In The Ecological Turn, Ruzicka and Benesch articulate a compelling theoretical realignment that situates design and architecture within the broader ontological upheaval of the Anthropocene, proposing that ecological thinking demands not only new forms but new formations of perception, relation, and responsibility; rather than treating ecology as an external constraint or a set of sustainability checklists, the authors argue for a fundamental shift in aesthetic paradigms, where design becomes a process of attunement to planetary entanglements, multispecies co-agency, and the temporality of decay and regeneration; drawing from posthumanist theory, new materialism, and indigenous ontologies, they suggest that the Anthropocene marks a breakdown in modernist spatial assumptions: the fixity of the object, the centrality of the human, and the linearity of progress; in their place, they call for porous architectures, responsive surfaces, and ambient spatialities that enable the emergence of “worlds within worlds,” where the building is no longer a shelter from nature, but a participant in ecological processes; case studies include experimental structures that incorporate fungal materials, mycelial logic, and weather-responsive membranes, highlighting an aesthetics of impermanence, mutualism, and metabolic form; crucially, this turn is not just technical but deeply ethical: to design ecologically is to embrace uncertainty, non-mastery, and distributed agency, reframing the designer as a listener, mediator, and co-evolver within more-than-human fields of relation; ultimately, the ecological turn they envision is not a discipline-specific trend but an epistemic rupture—an invitation to rebuild the very conditions of sensing, valuing, and cohabiting the Earth. (Ruzicka, M. & Benesch, H. (2022). The Ecological Turn: Design, Architecture, and Aesthetics beyond the Anthropocene. Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg / HDK-Valand.)
