Learning from participatory methods within design and citizen science, the research explores air quality through the ability of moss to

Using live case studies, the research aims to explore the opportunities of participatory design, to increase engagement in air quality through the co-design, construction and ongoing care of a moss prototype. It is interested in how participatory architecture can engage with air pollution as a condition of urban ecology. Focusing on moss as a more-than-human companion within this study, which, like us, breathes, it focuses on understanding how this awareness can be fostered through the relationship between the participants and moss.

Informed by Eco-Feminism, the research explores the role of moss as a more-than-human participant. This relationship with moss is informed by Haraway’s theory of ‘companion species’, where planetary survival relies on a process of learning from the more-than-human. To stay with the troubled atmosphere we find ourselves within, the poor air quality, the research explores the importance of thinking with other species’ experience of this atmosphere. Testing an eco-feminist practice, the research explores exchanges of knowledge between the human and the more-than-human, to expand our understanding of the environment, through the breath of the moss, which draws-in polluted air.

An understanding of the role of moss within the engagement process is constructed through situated knowledge gathered during live case studies, where insights are found through the process of being embedded within the project. The research uses these three case studies within Cardiff as part of the Grangetown Project, to explore the impact of different uses of moss within a participatory project to develop an awareness of air as an environmental resource.
The Play Lanes Project explores how moss can be used within an existing participatory project, bringing this agenda to a more traditional architectural project. The Breathing Moss Exhibition structures the project around moss and air quality as a subject. It uses the ‘living lab’ method to develop a participatory experiment with the Grange Youth Committee, aimed at collecting new knowledge about how to cultivate the moss, to imagine how it could be used at the scale of the neighbourhood. These ideas are explored through a Creative Practice of research, testing how we can think with moss as a more- than-human actor within the project, by developing new ways of working within the three case studies.

The research explores how methods with citizen science, which focus on engagement with natural resources and behaviour change can inform architectural participatory projects addressing city making. While focused on air quality, the research looks to explore how thinking with the more-than-human as an actor, within a participatory project, can inform how urban design addresses other natural resources. It looks to develop a participatory framework in response to the Future Generations Act Sustainable Development of Wales, considering how we approach social and environmental justice through participatory designs, telling eco-feminist stories of environmental care.