Architecture

003.

Metabolic Wall

Icw. Festival di Microarcitectura,
Comune di Pietrarubbia.
Pietrarubbia, Italy.
2025.

Metabolic Wall is a timber-and-hay pavilion nestled in the hills of Pesaro e Urbino. It seeks to be a landmark that interacts with the local cultural and natural cycles.

Metabolic Wall is a small pavilion in the Italian hills of Pietrarubbia. The project takes the form of a linear timber wall made from a modular grid sized to hold standard hay bales, with several units removed to open a passage through the structure. Rather than enclosing an interior, the intervention acts as a threshold in the landscape: a long, porous marker that frames views, registers seasonal change and gradually alters through use by animals, weather and decay. The hay infill is not treated as cladding or insulation but as a living, time-based material. Birds pull it apart for nests, wild boars disturb its base, insects burrow into it and fungi begin to soften and transform it. As the organic mass recedes, the timber frame is slowly exposed, shifting the pavilion from density to lightness. In its final phase, the structure is dismantled and repurposed, extending the project’s metaphor of reuse and return.

Design Team:
Felix Verheyden, Thomas Gkikas

Construction Team:

Felix Verheyden, Thomas Gkikas, Christos Voutsas, Jillis Hulleman, Zuzanna Winiarska, William Van Bavel, Niovi Andrioti

Location:

Pietrarubbia, Italy

Year:

2025

Partners:

Festival di Microarcitectura , Comune di Pietrarubbia

Pictures:

©Felix Verheyden

Publications:

Divisare, 2026
Dereave, 2026
The Greek Foundation, 2026

Prizes:

Finalist, March Awards, 2026
Honorable Mention, DOMa, 2026

Studio Felix Verheyden