In a former railway repair shop in the southern French city of Arles, flasks of lurid green algae are bubbling away on a shelf, in a room that looks like a cross between a modern-day laboratory and a witch’s potion-brewing den. Nearby, a 3D printer spews out curious objects made from algae-based bioplastic, while samples of algae-dyed textiles hang on a rack. Some of the walls appear to be made of rice cakes, others look like Weetabix, while some are daubed with a coat of porridgy gloop. All are natural byproducts of the local sunflower industry, the mashed-up pith and fibres redeployed as acoustic insulation. Elsewhere, there are antibacterial door handles made of salt, harvested from the region’s salt marshes; thermal insulation made from bales of local rice straw; and bathroom tiles made of waste clay from a nearby quarry.

You’ve heard of farm-to-table food? Well, this is farm-to-building architecture: the latest low-carbon weapon in the battle against the climate crisis. “We call it bioregional design,” says Jan Boelen, artistic director of Atelier Luma. Given that the built environment accounts for around 40% of global CO₂ emissions, he argues it is time we embraced locally sourced, organic methods of construction. “We need to move from globalised, extractive supply chains towards regional ecosystems of materials that help regenerate the environment. Where others might see waste, we see opportunities.”

The atelier is the latest addition to Luma Arles, a vast contemporary art campus created by the Swiss billionaire collector and patron Maja Hoffmann, heiress to the Roche pharmaceutical fortune. She opened the 10-hectare park in 2021, trumpeting its arrival with a twisting metal tower by Frank Gehry. Below that, a once arid concrete expanse has been transformed into a lush oasis, and a group of 19th-century train sheds elegantly converted into exhibition halls by Annabelle Selldorf.

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