'Beauty Is a Measure of Ecological Intelligence'; A Conversation with ecoLogicStudio Founders Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto
Against the backdrop of a frenzied AI discourse dominated by end-product tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto articulate a refreshing call to adventure. The two ecoLogicStudio founders have built their professional and academic careers at the intersection of computation and biology, allowing them to articulate a vision of artificial intelligence that, in their words, "is more like a slime mold, a spider's web, a microalgae colony, or a mycelium network." Here, the computational and biological find common ground in their use of patterns as meta-language; a commonality that, when pushed, invites both human and non-human designers to shape the built environment as an organism itself rather than a static entity enlivened only by our own mechanics.
For Pasquero and Poletto, this is no theoretical exercise. ecoLogicStudio has already won wide acclaim for its real-world applications of ecological systems in the built environment while also articulating more futuristic visions that "shake us from our anthropocentric indifference to the beautiful intelligence of our living planet." Both are set out in their latest book Biodesign in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Deep Green, published in July 2023 by Routledge.
In June 2023, Archinect’s Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Pasquero and Poletto about their background, their work at ecoLogicStudio, and the perspectives on computation, ecology, and intelligence that have shaped their careers. The discussion, edited slightly for clarity, is published below.
