Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley on Biotic Architecture

Architecture has long treated bacteria as an enemy to be controlled—dangerous foreign agents to be sealed out, sterilized, or erased. In their new book, We the Bacteria: Notes Toward a Biotic Architecture, architecture historians and curators Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley turn that assumption inside out (literally,) arguing that architecture should not be bent on shielding and isolating humans from their invisible partners through hygiene protocols, ventilation, materials, light, and other forms of management and control. Buildings should instead be shaped by microbes as they have been for centuries, and humans should reconsider their role as participants in a much larger biological collective.

In this conversation with Paola, Beatriz and Mark explore how bacteria offer a radical lens through which to reinterpret architectural history and design practice. Rather than asking how architecture can protect us from microbes, We the Bacteria asks what it means to design for coexistence, and what political, ethical, and spatial fantasies are exposed when the dream of separation finally collapses.

You can find images related to this interview on our Instagram grid @design.emergency. Please join us for past and future episodes of Design Emergency, where we continue to speak with designers, scholars, and thinkers who are reimagining what design is for—and who it is really designed with.

Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

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