Permeable Species is part of a larger research series that BUREAU (Daniel Zamarbide, Carine Pimenta, Galliane Zamarbide) will develop over the coming years, which began at the Laval School of Architecture in Canada in 2023. Under the title Nous Avons Failli Commencer Sans Vous (We Almost Started Without You), this research aims to study the spatial conditions that might allow us to rethink, revisit, and upgrade our relationships with other species. We explore possibilities for cohabitation and experiment with unconventional methods and tools to produce architectural and design pieces.

At MAIA, the Permeable Species studio focused on designing co-habitational spaces where we include ourselves—humans, bodies, and permeable beings—within the multiple and constitutive relationships that form us and that we are part of.

The studio achieved this by fostering companionship and neighborly relations with other species. Every student partnered with a companion species and developed their own relationship with them, designing spaces to accommodate this interaction. We worked with two forms of research media: film and a manufactured object—one virtual, one physical. Both require craft and careful making. Both are intended as media to develop a story to be told and shown.

Projects in the studio were viewed as stories, Speculative Fabulations (Donna Haraway) that addressed urgent realities. It is urgent that we think of ourselves differently—as multiple beings and as part of a different world balance, one that is more Gaian (Lovelock, Margulis). The spaces we inhabit—those we practice, perform, and activate—must be redefined in relation to the multiplicity of being. They must open up, be porous, and permeable.

The conceptual framework of the studio was thus closely tied to a very tangible and material approach. Ideas existed only when they took material form. The studio was fundamentally conceived as a space for making—a workshop. Spontaneous intuition was prioritized to quickly explore how projects could materialize. In this sense, the speculative aspect of the studio was grounded in material, technical, and non-abstract pragmatism. Both students and the team understood well how things are made and what things are made of.

Discover more about the project on the dedicated website Permeable Species and on e-flux.