We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture reframes the entire history of the built environment by positioning bacteria — not architects — as the primary agents shaping how buildings are made, maintained, and inhabited.
About This Book
The sequel to Are We Human?, this book by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley is a manifesto for a fundamentally different architectural philosophy — one built on coexistence rather than prophylaxis. Drawing on current microbiology research, the authors trace 10,000 years of entanglement between microbes, human bodies, and buildings, arriving at a damning critique of contemporary architecture's antibiotic logic. The argument is urgent: the collapse of microbial diversity and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria constitute a crisis as serious as climate change, one that architecture has helped create. Biotic architecture, symbiotic design, and a reconnection with soil, plants, and other species are not aesthetic choices — they are existential ones.
Key Features
- 352 pages of critical architectural theory drawing on microbiology research and built environment history
- Authors: Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley
- Published by Lars Müller Publishers
What You'll Discover
- How bacteria function as architects, construction workers, and inhabitants of buildings — and what this demands of human designers
- The 10,000-year entanglement between microbes, bodies, and the built environment, and how antibiotic architectural thinking severed that relationship
- Why the declining diversity of microbial life in buildings is inseparable from the broader ecological and public health crises of our time
- A case for rethinking shelter as a practice of inclusion — designing for coexistence with bacteria rather than their elimination
About the Author
Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley are the authors of Are We Human?, of which this book is the sequel. Their collaborative work operates at the intersection of architectural theory, history, and cultural criticism.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 352
- Dimensions: 18 x 11 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783037787830
- Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and theorists rethinking sustainable and ecological design, academics working across architecture and the life sciences, and readers whose interest in the built environment extends to its biological and political dimensions.