Following architect maverick Magnus Larsson's inspired TED talk in July 2009, now translated into more than 20 languages, his vision for a future in which buildings or entire cities might be made through an engineered architectural lithification of biologically treated sand – or, in the words of BLDGBLOG's Geoff Manaugh, 'a kind of infection of the earth' – has set in motion a worldwide trend of speculative projects investigating architecture on the bacterial, or indeed chemical, scale. His London studio, 6699, fuses advanced research into such groundbreaking areas with an ingeniously experimental and formally imaginative take on contemporary architectural practice. The AA graduate's work has been published by a wide array of magazines ranging from Wired via Wallpaper through to Vogue US. Winner of the latest Holcim Awards “Next Generation” prize, Larsson lectures widely on the international stage. His latest publication is a chapter in the snappily titled Macro-engineering Seawater in Unique Environments: Arid Lowlands and Water Bodies Rehabilitation (Springer Verlag, 2011).
