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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Working with the energies of life

processes established during the Industrial Revolution broader realm of metabolic exchange that comprises
1
prioritize economic productivity by carefully planning the commons of energies. These energies can be directly
every element of a building to maximize its energetic and accessed and engaged as an energy source through the
resource efficiency. However, this approach often overlooks advent of microbial technologies that offer low-power
the complexities and nuances of human experience and electrical forms of energy capable of supporting a 12V
the natural environment (Edgerton et al., 2014). Energy is power system (Armstrong, 2023b). When considering the
deeply embedded in the living world and is largely accessed human-infrastructure situated within a natural ecosystem,
according to the essential need for the maintenance of the work performed within regenerative architectures is,
life. Organisms obtain their energy through a variety of therefore, not exclusively directed inward and toward the
biological processes called “metabolism” that transform organization of habitat, but through the actions of living
substrates (or food) into various metabolites, some of microbes that comprise a vital force that animates and
which are used immediately by the organism, while other sustains all living beings.
products are stored or shared through ecological processes
in nutrient streams and food webs. The ecological impacts The commons of energies are critical for the advancement
of this command-and-control system have, therefore, of good regenerative design, which enables their just
led to a loss of diversity and adaptability, which makes distribution to all the participating agents that make up a
buildings, spaces, and communities more vulnerable to living space to bring about a local condition of enlivening
changing environmental conditions and social needs, and (Händler-Schuster et al., 2016).
are fundamentally anti-life (Holling and Meffe, 1996). This article offers a theory, materiality, and approach
While “smart” technologies improve material underpinning the concepts, design, and deployment of
efficiencies and enable more complexity within the practice regenerative architecture culminating in a manifesto
of the built environment (Sassen, 2011); their associated (Breton, 1972). This is a call to action for working with
infrastructures require significant amounts of energy and a living world in a state of constant flow, by engaging the
are expected to grow exponentially (Anderson, 2004). metabolic exchanges of microbes through an emerging
Although advances in renewable energy sources such as range of microbial technologies. By gaining access to
solar, wind, and hydropower reduce dependency on oil the distributed commons of energies landscape, where
and gas, they do not change the underlying consumptive, consumption is constrained by the laws of nature, we can
exploitative paradigm underpinning their production, or alter the impact of human development and become an
use. A different conception of energy that enriches the enlivening force within the living realm.
natural realm is needed for human development to benefit
our ecosystems (Armstrong, 2022). 2. The challenge of designing with flow
Regenerative architecture supports fundamental life The strategic conceptualization and deployment of the
exchanges – from cooking to providing comfort and flow of energy as a critical component of regenerative
performing various kinds of housework – by orchestrating design can be linked through the principle of “qi” and
the metabolic transactions that form the living world physicality of microbial metabolisms. Naturally produced
(Armstrong, 2023a). Forming the base of the biosphere, metabolic energy operates within the limits of biological
microbes comprise most of these exchanges that take place exchange and can be creatively used in many ways
within the microbial commons, which enables biochemical – beyond power generation. For example, microbial
sharing, swapping, and lending – even between different metabolisms can be deployed to perform housework by
species and is open to all agentized actors. Providing access turning organic matter into nutrients, cleaning wastewater,
to a coconstituted resource circularity in design the link and generating bioelectricity, which can be strategically
between creating the site for the fundamental daily acts accessed through a technical system to reduce the overall
of living that provide the basis for all social transactions environmental impact of how we inhabit specific spaces,
(Katz, 1983) and collectively, through their multitudinous while also reducing the operating costs of a building
types of metabolism are interlinked to form a much (Armstrong, 2023b) (Figure 1). Embracing a decentralized
approach to energy that values diversity, resilience,
1 The Industrial Revolution refers to a period of major and interdependence, regenerative design engages the
technological, economic, and social change that took
place in Europe and North America between the 18th and commons of energies in ways that are compatible with an
19th centuries. It was characterized by the widespread enlivening design process, to consolidate life-promoting
adoption of new manufacturing technologies, the growth relationships between people and the places they inhabit
of urbanization, and a shift from agrarian to industrial (Teubner, 2006; Gellers, 2021).A challenge arises when
economies. describing a modern scientific view of life as its irreducibly

Volume 5 Issue 4 (2023) 2 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0862