The Multispecies Spaces Lab, Basel Academy of Art and Design

• Expertise & Practice: Gain knowledge and skills in sustainable (building) practices, habitat preservation, biodiversity integration, biophilic design strategies, and ecological landscape design.
• Hands-on experimentation and production, with a focus on scalable solutions for real-world implementation.
• Network & Dialogue: Become part of a vibrant, cross-disciplinary network with leading figures from research, practice, and industry.
• New Perspectives: Expand your design practice through radical approaches to multispecies spaces and future-oriented living environments.

The Multispecies Spaces Lab (MSL) is a continuing education program developed with the Institute Art Gender Nature at the Basel Academy of Art and Design (HGK). It functions as a practical, research-driven laboratory at the intersection of art, architecture, and multispecies thinking.The Lab tests new materials, technologies, and collaborative approaches to explore how sustainable environments for multiple forms of life can be conceived and built.
Focusing on the shifting relationships between humans, non-human beings, objects, and technologies, the program reconsiders notions of agency, intelligence, and spatial practice. Participants gain access to current research and expert guidance to conduct hands-on experiments that address material resources, forms of cohabitation, and interspecies environments.
MSL positions architecture and design as interspecies practices-collaborative, situated, and deeply entangled with ecological and cultural processes. It invites participants to imagine and materialize future-oriented spaces that support multispecies coexistence.

Chus Martínez is head of the Institute Art Gender Nature FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel. Most recently she has been appointed Artistic Director of the 36th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, in Ljubljana (Slovenia) from 6 June to 12 October 2025. She was the expedition leader of The Current, a project initiated by TBA21–Academy (2018–2020) and 2020-2022 she has been the artistic director of the Ocean Space, Venice, a space initiated by TBA21–Academy. The Current inspired the Art is Ocean at the IAGN which examines the role of artists in the conception of a new experience of nature.

Chrissie Muhr is an architect, researcher and curator based in Basel. She is Co-Managing and Artistic Director of Experimental in Berlin, a non-profit organization fostering practice-based experimental and research work for sustainable architecture futures. Latest Muhr was curator and editor of the exhibition and publication Reset Materials – Towards Sustainable Architecture at Copenhagen Contemporary in 2023. She is founding Artistic Director of the Architekturwoche Basel 2022 and the first reuse Basel Pavillon. Muhr publishes, teaches and crits internationally at ETH Zurich or AA School a.o.

Guests and Experts
Céline Baumann – Landscape Architect, Studio Céline Baumann, Basel
Justine Bell – Architect, Co-founder Djernes & Bell, Copenhagen
Lucia Pietroiusti – Head of Research & Emergence, Hartwig Foundation, Amsterdam
Filipa Ramos – Curator, Writer, Lecturer IAGN, London
Yuri Tuma – Artistic and Academic Co-Director, Institute for Postnatural Studies, Madrid

• Openness to experimental, collaborative work
• Artistic or technical experience is an advantage
• Professional experience welcome but not required
• No institutional affiliation necessary