Hybrid environments: A timeline of exploratory nature based approaches in spatial practices

Abstract

This paper is concerned with how the merging of art, science, and technology can enhance current spatial production and its hybridization. The increasing complexity we observe in today’s problems require layered and complex solutions, that are better achieved in transdisicplinary processes. In this paper we will focus on new ecology for urban planning, more-than-human thinking, and hybrid environments sustained by biomimmecry and biophilatic design and research.

We will expose how the shift from mechanical to digital software enhanced spatial practices research, powered by the inspiration and the potential of nature to spatial research and practice. This approach is creating transdisciplinary research fields, practices and hybrid environments, that represent an important step for urban design.

We will also present and analyse a timeline mapping exploratory spatial practices and its corerelation with digital technologies developments and tendencies. The timeline unlocks a critical narrative about how technologies have been shaping spatial practices and allowing them to create projects and spaces with meaningful and systemic impact.