NATURE MACHINE
Tallinn Architecture Biennale Shortlist 2022
Nature Machine is an innovative project exploring interspecies collaboration through a unique ecosystem of humans, robots, and bio-organisms. The project investigates how technology and nature can coexist by creating a dynamic, living architecture that adapts and grows. Integrating bio-incubators in the public space will activate new interactions between nature and visitors.
The core concept centres on a robotic system that carefully nurtures mycelium growth, using advanced sensors and solar energy to create a responsive, collaborative environment. By depositing nutrients and tracking growth in real time, the robot enables mycelium to expand along a predetermined path, mimicking natural growth patterns.
Mycelium, the vast underground network of fungal roots, serves as the project's biological cornerstone. This remarkable organism can transfer nutrients, adapt to environmental conditions, and provide innovative material possibilities. The installation demonstrates how technology can work in harmony with natural systems, challenging traditional boundaries between artificial and organic.
The Nature Machine is a living pavilion—an atmospheric timber structure with a birch bark curtain housing an active, growing mycelium ecosystem. It represents a bold exploration of co-habitation, inviting viewers to reimagine our relationship with nature through a poetic, technologically mediated interaction.
By integrating robotic precision with natural intelligence, this project proposes a new model of environmental collaboration in which human innovation supports and learns from biological systems.
Team: IM-A Studio (Katya Bryskina and Nataly Khadziakova), Vform (Vlad Bek-Bulatov), Dmitry Morozov ::vtol::
Intern Andrew Shablinsky
Visualisation: Znakvisual
