Probiotic Design Interventions for The Indoor Microbiome

[Abstract:] The negative impact of contemporary built environments on human microbiome health has led researchers and designers to reconsider the way we shape our cities in relation to microbes. This has informed a shift from so-called antibiotic to probiotic thinking. Probiotic design integrates knowledge from microbiome science, architecture, and digital technologies to address the emerging health challenges of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and immunoregulation. It develops methodologies for understanding, analyzing, and intervening the indoor microbiome to shape healthy and resilient buildings. Microbiome studies have shown how dry, nutrient poor surfaces in buildings drive microbes to exhibit resistance traits, and can remain active on indoor surfaces for extended periods, posing infection risks to occupants [Coughenour et al., 2011]. The NOTBAD project [Ramirez-Figueroa and Beckett, 2020] demonstrated that probiotic microbes integrated into bio-receptive ceramic materials can survive and outcompete harmful microbes under laboratory conditions. A key knowledge gap relates to understanding these agencies in real world built environments. Building on this concept, this study integrates computational design methods to facilitates the conceptualization of probiotic surface design interventions. It develops a probiotic ceramic tiling system whereby environmentally informed toolpaths, textures and geometrical articulations, act as niches to support probiotic microbial communities based on computational design. The environmental-driven design framework employed computational fluid dynamics simulations whereby airflow datasets, were integrated into generative processes to shape geometrical conditions, configured as micro-climates [Figure 1]. In the computational framework, we conceptualized a digitalized spatial system, constructed by information based on voxelization. Compared with conventional data-driven design focused on the generation from data to design, we examined digital space as an integration of information that is assigned to 3 dimensional voxels. Therefore, computational design shifts from linear procedural processes to a more dynamic approach concentrating on structure, behaviour, and interactions of data [Speed and Oberlander, 2016]. A novel method of environmental-driven making is developed with environmental intelligence expressed in the 3D printing process. Different from conventional 3D printing approaches, the fabrication process in this study uses tool paths and printing programs instructed by homogeneous data from CFD simulations. With this method applied, 3D printing textures can be controlled digitally based on the airflow data to create areas of more or less turbulence at the air-surface interface. The resulting textural conditions are associated with micro and meso-scale surface porosity, informing both the bio-receptivity of niches [Cruz and Beckett, 2016], but also their propensity to shed embedded microbes to other parts of the building. The proposed environmental-driven making approach bridges the gap between conventional environmental-driven design and its making [Bier and Knight, 2014], which are distinct phases of pre-materialization and materialization. The design prototype presented in this study will be installed as part of the upcoming Living Assembly Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2025. It consists of a 3D surface made up of discrete tiles, generated from a digital framework, which together form a continuous wall texture shaped by airflow patterns. The tiles were fabricated using ceramic materials that have been tested for their ability to support probiotic bacterial habitation via 3D printing. Overall, this study develops an environmentally driven, material-based framework for probiotic interventions in the indoor microbiome. Through design prototyping, it explores how an integrative approach—combining microbiology, architecture, and digital design—can shape the built environment for a probiotic future.

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**[Keywords]: Microbiome of the Built Environment, Computational Design, Biodesign, Digital Fabrication, Data-driven Design

Recommended citation: Wei, H., Scott, W., Hoenerloh, A., Leyton Dominguez, A., Nair, S., & Beckett, R. (2025). Probiotic Design Interventions for The Indoor Microbiome. Cambridge Open Engage. doi:10.33774/coe-2025-pzt7t-v2 This content is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed.
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