Job title: Lecturer in Architectural Design/Detail

Tel: +44 (0)131 651 5301

Email: Simone.Ferracina@ed.ac.uk

Office address: Minto House, Room 4.19a

Research outputs: Dr Simone Ferracina on Edinburgh Research Explorer

​Simone is a Lecturer in Architectural Design/Detail at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA). His research and teaching interrogate alternative design ecologies, technical platforms and modes of architectural authorship, invention and consumption—with a keen interest in living technologies, nonhuman agency, and the reactivation of wastes.

He is a member, with Rachel Armstrong and Rolf Hughes, of the Experimental Architecture Group (EAG), a collective whose work has been exhibited and performed at the Venice Art Biennale, Lakeside Gallery Nottingham, NYU Gallatin, Great North Museum, Trondheim Biennale, Allenheads Contemporary Arts, Culture Lab, and the Tallinn Architecture Biennale. EAG has lectured and led workshops internationally, including the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (Barcelona), the University of the Underground (Amsterdam) and the TTU Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies (Tallinn).

Simone is the founder and editor of the online journal Organs Everywhere (Œ), and the Series Director of the Œ Case Files imprint in collaboration with Punctum Books—a platform for profanatory and experimental practices that fundamentally question architecture’s boundaries, technologies, methods and evaluation systems. 

Prior to joining ESALA, Simone was a Researcher in Living Architecture at Newcastle University and, for over a decade, an Associate and Project Manager/Architect at Richard Meier & Partners Architects in New York City, with award-winning projects in Italy, Czech Republic, and Taiwan.

His projects and writings have been published in Volume, 306090, Thresholds, Kerb, Continent, The Architectural Review, Inflexions: A Journal of Research Creation, Architecture Design Theory (Ardeth) and Edinburgh Architecture Research (EAR), among others. He co-edited, with Rachel Armstrong, the book Unconventional Computing: Design Methods for​ Adaptive Architecture (Riverside Architectural, 2013).​

​Simone teaches design studios at UG and PG levels. He is the Course Organiser for Architectural Design 3: Explorations, where he also leads Unit 2 Radical Co-authorship.

Simone’s research investigates technical and cultural platforms for re-thinking architecture (as a practice and discourse) beyond control, authorial intents, definitive outputs and industrial orthodoxy, focusing in particular on inclusive, metabolic and exaptive design methods and on the integration of living technologies into the built environment.

Selected outputs:

  • Ferracina S., “Exaptive Design: Experimental authorship as method” (book chapter). In Armstrong, R. Experimental Architecture: Prototyping the Unknown through Creative Practice, Routledge. Forthcoming 2019.
  • Ferracina S., “Liquid Notations: A common language of transitions” (book chapter). In Armstrong, R. Liquid Life: Or “matter weather,” Punctum Books, NY. Forthcoming in 2018.
  • Armstrong R., Ferracina S., Hughes R., Kakalis C., “Notating Not Knowing: The Oceanic Challenge to Format and Medium” (peer-reviewed article), in EDINBURGH ARCHITECTURE RESEARCH (EAR), University of Edinburgh. (Forthcoming in 2018)
  • Ferracina S., “Designing Living Bricks: The Architectural Drawing as Conversational Platform” (double-blind peer reviewed article). In Albena Yaneva (ed.), Ardeth (Architecture Design Theory), Issue 2 Bottega Ecology of Design Practice, Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 2018, pp. 137-155.
  •  Armstrong R., Ferracina S., Caldwell G., Ieropoulos I., Rimbu G., Adamatzky A., Phillips N., De Lucrezia D., Imhof B., Hanczyc MM., Nogales J, García J. “Living Architecture (LIAR): Metabolically Engineered Building Units” (book chapter). In: Heisel, F; Hebel, D (eds.) Cultivated Building Materials: Industrialized Natural Resources for Architecture and Construction. Zurich: Birkhäuser, 2017, pp. 170-177.
  • Ferracina S., “Exaptive Architectures,” in Armstrong R. & Ferracina S. (eds.) Unconventional Computing: Design Methods for Adaptive Architecture. Riverside Architectural Press, 2013, pp. 62-65.

Related links

Organs Everywhere (Œ)

ΠCase Files