14 October 2026 | 17:30 – Talk
15 October 2026 | 16:00 – Workshop
10/26
Nafsika Efklidou
Jana Čulek
/ Studio fabula /
Supported by the Kultura Nova Foundation
The fourth and final event of this year's Creative Hour: Spatial Practices programme focuses on innovation through materials and on exploring the relationships between architecture, biology and living systems, and will host Nafsika Efklidou. She will join us at Urania for the lecture Designing with the Living and the workshop Mapping Sentience, asking what happens when we stop thinking of materials and architecture as static and unchanging, and instead begin to understand them as hosts for life, growth and transformation.
Nafsika Efklidou is an Amsterdam-based architect and researcher, whose work explores the intersection of landscape design and textile architecture, with a strong focus on nature-inclusive and climate-adaptive strategies. She studied architecture in Thessaloniki, Greece and completed a post-master at the Berlage Center at TU Delft.
At Inside Outside, from 2016 to 2025, Nafsika led several experimental research-by-design projects, including Bioreceptive Textiles, an experimental exploration of three-dimensional textiles that can host microbial and plant life, and Living Soils, a transdisciplinary investigation into the role of soil biodiversity in urban resilience, water management, and human health.
Her work is distinguished by its interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, spanning scales from material prototypes to regional strategies. By blending ecological research with spatial imagination, she creates hybrid spaces and narratives that are adaptive, soft, tactile, and evolving over time.
LECTURE - Designing with the Living
14 October 2026 | 17:30
Architectural textiles are made to stay clean and unchanged. What if they were designed to be colonised by living organisms instead?
Architect and researcher Nafsika Efklidou reflects on shifting her design perspective towards an approach in which biology plays a central role. Designing with living systems as an inherently time-based condition requires a holistic approach to design, while it opens the design process to unpredictability. In this lecture, she expands on how ecology, biology and design are intertwined, through her work with architectural textiles, inspirations and material experimentations.
WORKSHOP - Mapping Sentience
15 October 2026 | 16:00–20:00
This workshop invites you to explore architecture not as an inert shell, but as a living scaffold and a host for life in its many forms.
We will explore an urban space in Zagreb that has been taken over by nature and approach it through the lens of sentience: the ability to feel, perceive, and respond to one's surroundings. Through close-up looking, touching and tracing surfaces, we will uncover the material, spatial and atmospheric conditions that allow life to settle and grow. The first half takes place outdoors: observing, sketching and collecting found materials. Back at Urania, we bring these together in one collective collage and share the interactions between species and materials we observed.
The Spatial Practices programme was developed in collaboration with Jana Čulek of Studio Fabula.
photo: Job Claushuis
Ana Skobe
Ivan Dorotić
Jure Živković
Tena Starčević
10/26
Vojkan Jocić Kvartet
10/26
NAE Collective
Marko Slaviček
10/26
Paula Strunden, PhD
Jana Čulek
09/26
B’s FUNinstallation
09/26
Andreja Lovreković
Ela Meseldžić
Martina Petric
Sven Sorić
09/26
Laura Mrkša
Nataša Mihaljčišin
08/26
Eliza Dushku
Peremen
07/26
Stjepan Nodilo
Anabela Barić
Franjo Bilić
06/26
Marina Mesar OKO
Saša Begović
06/26
06/26
Marko Slaviček
NAE Collective
05/26
Federica Zatta
Jana Čulek
05/26
ZvUQ (Zagreb Unlimited Quintet)
04/26
04/26
Teresa Fankhänel
Jana Čulek
04/26
03/26
Andrea Šarić
Dora Bilandžić
Ema Božek
Dina Milovčić
Franka Tretinjak
03/26
ZvUQ (Zagreb Unlimited Quintet)
Renata Penezić
03/26
Sven Sorić
Maša Poljanec
02/26
Dubravka Vranić, PhD
Andrija Mutnjaković, Member of the Academy
Prof. Branko Kincl, Member of the Academy
Prof. Krešimir Ivaniš
Ivona Jerković
Prof. Valentina Gulin Zrnić, PhD
02/26
Marin Mikelić
Tomislav Vreš
Anđela Karabašević
Vladislav Sudžum
Marina Lazović
Predrag Ignjatović
01/26
Places are limited, so please reserve your place for:
The lecture will be held in English