麻豆传媒

ROCA London Gallery, until 16 March 2024

鈥淐ook鈥檚 at it again,鈥� reads one Antarctic station log entry from the 1970s. 鈥淭hrew a lemon pie and cookies all over the galley鈥� then went to his room for a couple of days and wouldn鈥檛 come out鈥� no clear reason鈥� probably Antarctictites catching up鈥︹��

It isn鈥檛 just the behavioural challenges induced by small spaces that give designers pause, as they contemplate our ever-more constrained future, there is our health to consider.

Damp, mould and other problems endemic to small spaces aren鈥檛 so easily addressed, especially in cities, where throwing open the windows and letting in air filled with particulates, spores, moulds and pollen can make matters measurably worse.

In December 2020, 9-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, who lived next to London鈥檚 South Circular road, became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as a cause of death 鈥� in a second inquest, seven years after she died.

So, given we in cities,聽 how exactly are we to live and thrive in the spaces they afford us? Curator Clare Farrow鈥檚 new exhibition, Small Spaces in the City: Rethinking inside the box, at the ROCA London Gallery, brings together ideas and designs from around the world.

She presents an interview with Hong Kong-based Gary Chang, whose (just 32 square metres) currently boasts 24 different 鈥渞ooms鈥�, assembled by manoeuvring a system of sliding walls, and a specially commissioned film in which William Bracewell, a principal with London鈥檚 Royal Ballet, performs (somehow) in the tiny dressing room-cum-costume store he shares with two other dancers.

Farrow has also brought in Richard Beckett, an associate professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London (UCL) and author of Probiotic Cities (Routledge). For a few days, he was based in a booth at the centre of the exhibition to draw attention to the health challenges of 鈥渟tudio living鈥�.

Beckett reckons we should be using microbes to make our buildings healthier. As he explains in a forthcoming paper (in press) entitled 鈥淎rchitecture for the halobiont: Designing probiotic interventions鈥� in the journal : 聽鈥淎s the built environment is now the predominant habitat of the human, the microbes that are present in buildings are of fundamental importance.鈥� Alas, as he goes on to emphasise, contemporary buildings are microbial wastelands 鈥� dry, nutrient-poor and sterile.

In 2020, Beckett from the Royal Institute of British Architects for embedding beneficial bacteria into ceramic and concrete surfaces. At the ROCA gallery, his booth is dosed with this material, while , an immunologist also at UCL, uses regular blood samples to measure whether tile-borne probiotic species can survive long enough, and spread easily enough, to become part of Beckett鈥檚 personal microbiome.

鈥淭he official study will have to take place in a more controlled way after the exhibition鈥檚 finished,鈥� admits Beckett, 鈥渂ut at least my spell in the booth is a bit of theatre to demonstrate what we鈥檙e up to.鈥�

He explains the work is vital, since it runs so counter to prevailing notions concerning hygiene and cleanliness. 鈥淥ne immediate application of our work is in hospitals and care homes,鈥� says Beckett, 鈥渨here super-sterile environments have ended up providing ideal breeding conditions for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Of course, the first question we will be asked when offering to clad a space with our tiles is, 鈥楬ow do you clean them?鈥欌��

Beckett鈥檚 booth was tiled with what look like worm casts: these are lightly baked ceramic tiles, designed to shed bacteria into the air with every passing motion. Their peculiar surface is deliberately tantalising 鈥� touching them helps spread the healthy biota, hopefully filling sterile interiors with sustainable microbial ecosystems.

鈥淭here鈥檚 still much that we don鈥檛 know about how microbes interact with each other and with our environment,鈥� says Beckett, who is realistic about the time it will take for us to abandon the 20th century鈥檚 wipe-clean aesthetic and embrace the stain. 鈥淭his work will prove its worth in small interiors first.鈥�