fig1. Line of time and scales. Cells, architecture, cities and cosmos. Many more in-between scales are possible, for this research these were the main important ones

To aim the project, it is important to learn from these different scales present in houses; this means from micro to macro scale and the architecture as the in-between scale that brings the others together. During this research I will focus only on four representative scales, however, it is undeniable that there are uncountable different universes present inside our homes. Moreover, focusing on only four scales during the research does not mean that during the experimental process other scales are not present.

The micro-scale starts with the cells and microorganisms, the smallest and most fundamental unit every living organism presents. This is the scale to understand all the others, the basic form, and cause of things to happen. At a molecular scale, we can see things very quickly, but they are very small, we can perceive some changes in a matter of minutes. Or if we look at biofilms this could take some days. Here the difference between life and death is clear; it is alive or dead. Therefore, if we look for the evidence of the microbes on other scales perhaps that is the thing that is showing us how life transforms a space. So, the arch-scope is going to help me to think about their impact on four different levels: microbes, architecture, cities, and the universe.

¹ Monads are introduced in La Monadologie (1714) by Gottfried Leibniz. It is a short text which presents a metaphysics of simple substances. Leibniz defines a monad as a simple substance which cannot be divided into parts. A compound substance may be formed by an aggregation of monads.

Architecture is the visible (human) scale but in fact, we lose sight of the microbes. How do we treat microbes on this scale? Throwing chemicals on them because we can only see the consequences and we do the easiest to get rid of the problem. However, we can see the relationship between the body and the space more clearly, the difference between the lived and the dead or constructed spaces. Here things are visible after months or with seasonal behaviors. The idea of the home versus the house, the material versus the life, and the material changes in a house as a result of the molecular changes. This scale is where experiments are going to take place and since this is architectural research, it will also be the scale from which we will look at the others.

At the city scale, the focus is on ecosystems and urban development. Here, life and death would translate into cycles of growth and decay, demolitions, and nature taking over. If we do not pay attention to the microbes at this scale, we cannot grow food and we cannot feed ourselves and the microbiome gets affected. It is a scale measured in years or decades. Architecture and urban scales are in-between scales pertinent to this study and the ones that as a human living surrounded by architecture, we can start to become aware of all the others and change things or design differently.

The selection of scales remains on the physical layer;  nother interesting universe between human and city scale would be the media universe, that we cannot deny that reflects on the way we design nowadays. Nevertheless, it is a more  complex manifestation, it is about events and transformations that occur in a non-physical layer.

Finally, in the great scale of things, the earth and the universe. Our planet decaying with climate change, struggling but of course alive. On this scale, changes are visible after billions of years of transformations and that makes it impossible to observe since we are only here for a second, we are almost a fragment in time, and this research focuses on that moment. How to take care of our microbes and microbiome to translate it into a planet that does not warm up and die. The universe not only conditions space but also connects us with time. Learning from what happened to act in the present and from the present looking at the future to understand better and act in a more conscious and ecological way.

An interesting concept while talking about space and scales is the monads¹. This theory affirms that in the world there are no physical objects but monads, meaning that there is no space because space is distance that exists between physical objects. If there is no space and
objects, the world is infinite monads and a force (God) stimulating conversations and interactions. Therefore, with this theory in mind we can say that there is nothing that separates the different scales and that they do coexist and interact even if the human eye cannot appreciate it.

If we can observe different coexisting scales simultaneously and their interactions, we would have a different perspective, relationship, and ambitions for the spaces we design that could encourage a more ecological, or holistic, approach to the practice of architecture.