Invisible Inhabitants

Henaff, E. (2017). Invisible Inhabitants. Journal of Design and Science, MIT Press.

https://doi.org/10.21428/25ecb69b

“Designing the built environment with probiotic considerations can be understood as a series of pairwise interactions. Indeed, the city’s forms and materials interact with the local microbiome. The local microbiome interacts with the microbiome of local multicellular denizens (e.g., humans). These individual microbiomes interact with their hosts (e.g., you).  The interaction which most enables agency through design and experimentation is the first -- that between the built environment and its microbiome.  By studying each pairwise interaction individually, we draw closer to the crux of 21st century design planning: how does the built environment shape human health?”