Cities produce tons of waste. But what if some of it could grow food, recover nutrients, and sustain living microbial ecosystems all at once?
Our latest paper explores exactly that: a modular microbial–hydroponic system designed for circular urban plant cultivation.
Instead of treating cities as places disconnected from nature, the researchers asked: Can buildings become part of a living metabolism?
SPIKA is a modular microbial–hydroponic system that combines hydroponics, microbial fuel cells, and continuous sensing to enable circular urban plant cultivation. Rather than treating the microbial fuel cell as just an energy source, it conceptualizes SPIKA as a “prosthetic rhizosphere”, a controlled biological chamber that transforms organic waste into plant nutrients, creating a closed loop.
The researchers deployed SPIKA as a living installation at the Triennale Milano for seven months (May–December 2025). This work sits at the intersection of biology, design, architecture, and systems thinking—asking not just how to optimize urban agriculture, but how cities can behave more like living ecosystems. By demonstrating that circular microbial–hydroponic systems are technically feasible and robust at architectural scale, it establishes a critical baseline for integrating waste-to-nutrient infrastructure into the built environment.
Figure 1: The hydroponic tower used in SPIKA. (a) the tower with solution tank (black at the bottom) and eight layers, each with 8 growth baskets. (b) close up of a single growth basket, (c) view of the inside of the tower. Water is pumped up from the reservoir, and when the red tap is open, into the solution dispenser (white pipes) around the top, and the cascades down through the growth baskets protruding into the tower. Modesto et al. (2026)
Read the full publication here:
Modesto LR, Ogun Ramalhete E, Ravasi S, Pezzoli S, Sharma M, Nath D, Yücel I, Moons J, Melcore M, Vershinina A, Tait N, Ogunmefun S, Reutina U, Colliaux D, Mozos IB, Willey NJ, Ieropoulos IA, Cristiani P, Hanappe P, Barriuso J, Schmidt MR and Armstrong R (2026) A modular microbial–hydroponic system for circular urban plant cultivation. Front. Hortic. 5:1799169. doi: 10.3389/fhort.2026.1799169
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