After Rachel Armstrong's Systems Architecture lecture, I looked into biotechnology more deeply and what got me excited in the past few weeks were:
1. What is going in J. Craig Venter Institute, which started with four basic chemicals that form an DNA and the first synthetic bacterial genome "born" in the laboratory this year.
2. Darwin v.s. Venter; the juxtaposition which Darwinian Theory shows that human wasn't made by God and Venter who is aclaimed playing the role of "God" by creating new life form.
3. Bottom up design method where molecular design in nano-scale defines the possible or unknown outcomes.
4. Success of Craig Venter may turn into what Freeman Dyson argued as "the end of the Darwinian interlude" (www.edge.org)
5. Works shown in Design and the Elastic Mind in MoMA New York ended in May even though I missed it but the online exhibition is available.
6. Development of DNA design software that allows anyone to design new species out of scratch, i.e. Gene Designer Software at https://www.dna20.com
7. With genomic technology, new life forms that could be created out of GenBank's database that contained over 65 billion nucleotide bases in more than 61 million sequences (2006).
livingphorm
- by H. Shin
- University College of London, The Bartlett School of Architecture, United Kingdom
- livingphorm is a space dedicated to Shin's advanced architectural studies and research in redefining architecture in this chaotic age. Topics that stimulate Shin are the complex relationship between human/man made creation and the mother nature, the connections between new invention/ conceptual technology and biotech. The study perceives nature as a core for all design principles. Homo-sapiens that live within the nature should not disobey the complexity system therefore architecture which is one of the man-made products that consuming large amount of spaces and resources on planet Earth should be humbled to the nature rules and constraints. The approach is to unlearn from proven failures and redefine architecture in the shifting paradigm in Anthropocene Age and researching on methodologies of 'growing' architecture instead of 'building' architecture which is leading human race to a Dystopia in near future.