Department of Design

What remains after industrial raw material extraction? Post-industrial landscapes are often associated with devastation and loss. «Terrabacteria» is a design inquiry that sees these sites not as passive, but as active, cared-for, and transformative. Through site-responsive sensing, «Terrabacteria» enables biomineral processes to unfold, combining a height-adjustable rotating system, 3D-printed ceramic vessels and a liquid culture of S. pasteurii, a soil bacterium that precipitates calcium carbonate. Working with local ecologies and material emergence across scales, it sits within the tension of extractive realities and microbial materialities.