ongoing since 2021
collaboration: Institute for Art and Architecture, Institute of Natural Science and Technology in Arts, The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
partners: KÖR, BMWKMS, Slovak Arts Council, Creative Europe
We rarely notice the subtle stains or discolorations that form on buildings, nor do we often recognize how facades quietly transform over time. Yet, when observed closely, these material traces reveal a thin, living layer of biopatina created through the ongoing interaction between architectural outer surfaces and their environment.
This interdisciplinary research project investigates biopatina as both an ecological process and a material phenomenon. It introduces the concept of epidermitecture, which reimagines building surfaces not as static barriers but as dynamic, living interfaces that respond to their surroundings. Rather than treating these biological layers as unwanted blemishes, the project views them as valuable signs of environmental processes and the deep entanglement between architecture and the natural world.
Challenging traditional ideas of purity, control, and separation between built and natural environments, the research focuses on material transformations already occurring in urban settings; phenomena often overlooked or erased by routine maintenance. Through site-specific case studies at Vila Tugendhat in Brno, the Vltavská station in Prague, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and the Viennese social housing estates, the project explores new methods of working with natural processes rather than against them, combining material-centered research with participatory practices that invite communities to engage with architectural surfaces as living, evolving entities. By studying, supporting, and collectively observing the growth of biopatina, the project aims to promote regenerative approaches to architecture and to foster richer forms of coexistence between human and non-human life.
Emerging from this work is the concept of a Biomaintenance Manifesto: a call to rethink maintenance itself as a practice of care, stewardship, and attentive coexistence. Biomaintenance rejects the idea that building surfaces must be kept static, pure, or untouched; instead, it embraces the natural transformations of materials as evidence of life, time, and ecological entanglement. It calls for a shift from erasure to observation, from cleansing to nurturing, recognizing that acts of maintenance are not neutral but carry deep ecological and ethical consequences.
Austria, Slovakia, Czech Rebuplic
links:
Case Study Vila Tugendhat
Case Study Viennese social housing estate
Case Study Vltavská