time + (non)human

Time + (non)human is a regenerative pavilion proposal developed during the Designed by Nature: Creative Lab, a three-week residency organised by Melbourne Fringe at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. I was one of 15 participants selected from over 300 applicants, joining a multidisciplinary cohort of artists and designers.

The residency immersed designers and artists in nature-inspired design through biophilia and biomimicry, with expert-led sessions spanning conservation science, mycology, horticulture, placemaking, interpretation, and biomimicry.

The project proposes an immersive, non-prescriptive pavilion designed for (non)humans — visitors, flora, fauna, insects, microorganisms, soil, and weather — to coexist across varied timescales. Shifting away from human-centric design thinking, the pavilion intentionally foregrounds more-than-human perspectives, using regenerative design principles and locally sourced, biodegradable materials to minimise ecological disturbance while leaving the site better than before.

How might a temporary architectural intervention invite humans to perceive and inhabit shared ecological time, acknowledging more-than-human scales of existence without prescribing behaviour or disrupting existing garden ecosystems? 

Learning with Nature
The residency positioned the Royal Botanic Gardens as an “encyclopaedia for biomimicry and biophilic design.” Over two weeks of expert-led sessions, my understanding of designing with nature evolved daily.

An Aboriginal-led walk foregrounded the continuity between Indigenous cultures globally and their shared principle of surviving with the Earth rather than over it. Sessions on biomimicry highlighted material intelligence — such as chlorophyll-inspired translucency, where different colours absorb and transmit different spectrums of light — directly informing spatial and material thinking.

Workshops on mycology demonstrated how everyday objects can be used to communicate complex systems, reinforcing the value of tangible metaphors over abstract prescriptive explanations. Interpretation and storytelling sessions emphasised non-didactic communication, recognising that equitable storytelling allows multiple understandings rather than enforcing a single meaning.

Soil science reframed ground not as a neutral base, but as a layered archive with history and agency. A recurring provocation throughout the residency was the reframing of design practice: 

designing about → for → with → as nature.

Natural Systems: Time
A recurring insight during the residency was the radically different timescales at play within the garden. Trees operate on scales of hundreds of years, insects on moments, and humans somewhere uneasily in between. The pavilion invites visitors to hold these timescales simultaneously.

This idea manifests through subtle design cues — ripples in the floor pattern, shifting shadows cast by the pavilion’s walls, and the slow weathering of materials, allowing time to be experienced rather than explained.

Garden Ecologies & the (non)human
My approach consistently leans toward observing systems at a macro scale, examining how subsystems coexist and interact within a larger ecology. This led me to coin the term "(non)human", intentionally removing divisions between "human" and "non-human", animate and inanimate, without hierarchy.

The pavilion is not didactic. It does not direct behaviour. It simply exists as one that allows people, plants, insects, soil, and weather to occupy space together without forced prescription.

This project further informed how I understand both design and nature. The daily sessions reinforced that meaningful ecological work is rarely about just spectacle or "greening" gestures. As one session perfectly framed it: “slapping one or two token trees doesn’t do anything for biodiversity.”

Working within the Royal Botanic Gardens made it impossible to think in short-term outcomes. Landscape architecture emerged as a powerful leverage point, operating silently but decisively across time.

I also became acutely aware of the limits of control. Stories cannot be prescribed, materials will age unpredictably, nonhuman actors do not behave on cue. Designing time + (non)human required letting go of certainty and embracing coexistence, decay, and ambiguity as design conditions rather than problems to solve.

Ultimately, the pavilion is less an object and more a proposition: that design can slow us down, widen our temporal perspective, and help mediate relationships between humans and the many systems we usually ignore, even in spaces we believe we already “know.”