]. We question how designing a built environment as a host for other species can perform as a living technol- ogy, and what this co-living means in terms of environment control and care-taking. Through 3D-printing of the agar- media used to grow bacteria in labs, we build up a model to observe, understand and predict how their life and perfor- mance can be steered by designing the host media typology as well as its nutritional recipe. In order to understand and in turn control and instrumen- talise the organisms, a key focus has been to develop first stepping stones enabling a formal representation of living behaviour. This paper reports on the efforts to simulate the dynamics of the living organism and its dependence on envi- ronmental factors (Fig. 1). We implement an agent based system operating in voxel matrix reactive to key parameters * M. Ramsgaard Thomsen mette.thomsen@kglakademi.dk G. Tyse gtys@kglakademi.dk 1 Royal Danish Academy, (Centre for IT & Architecture), Copenhagen, Denmark 2 Ecole Nationale Supérieure Des Arts Décoratifs, (Soft Matters, Ensadlab), Paris, France