Wunderbugs is an interactive wooden pavilion, with sensors that collect changes in the landscape and allow insects to modulate a musical composition, created by Francesco Lipari and Vanessa Todaro of studio OFL Architecture in Rome in 2014.
It is a project curated by Francesco Lipari and Vanessa Todaro of OFL Architecture studio and was installed for the first time during the second edition of the Maker Faire Europe, in October 2024 in the spaces of the rooftop gardens of the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome.
Within it, six interactive ecosystems in spherical form are equipped with Arduino and sensors for brightness, proximity, and movement, from which the main vital parameters of plants and insects are traced and extrapolated to then transform them into music
Its architecture, entirely dedicated to the man-insect relationship, combines pure craftsmanship with the use of numerical control machines.
Inspired by the typical forms of Roman baroque, hybridized with geometries that insects are capable of producing, the pavilion was conceived as an aggregation of simple and repetitive elements by the architectural firm specializing in outdoor projects.
The pavilion can assume infinite configurations thanks to the modularity achieved through the careful combination of 1104 arch modules, 92 rhombuses that allow alternating and adjusting the solids and voids, and 198 wooden nodes that regulate its circular or curvilinear layout.
Playing with technology, architecture, and the geometry of the pavilion, Wunderbugs becomes an open-air room equipped with audio system where music acts as a mediator between nature and humans, an inseparable connection with the harmony of the world.
The project benefits from the valuable collaboration of a multidisciplinary team composed of Chiara Settanni (biologist), Marco Pesoli (sound technician), Vincenzo Core (composer), Giulio Vitale (beekeeper), and Sebastian Di Guardo (architect).
