Healing the Earth: Quasi-Living Material Designs that Connect With Each Other and Educate Us in Ecology

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Published: Sep 12, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.4
Keywords:
educar en ecología, hacer-con, espacios de demostración, ecopoiética, especie compañera eco-based learning, making-with, demonstration spaces, ecopoethics, companion species

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José Carrasco Hortal
Department of Graphic Expression, Composition, and Projects, Universidad de Alicante
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5245-0116

Abstract

This article presents a reflection on what it means to educate and how to incorporate ecological issues into architectural practices. It analyzes the experience of an architecture course that simulates interspecies cohabitation processes as attempts at bioremediation in degraded territories, where each designed artifact is not a simple object but vibrant matter that cooperates with a certain degree of responsiveness within the group. The method explores co-design strategies; incorporates play as a way of ‘engaging with’ the landscape; explores the relationship between fabrication techniques and design; and applies kinetic principles to simulate life in the models created. The resulting companion species are assessed through the ecopoethics proposed by Puig de la Bellacasa. The importance of the classroom as a co-production framework, informed by perspectives from science and technology studies, feminism, and environmental humanities, is highlighted.

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How to Cite
Carrasco Hortal, J. (2025). Healing the Earth: Quasi-Living Material Designs that Connect With Each Other and Educate Us in Ecology. Diseña, (27), Article.4. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.4
Issue
No. 27 (2025): Affirmation? How to Learn to Live with ‘The Others’ Through Design (2nd Issue)
Section
Original Articles (part 1)
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Author Biography

José Carrasco Hortal, Department of Graphic Expression, Composition, and Projects, Universidad de Alicante

Professor at the University of Alicante. PhD in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Architect from the UPC. His research interests revolve around the enactment of matter, co-design, the relationship between fiction and reality, complex representations, the architecture classroom as a sensitive and hybrid forum, and the sense of stewardship of declining territories. His recent publications include: ‘Performing Objects and Interpretive Techniques: Textual Rewriting and Other Methods to Raise a Set of Landscape Designs for a Rural Community’ (co-authored with S. Prieto García-Cañedo and J. A. Sánchez Fajardo; Img Journal, Issue 6); ‘Resonar en el paisaje: Formas de reciprocidad natural-artificial desde la arquitectura’ (Jornadas sobre Innovación Docente en Arquitectura 2023); and ‘Hinterland: Or How Custodian Devices Unveil and Encapsulate the Hidden Vitality of a River Valley’ (in A Transdisciplinary Approach to Uncertain Landscapes, Springer, in press).

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