Beaches may seem like ecosystems where non-human life is scarce. While this might be true on the surface, where adverse climatic and environmental conditions are compounded by human activity, it is not the case in their lower layers.
The workshop invites participants to move beyond this superficial perspective and to delve into ways of understanding life as a complex, multiscalar, and transspecies metabolic cycle. Is there any connection between the crabs that inhabit the sand and the quality of drinking water in Barcelona? And between the "health" of the seaweed on the seabed and the air we breathe daily in the city?
Crabs, clams, razors, polychaetes, sandworms, beetles, talitrids and humans form an ecosystem that is as interconnected as it is rich, which we wish to observe.
To this end, during the workshop, we will carry out a series of soil probes on the beach of Barcelona. By creating holes of various sizes and depths, we will analyse the different strata that make up this ecosystem while reflecting on how we can propose more prosperous forms of coexistence.
TAKK is an architecture and design studio based in Barcelona and the co-curators of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice 2025. Founded by Mireia Luzárraga and Alejandro Muiño, their projects explore how architecture can catalyse the development of more democratic lives by incorporating feminist thought, ecology and politics into spatial practices.
