Ecosystemic capsule syndrome, or the antihabitats of ecological closure

Abstract

Today's environmental awareness is a direct product of the ecological debate that began in the 1960's. An imminent collapse of the planet's resources, prompts the search for a way to artificially preserve the earth's dying ecosystems before they completely disappear. As a desperate measure, the space cabin model that had been developed years before with quite similar survival goals, is taken as a reference. Thus, the ecosystem capsule is born like the representative prototype of what is known as cabin ecology. This life-saving vehicle emerges as a way to capture ecosystems pieces and safeguard them in case of a hypothetical ecological shutdown. Nevertheless, its purpose has never been successfully fulfilled. Real examples built over the years in different locations, make up an important genealogy of natural environments artificially recreated inside mechanistic containers. Initially, they are conceived as habitable complexes. However, the lack of a balanced relationship between machine and nature, turns out producing only morphologies of ecosystemic anti-habitats. As a result, these prototypes end up consuming themselves, destroying the portion of nature they were intended to preserve, and with it, their own raison d'être.