05/03/2025 - In an era in which thinkers (as well as doers and makers) increasingly tie urban resilience to ecological intelligence, ecoLogicStudio’s Urban Apothecary reimagines the city as a place for regenerative cultivation, with architecture as an active living system. The project— which transforms an industrial past into a forward-thinking biophilic environment—is located within Turin’s historic Ex Mulini Feyles, a 19th-century industrial complex known for its connections to the Arte Povera movement.
“The idea of a new outpost in Turin comes from our interest in exploring creativity as a Polycephalum – an entity capable of developing multiple forms of intelligence. Our research is carried out in synergy between ecoLogicStudio in London and the Synthetic Landscape Lab, which I direct at the University of Innsbruck. In this context, the Design Apothecary will allow us to spatialize the potential for new models of circular design and healthy living, which have always been at the core of our design research,” says Claudia Pasquero, co-founder of ecoLogicStudio, whose name was inspired by Gregory Bateson and his book Steps to an Ecology of Mind.
At the core of the Urban Apothecary project is a fully functional air-purifying algae garden, an engineered ecosystem of 17 photosynthetic reactors that absorb CO₂, release oxygen, and metabolize pollutants into edible biomass. This metabolic cycle extends throughout the space, supporting a medicinal plant library, a digitally fabricated biophilic furniture collection, and mycelium-based materials. The result is a hybrid home/laboratory/creative hub where architecture evolves as an extension of natural intelligence.
Urban Apothecary is a microcosm of how Pasquero, together with partner Marco Poletto, imagines the future of our cities and homes—no longer tied to the early modernist credo of “machines for living” but as true “living machines” integrating the hidden worlds of microorganisms within the built environment so that biological processes—no longer mechanistic technologies—become the new foundations of the city.
It is a radical – and arguably urgent – reconceptualization of the city, perhaps not the only one but a possible way forward if we are to confront the predicted explosive growth of the urban population and the relentless, accelerating consequences of climate change. For Poletto, the metabolically circular city moves away from today’s centralized grids to distributed networks so that every node—home, park, building, and industry—can become both a consumer and producer of energy.
Some of the conceptual foundations of the Urban Apothecary—even if early examples leaned more toward formalism than process—can be traced to pioneers who sought to blur the boundaries between architecture and the natural world. Frei Otto’s work in lightweight, nature-inspired tensile structures, Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes optimizing material efficiency, and Ken Yeang’s bioclimatic skyscrapers integrating vertical greenery all set precedents for living, self-sustaining architecture. More recently and perhaps emblematically, Neri Oxman and the Mediated Matter Group at MIT have explored the potential of biofabrication, developing architectures that grow, metabolize, and adapt—an ethos mirrored in ecoLogicStudio’s own explorations of algae-based photobioreactors and biomaterial production.
ecoLogicStudio has designed the Urban Apothecary as a testing ground for metabolic design, where living systems provide tangible environmental benefits. For example, the 200 liters of the algae garden captures 250 grams of CO₂ per day—equivalent to the output of four large trees—and re-metabolizes pollutants into 140 grams of dry algae and 84 grams of vegetable proteins daily. The resulting biomass is processed on-site, integrated into gourmet recipes, repurposed as fertilizer for the medicinal plant garden, and even transformed into biodegradable 3D-printed components.
The architectural framework reflects this ecological circularity. A modular fir wood lattice structure, assembled with 3D-printed joints, houses the photobioreactors and integrates seamlessly with a medicinal plant garden on a narrow wrought-iron balcony. This vertical green layer shades the space in summer, reducing the need for air conditioning and encouraging passive climate control. Adjacent, a kitchen and food preparation area extends the concept of biophilic design into daily rituals, demonstrating how ecology can become an intrinsic part of domestic life.
Incorporating mycelium capsules, biodegradable polycarbonate panels, and parametric furniture, the space is designed to be dynamic, reconfigurable, and biologically active. A 2x2-meter bio-lab table, designed for formal research and informal gatherings, embodies the project’s multi-layered nature—equal parts experimental space and domestic retreat. A drawing room inspired by the Physarum Polycephalum organism hosts rotating exhibitions of ecoLogicStudio’s bio-art and 3D-printed objects, including works acquired by the Centre Pompidou and ZKM Karlsruhe.
The guest lodging area, constructed as a suspended timber grid with elevated tatami beds and a bio-material library, reinterprets traditional notions of private space through a lens of ecological domesticity. The entire project embodies a new urban typology—one that breathes, metabolizes, and evolves, mirroring the adaptability of nature itself.
The Urban Apothecary aligns with a growing movement of living architecture, drawing parallels to such projects as the Urban Algae Canopy (Milan), an earlier ecoLogicStudio project showcasing interactive algae-based bioreactors; the Ruin Academy (Taipei), a model for adaptive reuse, where buildings become hybrid ecosystems or even Folkewall (Sweden), a water-purifying vertical garden system, demonstrating functional biophilic design.
Through these references, the Urban Apothecary emerges as a possible prototype for the city of the future—where architecture is no longer inert but actively contributes to ecological cycles, air purification, and material circularity. By embedding intelligence into living systems, ecoLogicStudio challenges the boundaries between nature, technology, and domesticity, envisioning a new era of bio-integrated urbanism.
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