As part of Biophilic Region Charlottesville–Albemarle County: A Vision for a Nature-Connected Future, the exhibition includes Living Column, a living material installation that brings biological processes into direct dialogue with architectural form. Conceived as a time-based system rather than a static object, the artifact is designed to grow, transform, and partially decompose over the duration of the exhibition, foregrounding life cycles as an integral dimension of biophilic design.
The artifact takes the form of a vertically oriented, custom robotic clay print with an undulating surface geometry. Its morphology is intentionally designed to support airflow, moisture retention, and localized biological activation. A central hollow core enables passive air circulation, while the exterior surface variations create distinct micro-environments that guide differential growth. The clay body serves simultaneously as structure, scaffold, and ecological host.
Inoculated with mycelium, the artifact operates as a breathable living system. Biological activity is not concealed but deliberately exposed, allowing visitors to observe colonization, fruiting, and material transformation as they unfold in real time. Growth is selectively encouraged across portions of the surface, producing uneven and evolving patterns that register environmental conditions such as light, humidity, and airflow within the gallery. Rather than aiming for uniformity or permanence, the artifact embraces variability and decay as productive architectural phenomena.
Program Development
Throughout the exhibition, the artifact continues to respond to its surroundings, blurring the boundary between object, environment, and organism. It demonstrates how architectural materials can be designed to host life rather than exclude it, and how construction systems might be reconceived as open, metabolic processes. Positioned within the broader vision of a Biophilic Region, Living Column operates as a material-scale prototype, proposing architecture not as a finished product, but as a living participant within multispecies ecologies.
This artifact and its underlying research were presented by Ehsan Baharlou as part of the Biophilic Material Research panel discussion within the exhibition program. For more about the exhibition, check here.
Exhibition Date and Location
FRI, SEPT 12 – SUN, OCT 12 (2025) ; Campbell East Wing Gallery, School of Architecture, University of Virginia
Medium and Dimensions
Clay (robotically 3D printed); mycelium spawn (cast in place within hollow core); 36 × 7.5 in (91.4 × 19.1 cm)
Project Team
Ehsan Baharlou
Project student research assistants
Ipsita Datta, Ye Ma
Image Credit
CT .lab, University of Virginia, 2025