Maetherea

Maetherea Maetherea is a performative Design Studio, working internationally on Landscape Architecture and Public Art - founded and directed by Cristina Morbi

Maetherea is an innovation-oriented Design Studio, working internationally on Environmental Design and Public Art. We are a multidisciplinary creative practice that aims to create sustainable landscape design, public art and socially engaged sculptural works that couple renewable resources with technology to create interactive sculptures. We focus on unique design solutions, from concept to develo

pment, proposing the forth dimension of Time as key element to operate in the Public Realm. We create Time-Based Iconic Design and Art installation working on the interaction between human and nature, continuously evolving in new scenarios. We believe urban spaces are not a sequence of objects, but rather a choreography of performances, jointing the Sculptural perception to Experiential design, and evocative. In this way, we focus on the narrative: the story behind a place and finding a new and creative way to celebrate this.

Director Cristina Lavinia Morbi was honoured to speak at Rotary this week, sharing a selection of projects that explore ...
20/02/2026

Director Cristina Lavinia Morbi was honoured to speak at Rotary this week, sharing a selection of projects that explore environmental narratives across landscape and public art.

The evening focused on how design can engage directly with tides, rainfall, soil chemistry and geological matter, proposing spaces shaped by time and natural processes rather than fixed form.

Thank you to Rotary International Rotary London for the invitation, the warm welcome and the thoughtful discussion.

Yesterday marked the final day of Lithic Chords closed its tuning system in the Arsenale after a journey both tectonic ...
24/11/2025

Yesterday marked the final day of

Lithic Chords closed its tuning system in the Arsenale after a journey both tectonic and impossibly fast. Three months from design to the last stone on site, with drawings, engineering, material searches and late nights. Thank you to for this invaluable opportunity and experience.

It has been one of the most rewardung processes I have carried, and also one of the most generous.
My thanks to those who shaped it with me.
Francesco Banchini, for the structural design and teamwork behind this ambitious system.
for giving voice to this architectural diapason with sounding stones 🌿

Grateful to .bidaud Pierre Bidaud and Alexandre Bertrand of The Stonemasonry Company Limited, whose craft and activism opened a new way of reading stone.

Thanks to Cereser Marmi team, to Daniel Elber and Manni Sipre, to Macalloy, and to Didier Tandy for their invaluable support.

To for supporting me from the first day in the Arsenale breaking the ground and capturing the installation with his poetic lenses. And to for holding this journey through her filming.

Thank you to Associazione Donne del Marmo for recognising the poetry behind Lithic Chords and my research. Working in construction is not always simple for women, but this award is a reminder to keep our ground.

Lithic Chords will now be tuned in new places. Thank you for everyone that has been part of it 🙏✨











A heartfelt thank you to Valentina Silvestrini and for this generous and insightful article, which traces our work fro...
27/10/2025

A heartfelt thank you to Valentina Silvestrini and for this generous and insightful article, which traces our work from Lithic Chords at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 with to Understory at Orticolario and Ruderal Calligraphies at Marmomac Read the full Article in the stories 🌿

The piece reflects on our continuous research into living materials / from stone to vegetation / and on Maetherea’s dialogue between art, architecture, and ecology.

“Maetherea’s vision is not to create objects or monuments, but laboratories of architectural experimentation in the landscape, capturing its interaction with humans and natural phenomena.”

Grateful also to all collaborators and partners who made these works possible. .official

Lithic Chords, Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 curated by
On view until 23 November 2025

Understory – Tapestry of the UnseenAt Orticolario 2025, within the central prato of Villa Erba Lake of Como, Understory ...
07/10/2025

Understory – Tapestry of the Unseen

At Orticolario 2025, within the central prato of Villa Erba Lake of Como, Understory unfolded as a landscape art installation by the London-based studio Maetherea 🌿

The title plays on the double meaning of understory (the forest’s lower layer) and under story (hidden stories), evoking ecological and cultural narratives that often remain unseen.

A living tapestry of spontaneous and alimurgic plants, interwoven with hundreds of reflective threads, stretches across the lawn, recalling the intricate motifs of Persian tapestries while inviting the landscape itself to weave. At its centre, a vertical wooden frame stands as a symbolic loom, continuously binding human gestures and vegetal intelligence into a shared fabric of growth.

As in Persian weaving traditions, an intentional flaw – the “Persian defect” – reminds us that beauty lives in imperfection and change. In Understory, the drawing itself evolves: plants sprout, seeds migrate, and the pattern transforms over time, celebrating unpredictability as a force of renewal.

Around the tapestry grow bardana and amaranto – plants tied to ancient practices of foraging and nourishment – turning every visitor into an agent of dispersal and metamorphosis.

Thank you to Orticolario for creating a space where landscape, art, and experimentation coexist and thrive.

Thank you to the wonderful team that made this possible
Design: Cristina Morbi with GĂĽnther Galligioni
Structural consultant: Giovanni Cupani
Plants: Vivaio Fratelli Gramaglia .gramaglia.568
Amaranths: Olga Flower Farm
Installation: Cometa Formazione
Carpentry: Artwood Academy Artwood Academy .official
Aggregates supply: Diego Bellamoli

Iron Reef 🌿 Published on Thank you for this feature ✨
07/10/2025

Iron Reef 🌿 Published on
Thank you for this feature ✨

Understory : Tapestry of the Unseen — 2–5 October 2025, Villa Erba — Lake ComoTomorrow is the last day to walk through U...
04/10/2025

Understory : Tapestry of the Unseen — 2–5 October 2025
, Villa Erba — Lake Como

Tomorrow is the last day to walk through Understory, a tapestry that explores the unseen layers of the landscape. Inspired by Persian tapestry traditions and the idea of the “Persian flaw,” the intentional mistakes weavers add to a perfect geometry, the installation celebrates imperfection as a source of beauty and diversity. With the use of Bardana, a plants famous for his seeds attaching to clothes and furs, nettle and amaranth to challenge our perception of gardens and plants.

I am deeply grateful to all those who helped bring this living tapestry to life 🌿
A great team with Gunther Galligioni, .official Artwood Academy, Vivaio Fratelli Gramaglia, Granulati Bellamoli, and Cometa Formazione

Cristina Morbi / Maetherea

Last Friday I was honoured with the Donna del Marmo Award 2025 🌿Ten years after , this recognition feels deeply meaning...
30/09/2025

Last Friday I was honoured with the Donna del Marmo Award 2025 🌿
Ten years after , this recognition feels deeply meaningful..

I thank Le Donne del Marmo and their wonderful president for her touching words about my practice and its connection with their values of wonder, experimentation, and appreciation for stone as an ancient matter bound with time. At

Gratitude also to the team of Lithic Chords 🙏 Cereser Verona, Fondazione Sciola, Manni Sipre, and The Stonemasonry Company / and to ADI and Essegi Marmi for my commission Ruderal Calligraphies at Marmomac.

It has been an incredible journey, from Biennale to Marmomac and it was an honour meeting and working with incredible professionals, merging craftmenship and knowledge 🌿

Last Friday I was honoured with the Donna del Marmo Award 2025. 🙏Ten years after Maestro , this recognition feels deepl...
29/09/2025

Last Friday I was honoured with the Donna del Marmo Award 2025. 🙏
Ten years after Maestro , this recognition feels deeply meaningful.

I thank Le Donne del Marmo and President Antonella di Biase for her touching words about my practice and its connection with their values of wonder, experimentation, and appreciation for stone as an ancient matter bound with time. Thank you as well to

Gratitude also to the team of Lithic Chords: Cereser Verona, Fondazione Sciola, Manni Sipre, and The Stonemasonry Company / and to ADI and Essegi Marmi for Ruderal Calligraphies at Marmomac.

These projects are born from shared skills and passions, united in one living language of stone.

🌿 Ruderal Calligraphies / Calligrafie Ruderali 🌿 Cristina Morbi Maetherea at MarmomacPresented at Marmomac 2025, Ruderal...
28/09/2025

🌿 Ruderal Calligraphies / Calligrafie Ruderali 🌿 Cristina Morbi Maetherea at Marmomac

Presented at Marmomac 2025, Ruderal Calligraphies is a modular bio-receptive façade prototype that transforms stone into a living interface.

Ruderal plants are pioneers: they colonise cracks, disturbed soils and the most inhospitable surfaces, stabilising them and creating microhabitats where new life can begin. By designing stone surfaces that are carved, porous and water-catching, the façade becomes receptive to these spontaneous ecologies.

The calligraphies etched on Breccia Pernice trace the invisible movements of water through stone, making time and geology legible on the surface of architecture. What starts as bare mineral matter slowly becomes a narrative of water, vegetation and transformation.

With this work, we aim to challenge both the conventions of the stone façade and the green façade system, proposing a hybrid surface where architecture, geology and ecology converge.

A warm thank you to ADI Associazione per il Disegno Industriale Daniel Elber silvia sandini for their support and craftsmanship, which made this exploration possible. 🌿

At the GENS Speakers’ Corner of the Biennale Architettura 2025 we presented Lithic Landscapes: Performative Futures and ...
17/09/2025

At the GENS Speakers’ Corner of the Biennale Architettura 2025 we presented Lithic Landscapes: Performative Futures and Circular Methodologies.

We reflected on Lithic Chords / Corda Litica — stone not as a static mass but as an instrument, tensioned and resonant, carrying memory. A structure where we repurposed stone fragments as spolia, reframing Venice’s tradition of recombining stones from dispersed origins. Using the expressive and structural possibilities of stone.

The project opens a dialogue between geology and ecology, between deep time and the time of collective inhabitation.

Thank you to the wonderful team who partecipate to this talk this possible


-tensioned

✨On Saturday 13 September, 15:00–17:00, join us in the Speakers’ Corner at the Venice Biennale, Corderie, Arsenale for L...
27/08/2025

✨On Saturday 13 September, 15:00–17:00, join us in the Speakers’ Corner at the Venice Biennale, Corderie, Arsenale for Lithic Landscapes: Performative Futures and Circular Methodologies. Part of IntelliGens Public Program curated by

Together with architects, engineers, musicians, and stone specialists, we will explore performative landscapes, circular practices, and the sound of geology.

1 — Stone as Landscape and Material Memory
Performative Landscapes, Ecologies and Methodologies behind Lithic Chords — Cristina Morbi (Maetherea, The Bartlett)
Stone Lifecycles — Oliver Wilton (The Bartlett)
The Sound of Geology — Andrea Granitzio (Fondazione Sciola)

2 — Stone as Methodology
Behind the Scenes of Lithic Chords — Francesco Banchini (SBP)
Augmented Stone — Pierre Bidaud (The Stonemasonry Company)
Natural Stone — Domenico Cereser (Cereser Marmi), Arch. Giorgio Canale

A dialogue between architecture, geology, craft, and sound, reimagining stone as a living methodology for ecological and sustainable futures.


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