Publications and Essays

This section brings together a list of publications, essays, and conference contributions that trace the development of research across biodesign, more-than-human relations, design education, speculative practice, and Biophilic Governance. The texts move between academic research and more experimental forms of writing, using publication as a space to test concepts, connect disciplines, and make emerging ideas available for wider discussion. Together, they document an ongoing effort to rethink design beyond human-centered and purely solution-oriented approaches, toward more relational, ecological, and interdependent ways of understanding practice.

Publication Title Journal / Conference / Publisher + Access
Unwording Design: Demilitarizing the Imaginaries of Design (2026) Design Research Society Conference 2026, Research Papers.
Biophilic Governance: Toward a Politics of Making-With Earth (2026) 19th Participatory Design Conference 2026, Vol. 2, ACM.
Copying as Play: Biomimicry Beyond Imitation (2026) Leida, Issue 8: Copy Work, Estonian Academy of Arts. Read online
Pillars of Ontological Biophilic Design (2026) In What’s Around Design? Strategic and Speculative Biodesign for a Sustainable Future, Springer.
AI as a Creative Tool in Industrial Design Education: Explorations in Modeling, Programming, and 3D Fabrication (2026) In Generative Artificial Intelligence in Three Steps: GAI in Design Classrooms, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.
Del objeto al sujeto: el giro biofílico en el diseño (2026) Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación / Dialnet.
Expandiendo el significado: El diseño biofílico, la conciencia y el papel de la inteligencia artificial en la transformación ontológica (2025) Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación.
Sympoiesis and Inclusive Design: Reimagining Gender Identity Through the Metaphor of Lichens (2025) In Expressive Transit: Aesthetics, Gender, and Diversity, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.
Educación en biodiseño: Un nuevo marco teórico para el biodiseño (2024) In Transformaciones y retos de la educación de las artes y los diseños, UNAM.
Innovation in Education: Field Trip in Oaxaca with Students from EKA and UAM / Innovación educativa: colaboración internacional en investigación de campo en Oaxaca, México (2024) Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación, Cuaderno 233, pp. 51–61.
Training a New Generation of Biodesigners for a Better Society (2023) Design for Adaptation, Cumulus Detroit 2023 Conference Proceedings.
Why the Notion of Biodesign Has to Change? A Theoretical-Practical Approach / ¿Por qué la noción de biodiseño tiene que cambiar? Una aproximación teórica-práctica (2022) Base Diseño e Innovación, 7(7), 162–173.
Fortalecimiento de la formación de Diseñadores Industriales para entender la biotecnología (2020) Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación, 116/166

Can design help healing the fracture human-nature?

The most important design is ontological. It constitutes an intervention in the background of our inherited world, affecting us from the very roots of our being in this world to the people we seek to become. In the process of creating new artifacts, equipment, buildings, and organizational structures, design seeks to specify and anticipate where things might go wrong. Ontologically oriented design is both a reflective and political necessity: it requires us to examine the traditions that have shaped us, while also recognizing the transformations that have not yet been created in our shared life. Through the creation of new methods and tools, we move toward a transformative awareness of human nature and human action, which in turn can lead to new technological developments. The design process is part of this “dance” through which our structure of possibilities is generated.

Arturo Escobar