The Horst art and music festival presents its 2026 art programme. It explores how built structures can function as social infrastructure. In collaboration with the VAi, Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets presents Building Biospheres, previously on showcase in the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The installation explores how plant intelligence can regulate an indoor climate.
How will architecture evolve with an influence of plant intelligence? With their exhibition concept Building Biospheres, landscape architect Bas Smets and climate scientist biologist Stefano Mancuso explore a new relationship between nature and architecture. Building Biospheres proposes to think of buildings as artificial microclimates in which plants play a crucial role in purifying air and cooling space. Using the latest insights into plant intelligence, the project aims to make urban environments more liveable and sustainable.
Together with students from Horteco, the horticultural school in Vilvoorde, the plants are being carefully tended and overwintered ahead of their reinstallation in our celebrated Rain Room in April. Students will also be actively involved in the reassembly of the installation, continuing a meaningful hands-on partnership that connects education with large-scale ecological design.
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