We are particularly interested in the role that air can play in our perception of space. Within the framework of the exhibition “La Sémiosphère du Commun”, we proposed an installation based on a biological air remediation system.

“Le Commun” is characterized by the quality of its air, poorly renewed and vitiated, contaminated by materials dating from the industrial past of the place. Modernity has created increasingly closed indoor environments, freed from their context. Air quality is controlled, standardized and uniform. The air has lost its sensitive quality.

This space functions with the help of algae and cyanobacteria collected locally on the outside perimeter of the building. Cultivated in photo-bioreactors, these microorganisms will purify the air as they grow. An air renewal system will pass the polluted air through this artificial ecosystem, then pulse the purified air into the exhibition space where it can be inhaled by the public.

Living and evolving, this air architecture transforms the building beyond the time of the exhibition.