PhD in Architecture. History and Project | Politecnico di Torino
A+ Lectures 2025|01 We the Bacteria|Mark Wigley
Monday 24 March 2025| 6-7.30 PM Castello del Valentino|Recordings on YouTube
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4 thoughts on “A+ Lectures 2025|01 We the Bacteria|Mark Wigley”
Devanshi Thakuriya
The lecture was super interesting as it shed light on a new approach to architecture, considering the built as a division between the internal and the external life and while it symbolises protection and ensures safety,it is really safe by protecting us from the bacteria outside and still exposing us from the bacteria inside? The debate is funny and gives an opportunity to think about bacteria as the centre of design, as in the past it had formed the basis for modern architecture for architects like Le Corbusier and Buckminster Fullerence. Overall it concludes by leaving behind an idea in mind that humans are not the only clients of architecture, but so is bacteria and the endless micro organism that shape our health and aesthetics within architecture.
The reverse viewpoint with which the lecture engages with topics that are inherently unique to architecture particularly intrigued me. Specifically, if architecture cannot be a tool for disease prevention while also paradoxically contributing to it, it may be necessary to rethink architecture as a new tool that must help man to preserve himself, live better (man responds to and even cooperates with external action), and be in constant contact with the natural environment rather than as a protective element that renders him passive and victim to its use. The logic, in my opinion, could be consistent with MVRDV’s studies from the early 2000s as well as their Noviotech Campus (Nijmegen, Netherlands, 2021) project, which works within the city’s biodiversity strategy to transform the campus into a nature-inclusive landscape that links the area with nearby designated green corridors, including green roofs and façades on the buildings.
The Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina lecture challenged the conventional idea of architecture by not only positioning microorganisms as an intangible force but also as a major agent in the design of architecture. Rather than concentrating on architecture as a predominantly human discipline, the discussion put it rather as a relentless negotiation between built environments and the microbial worlds they contain. The historical perspective was particularly enlightening—how 18th and 19th-century disease mapping influenced architectural typologies, from urban grid plans to ventilation systems. But even so, the contradiction remains: is architecture a shield against diseases, or an incubator? Yet, the paradox remains: —if architecture has always responded to microorganisms, could the future of design involve actively designing with them? Rather than resisting microbial presence, should architecture embrace symbiosis, fostering healthier and more dynamic relationships between humans and the ecosystems they inhabit?
Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley’s provocative lecture invites us to reconsider architecture not merely as a shelter for humans, but as an ongoing negotiation with invisible agents like bacteria, microbes, and the broader microbial ecosystem. Their assertion that architecture can learn from bacteria reframes design as a biological process which is responsive, adaptive, and deeply entangled with the environments it exists within. Like bacterial colonies, which regulate their growth and reproduction in response to resource availability, architecture too could become less rigid and more contingent, scaling, flexing, and evolving in response to environmental and social conditions.
Also, if bacteria are not just threats but fellow occupants of space, then architecture might begin to design with them, and not against them. This therefore challenges the modernist idea of the clean, clinical space, and proposes instead a living architecture, one that collaborates with nature rather than sterilizing it.
The lecture was super interesting as it shed light on a new approach to architecture, considering the built as a division between the internal and the external life and while it symbolises protection and ensures safety,it is really safe by protecting us from the bacteria outside and still exposing us from the bacteria inside? The debate is funny and gives an opportunity to think about bacteria as the centre of design, as in the past it had formed the basis for modern architecture for architects like Le Corbusier and Buckminster Fullerence. Overall it concludes by leaving behind an idea in mind that humans are not the only clients of architecture, but so is bacteria and the endless micro organism that shape our health and aesthetics within architecture.
The reverse viewpoint with which the lecture engages with topics that are inherently unique to architecture particularly intrigued me. Specifically, if architecture cannot be a tool for disease prevention while also paradoxically contributing to it, it may be necessary to rethink architecture as a new tool that must help man to preserve himself, live better (man responds to and even cooperates with external action), and be in constant contact with the natural environment rather than as a protective element that renders him passive and victim to its use. The logic, in my opinion, could be consistent with MVRDV’s studies from the early 2000s as well as their Noviotech Campus (Nijmegen, Netherlands, 2021) project, which works within the city’s biodiversity strategy to transform the campus into a nature-inclusive landscape that links the area with nearby designated green corridors, including green roofs and façades on the buildings.
The Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina lecture challenged the conventional idea of architecture by not only positioning microorganisms as an intangible force but also as a major agent in the design of architecture. Rather than concentrating on architecture as a predominantly human discipline, the discussion put it rather as a relentless negotiation between built environments and the microbial worlds they contain. The historical perspective was particularly enlightening—how 18th and 19th-century disease mapping influenced architectural typologies, from urban grid plans to ventilation systems. But even so, the contradiction remains: is architecture a shield against diseases, or an incubator? Yet, the paradox remains: —if architecture has always responded to microorganisms, could the future of design involve actively designing with them? Rather than resisting microbial presence, should architecture embrace symbiosis, fostering healthier and more dynamic relationships between humans and the ecosystems they inhabit?
Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley’s provocative lecture invites us to reconsider architecture not merely as a shelter for humans, but as an ongoing negotiation with invisible agents like bacteria, microbes, and the broader microbial ecosystem. Their assertion that architecture can learn from bacteria reframes design as a biological process which is responsive, adaptive, and deeply entangled with the environments it exists within. Like bacterial colonies, which regulate their growth and reproduction in response to resource availability, architecture too could become less rigid and more contingent, scaling, flexing, and evolving in response to environmental and social conditions.
Also, if bacteria are not just threats but fellow occupants of space, then architecture might begin to design with them, and not against them. This therefore challenges the modernist idea of the clean, clinical space, and proposes instead a living architecture, one that collaborates with nature rather than sterilizing it.