Reimagining domesticity through microbial architectures
DeepForest³ is a living architectural system that transforms the concept of domestic space into a fully functioning microbial ecosystem. This visionary installation is featured in the “We the Bacteria. Notes Toward Biotic Architecture” exhibition, curated by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley, in collaboration with academic partners at Innsbruck University and The Bartlett UCL, as part of the 24th International Exposition of La Triennale di Milano, which this year explores the theme of “Inequalities.” DeepForest³ builds on the research initiated with Deep Forest at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, now reimagined at a more intimate, inhabitable scale.
As Dr. Marco Poletto explains, DeepForest³ represents more than a temporary installation:
“The installation wishes to celebrate the first time microbial architecture enters the Italian temple of design, the Milano Triennale. I think this is an epochal moment. For this reason we took great care in its design and detailing. DeepForest³ is really more than just a temporary installation, it delivers a fully functional and tangible biotechnological living system, grounded in the metabolic cycles of algae and fungi, but brought to life through bespoke digital design and unique material craftsmanship.”
In DeepForest³, the forest does not surround the dwelling; it becomes itself the dwelling or a place to dwell. The floor is an engraved infrastructure, the walls are a mycelial forest and the air is filtered by photosynthetic organisms that provide nutritious biomass.
At the centre of the installation are three types of architectural components:
Photosynthesizers— filled with 50 liters of living cyanobacteria, actively capture CO₂ from the gallery environment and convert it into oxygen and biomass. These glass vessels are arranged to form a breathable membrane, both wall and filter, alive with metabolic activity.
Biodegraders— built from 3D-printed bark-like shells made of algae biopolymers, host living mycelium networks. These fungi feed on spent coffee grounds, a readily available urban waste, and grow into dense, fibrous forms that line the space like living insulation—mimicking salvaged birch trunks but grown from synthetic matter.
Carbon storers— such as reclaimed wood elements and active lichen colonies, integrate with these systems to stabilize and reframe the aesthetics of waste as beauty—turning the byproducts of decay into architectural ornament.
Zolla rests atop the cork roots traced on the ground, featuring a honeycomb cardboard base and modular cork blocks that provide a breathable substrate for cultivating living mycelium. As the fungi colonize its surface, the bench transforms—textures shift, scents evolve, and mushrooms emerge. Zolla invites sensory and physical interaction, becoming a piece of furniture that grows, breathes, and eventually decays.
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Visible systems turn the walls into a living, cyber-organic laboratory.
The space functions as a domestic microbial laboratory, where every system is accessible, visible, and active. Elements such as bubbling algae, growing mycelium, and integrated air and CO₂ pumps are not hidden but exposed and expressive. Technology becomes ornament, turning the space into an ongoing experiment in cyber-organic living.
Prof. Claudia Pasquero emphasizes the conceptual basis of the project:
“We are now more and more aware that our own nature is cyborgian and collective, and that our own identities extend far beyond the limits of our bodies. We are microbial ecosystems, we are algorithmic networks. It is a necessary consequence that our home becomes an extension of these ecosystems and networks. Our home is our microbiome.”
Visitors are invited to sit, breathe and observe the metabolic cycles of the space in real time—algae bloom, fungi fruit, and waste is transformed into organic matter.
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Schematic top view of DeepForest³ layout.
The design is inspired by Italy’s history of landscape transformation—from the Navigli canal system in Milan to the drainage of the Pontine Marshes. DeepForest³ juxtaposes the resilience of microbial systems with historical attempts to dominate nature, highlighting both their vitality and the risks of socio-political instrumentalization.
DeepForest³ continues the wider DeepForest research series and is the result of a collaboration between ecoLogicStudio and the Synthetic Landscape Lab at the University of Innsbruck. The installation advances ongoing research into the cultivation of synthetic living architectural systems.