Borboletta: an Urban Living mobile lab - Buenos Aires 2019
- Submitting institution
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University of Portsmouth
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 26322196
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- November
- Year of production
- 2019
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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5
- Research group(s)
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-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Borboletta is a concept immersive installation exploring new paradigms for resilient urban futures based on biodiversity. It was first exhibited at the Buenos Aires Biennale in 2019, and in a second version at the Pisa Biennale the same year. Named after the 1974 jazz-funk fusion album by Santana, from the Portuguese word for butterfly, it is an experimental living artwork that demonstrates the exchange of ideas between biology and architecture. Underpinning research was led by Alessandro Melis in collaboration with the distinguished history and philosophy of biology scholar Telmo Pievani (University of Padua). Melis designed the installation and led a team of international experts in microbiology, sound engineering, biodiversity, entomology and digital fabrication to complete this art work. It is a single item submitted with contextual information of the exhibited work.
Borboletta is the first in-depth creative research engagement with the concept of ‘exaptation’ in evolutionary biology, which was originally inspired by building morphology. In 1979, Gould and Lewontin used the architectural term ‘spandrel’ (the surface between an arch and its frame, typically decorated) to describe an evolutionary byproduct or feature without a predetermined function, but which proves useful. The spandrel illustrated the importance of redundancy and improvisation in species or ecosystem resilience. Exaptation proposes a non-deterministic view of evolutionary development. Transferred back to architectural theory, it validates the sustainability potential of informal urban structures, in which much of the world’s population lives, often inventively repurposing things over time.
The project received the Buenos Aires Biennale award. The Municipality of Peccioli, Italy, is using Borboletta as a module for activating biodiversity in a landfill site. Substantially redesigned iterations are planned for simultaneous exhibitions in May 2021 at the New York Institute of Technology and at the postponed 2020 Venice Architecture Biennale, for which Melis is curator of the Italian Pavilion.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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