Bubble Ecologies: Interstitial Worlds of Performance and Growth

Abstract

This paper examines Terram Intelligere: INTERSTITIUM, Montenegro’s contribution to the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, as a performative rethinking of architectural space. Developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration between curatorial practice and scientific research, the project engages soil and microbial life as active material agents. By embedding living ecosystems within translucent architectural forms — bubbles — the pavilion proposes space not as a static object but as an interstitial process: dynamic, adaptive, and co-created across human and non-human scales. Drawing on theories of performativity and ecological design, the paper situates the project within contemporary architectural discourse, challenging traditional notions of form, authorship, and materiality. Terram Intelligere offers an alternative model of practice, one grounded in relational ecologies, slow transformation, and hybrid intelligence. In doing so, it invites us to reconsider how we inhabit and build with, rather than on, the living systems of the land.