COMPLEX PRINGLES
microbially sculpted mineral forms
Complex Pringles explores the mineral dimension of human composition, where life and microbial forces co-shape material form. In this project, double-curved geometries are extracted from the exhibition architecture and reimagined through 3D-printed frames stretched with fabric, echoing the tactility of fabric-cast concrete. The biomineralisation process is catalysed by Sporosarcina pasteurii, a bacterium that actively precipitates calcium carbonate, solidifying saturated sand over the course of a week.
Each artefact emerges from a negotiation of precision and emergence, balancing the desired form’s narrow centre with the weight of the sand and the metabolic activity of bacteria. This process demands fine-tuned control, catalysing reactants, managing microbial viability, and responding to the shifting interplay between geometry and mineralisation. Complex Pringles challenges the authorship of design, and celebrates the negotiation between control and emergence, geometry and biological unruliness.
Collaboration between:
Thora H Arnardottir & Laura Gonzalez
Supported by:
Living Construction, Northumbria University and Cornell University.
This project was exhibited as part of London Design Biennale 2025 in the Living Assembly pavilion.
More on the exhibition here
This installation mimics the submerged synthesis method in the MICP fabrication. The mould, the most open of the series, was designed with minimal restriction as an intentional invitation for form to emerge through negotiation rather than imposition.
The double-curved geometry, taken from the Living Assembly’s structural frame junctions, is reinterpreted in textile, suspended within a 3D-printed frame and filled with bacteria-inoculated sand and submerged in a nutrient-rich cementation bath. Left to mineralise over several days, the outcome is both delicate and robust, a form held in place by nothing but tension, weight, microbial metabolism, and time. It captures what happens when structure is not imposed but grown and when making becomes a collaboration with inhuman forces.
Alongside the installation, a second piece showcased the outcomes of the same process across four samples, each representing a variation of mould constraints and microbial activity. These artefacts were all produced using the submerged method, but differed in their initial conditions: some moulds allowed the fabric to sag freely, while others imposed stricter geometry.
Each piece was 3D scanned and digitally modelled to precisely fit a custom stand that accommodates their idiosyncratic forms. Arranged together, they function as both samples and specimens—evidence of how slight shifts in geometry, fabric tension, or bacterial behaviour produce radically different results. This display speaks to the precision required in designing with living systems, and the unpredictability that defines them.
