Mutable, Extensible, Implementable Bodies, and Architectures

The paper examines the shift from the ideal body, once the measure of architecture, to a plural, vulnerable, and multifaceted human body, understood today in terms of biodiversity, neurodiversity, and multispecies coexistence. In parallel, the architectural and urban body is viewed as fragile, exposed to climate change and building obsolescence. Through original design experiments by the authors, focused on modular housing for neurodiversity and aging, and a selection of contemporary case studies, the paper highlights how flexibility is enacted through spatial transformations of smaller dwelling components such as rooms, thresholds, loggias, and balconies. By reflecting on new forms of interaction between human, non-human, and architectural bodies, it reveals emerging liminalities, symbiotic relationships, and modes of inhabitation that have the potential to generate new forms of community and, ultimately, new configurations of the social body.