Topics in Architecture: Building Life: Architecture, Biology, and Design

Michel Foucault has famously argued that 'life itself did not exist' in the eighteenth century and that it only came into being with the establishment of biological science after 1800. This course argues that this modern conception of life was informed by a series of architectonic parameters described by biological and architectural theorists during their common inquiry into the growth and spatial behavior of living organisms. Seminars focus on major evolutionary and environmental issues, including adaptation, optimization, and the spatial claims of natural selection, as well as the building settings of modern biological research.