Some of the results of Designing and Living with Organisms (DLO) were part of the Planetary Boundaries Exhibition at the Royal Danish Academy, marking the end of the project and my position as guest researcher at CITA, the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture after 3 exciting years.

Planetary Boundaries is a theory that is used to describe our global limitations. It examines what the Earth can endure before irreversible imbalances are created in our ecosystem. It is a theory focused on the planet’s needs rather than our needs: What does the planet need in the struggle for its own survival and the survival of natural environments and human beings?

Architecture and design – along with agriculture, transportation and other industries – have contributed to overconsumption of the world’s resources. This is why the Royal Danish Academy is rethinking how the architecture and design of the future can co-exist with a balanced planet. We are intently focused on making the requisite transition, because durable solutions are strongly linked to good architectural and design solutions.

This exhibition allows you to experience 25 selected projects which – from an academic architectural or design perspective – ponder the potential for innovative design, building materials and types of dwellings with wide-ranging aesthetics – but a tiny planetary footprint. There are experiments, specific proposals and ambitious explorations of how we need to transition, and rethink our conventional view of architecture and design.