Designing Living Bricks: The Architectural Drawing as Conversational Platform, published in the second issue of the peer-reviewed journal Ardeth (Bottega: Ecology of Design Practice, edited by Albena Yaneva), argues that the architectural drawing, as a technology for thinking and for communicating design ideas between project stakeholders, has remained largely unfazed by the advent of actor-network theory (ANT) and the so-called ‘ethnographic turn.’ Rather than changing to reflect a distributed understanding of agency or the lived ongoingness of projects and buildings, the drawing continues to describe a simple line (from agent to patient) and to congeal into artifacts used to impart commands, increase the architect’s status, or construct brands (the monologue-drawing and the brand-drawing). From the perspective of Living Architecture, an EU-funded research scheme combining architecture, bio-energy and synthetic biology, the paper proposes new modes of drawing (the medium-drawing, the exaptation-drawing and the seed-drawing) that challenge binary abstractions and demand that the architect relinquish a measure of authorship and control to engage in conversations with the other—large and small, disciplinary and nondisciplinary, human and nonhuman, alive and inert. The full paper can be read here.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/919cd4a1-7ddd-4044-81e4-45d73281b5d6/9c51b167-8206-42de-a991-87cb4418ec1f_rw_1920.jpg?h=3a4ecc1bb6ec6d6ddf81741bdde4abc3)
Simone Ferracina, Living Brick Studies, 2018.
A: Anodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
C: Cathodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
1.
a) The cathode as algal garden (photobioreactor)
b) The cathode as piazza
c) Differentiated anodes and cathodes
d) Homogeneous chambers
2. Orienting the brick: external cathodic garden
3. Orienting the brick: internal cathodic garden
4. Anodic fields
C: Cathodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
1.
a) The cathode as algal garden (photobioreactor)
b) The cathode as piazza
c) Differentiated anodes and cathodes
d) Homogeneous chambers
2. Orienting the brick: external cathodic garden
3. Orienting the brick: internal cathodic garden
4. Anodic fields
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/919cd4a1-7ddd-4044-81e4-45d73281b5d6/f6433f3b-70e5-4325-9de6-7e6585e4932c_rw_1920.jpg?h=fcf6da1ad817da64469ecdc9192103bb)
Simone Ferracina, Living Brick Studies, 2018.
A: Anodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
C: Cathodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
1. Adjacency in single-thickness membranes
2. Bounding boxes: thickness and porosity variations
3. Material insertions
4. Proton-exchange intensities
5. Studies in membrane geometry
6. Kissing chambers
7. Embracing chambers
8. Structural chassis as membrane
C: Cathodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
1. Adjacency in single-thickness membranes
2. Bounding boxes: thickness and porosity variations
3. Material insertions
4. Proton-exchange intensities
5. Studies in membrane geometry
6. Kissing chambers
7. Embracing chambers
8. Structural chassis as membrane
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/919cd4a1-7ddd-4044-81e4-45d73281b5d6/9964c633-ebff-459c-8e85-073eef240e6d_rw_1920.jpg?h=5f3ba0c282226c172b0127ed5a522ca2)
Simone Ferracina, Living Brick Studies, 2018.
A: Anodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
C: Cathodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
F: Cyanobacteria-based farm module (synthetic microbial consortia)
L: Bacterial-heterotrophic-based labour module (synthetic microbial consortia)
S: Structural scaffolding
1. Radial configuration (central structure, intermediate anaerobic chambers, peripheral gardens)
2. Plug-and-play microbial fuel cell
3. Two-headed brick (double orientation)
4. One-headed brick (single orientation)
5. Mono-pod wall system: to each unit corresponds a specific chamber and function
6. Multi-pod wall system: units includes a range of chambers, materials and functions
C: Cathodic chamber (microbial fuel cell)
F: Cyanobacteria-based farm module (synthetic microbial consortia)
L: Bacterial-heterotrophic-based labour module (synthetic microbial consortia)
S: Structural scaffolding
1. Radial configuration (central structure, intermediate anaerobic chambers, peripheral gardens)
2. Plug-and-play microbial fuel cell
3. Two-headed brick (double orientation)
4. One-headed brick (single orientation)
5. Mono-pod wall system: to each unit corresponds a specific chamber and function
6. Multi-pod wall system: units includes a range of chambers, materials and functions
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/919cd4a1-7ddd-4044-81e4-45d73281b5d6/ed5353e3-b607-4804-879e-9f30b85c8635_rw_3840.jpg?h=14226a97cf63e9d69bf7fc234aa93251)
University of the West of England, Bristol BioEnergy Centre (BBiC), Living Bricks, 2016.