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Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Exploring abduction in regenerative design

Figure 4. Bio-painting of slime mold. Source: ecoLogicStudio, GAN_Physarum: la dérive numérique, 2022

at the microclimate level. This integration enables non-
human entities to metabolize human waste, effectively
closing the loop and contributing to a regenerative cycle.
The integration of blue-green infrastructure planning and
regenerative architecture prototypes forms a synergistic
approach aimed at building the regenerative city.
Throughout these processes, design cedes ground to
non-human organisms and machines, with an intensified
focus on their subjectivity. It is non-human entities, acting
through humans that take the lead in designing urban
ecological spaces. Multiple design agents create intricate
feedback loops, fostering mutual balance, self-regulation,
and system resilience for the seamless integration of
architectural and ecological systems. As a consequence, a
bio-cybernetic stance and approach have been proposed
Figure 5. GAN_Physarum: Paris (scale: 10 km). Source: ecoLogicStudio, to transcend human limitations and envisage a non-
GAN_Physarum: la dérive numérique, 2022
anthropocentric future. In the context of the Anthropocene,
where human activities significantly shape nature, the bio-
intelligence. The resultant ecological infrastructures, cybernetic stance reaffirms the coexistence of technical
built upon biomass, water collection, solar energy, and devices (machines) and living organisms, dissolving the
community waste, constitute the future cities. These cities dichotomy between artificial and natural, human and
are meticulously planned in a bottom-up fashion, taking non-human. It aspires to deconstruct and subsequently
into account the needs of both human and non-human reconstruct the relationship between humans and nature
entities. Running in parallel with this development are into a unified whole, propelling directly toward the
ecoLogicStudio’s architectural and installation-scale post-nature era. This attitude coincides with the holistic
prototypes built based on bioreactors, such as Urban Algae conception of nature and ecological views found in ancient
Folly (2015), Photo.Synthetica Curtain (2018), and Air Chinese Daoist philosophy (“Nature and Humans in One
Bubble (2021). These prototypes directly integrate human Unity”). This philosophy argues for the inseparability of
habitats with non-human elements (such as microalgae) humans and nature, subject and object, as all originate from

Volume 6 Issue 1 (2024) 5 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1084