The landscape is approached as a field of observation and interpretation—simultaneously a place, an ecosystem, a multidimensional point of reference, and a phenomenon of transformation within the countryside. Set within the secluded hills near the medieval village of Pietrarubbia, Metabolic Wall is both an architectural intervention and a seasonal organism. Positioned among the dispersed landmarks of the area—Pietrafagnana, Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Petrelle, Sbordog, Rocca di Pietrarubbia, and Chiesa di San Silvestro—the structure responds not only to human history but to the metabolic rhythms of the surrounding ecosystem. It appears as a singular linear gesture across the terrain, framing the landscape even as it gradually dissolves into it. This gesture, like the nearby ruins, reads both as monument and process—suspended between permanence and erosion.
The pavilion is organized as a wall composed of 25 modular grid units, each designed to hold a hay stack bale of 110 x 50 x 42 cm. Four of these units are intentionally removed to form an opening in the wall, making space for passage and pause. The grid acts not only as structural logic but as an ideological framework—defining the proportions, rhythm, and dimensions of the pavilion based on the scale and temporality of its seasonal infill. By treating the hay as both material and temporal marker, the architecture becomes a framework structured around impermanence. The infill is seasonal, and its decay is anticipated—making the structure’s slow transformation an inherent part of its design.
Unlike enclosed pavilions that define an interior and create boundaries, Metabolic Wall resists interiorization. As a linear form, it produces no inside or outside. Instead, it frames and reveals the landscape, establishing a permeable threshold that invites coexistence rather than control. Constructed from timber and filled with hay, the pavilion is designed to enter into dialogue with deer, boars, foxes, birds, fungi, and insects. Between July and November, grazing animals nibble its edges, wild boars root through its base, and birds carry off hay to build nests. Insects burrow, fungi bloom, and decomposition begins. Gradually, the structure’s organic infill disappears, exposing the skeletal timber frame beneath—a living scaffold slowly rewritten by its environment.
Rather than resisting entropy, the pavilion embraces it. Fungi soften its beams, insects colonize its joints, and microbial life digests the hay—transforming the architecture into a biological event. Metabolic Wall becomes a temporary commons, shaped by the behaviors and interactions of non-human species. Its disintegration is not a collapse but a continuity: materials re-enter the ecosystem, nurturing future life. In this more-than-human perspective, architecture is no longer an imposition but a participant—an agent within broader ecological cycles.
Metabolic Wall reimagines the pavilion archetype—traditionally centered on human presence—through the lens of metabolic processes and multispecies agency. It challenges linear models of construction and disposal, advocating instead for a closed-loop logic in which building becomes a seasonal act of offering. Composed entirely of wood and hay—locally resonant, biodegradable materials—the structure shifts from density to porosity, solidity to transparency. In its final phase, the timber skeleton is dismantled and repurposed, extending its utility beyond the site. Here, architecture is understood not as a fixed object, but as a cycle of transformation—shaped by nature, consumed by it, and ultimately remembered for what it gives back.
