ABOUT

Mondobruto is an original concept by Alessio Fava that merges architecture and nature through contemporary concrete works in dialogue with mosses and plants. With a handcrafted and innovative approach, it explores the relationship between matter and life, creating unique pieces that transform and live before our eyes, in our homes.

 

Mondobruto is a Milan-based project by Italian designer Alessio Fava, exploring the relationship between humans, architecture, and nature through small-scale concrete structures inspired by brutalism. These handcrafted pieces are housed in sealed terrariums, where rigid forms slowly become overgrown with moss and plants—transforming static material into living systems.
As in abandoned buildings where nature gradually reclaims space, Mondobruto recreates this process on a miniature scale, within a controlled microcosm. Concrete—rigid, raw, and industrial—serves as the base for a transformation in which vegetation takes over, reshaping both form and meaning.
Each piece is not a static object but a living organism in evolution, activated by its relationship with the viewer. Mondobruto offers a reflection on the life cycle of architecture and the regenerative force of nature, opening a dialogue on time, memory, and the fragile balance between creation and decay.
The structures are crafted using custom molds—often made from polystyrene—designed to echo brutalist architecture. Fava casts the concrete in a single pour or in modular layers to achieve weathered textures and intentional imperfections that evoke the passage of time. Each sculpture is then placed inside a terrarium with natural substrates, mosses, and carefully selected plants.
The use of Japanese planting materials and cultivation techniques allows for a precise balance between plant growth and architectural form. Over time, greenery colonizes the surface—creeping into cracks, softening sharp edges, and bending the structure to nature’s will. What takes decades in the urban landscape unfolds here in fast motion, revealing that the boundary between matter and life is never fixed but always shifting.
Fava describes this process as a “silent uprising,” where nature doesn’t ask for permission—it grows, even through concrete. Mondobruto becomes a poetic battleground, a space where permanence meets impermanence, and nature quietly reclaims what was built.
At a time when design is embracing biophilic principles, urban regeneration, and rewilding, Mondobruto becomes part of a broader reflection: What happens when the built environment is abandoned? Does nature destroy it—or transform it?
By merging brutalist aesthetics with the regenerative force of nature, Mondobruto invites us to rethink our relationship with artificial space, allowing nature to tell its side of the story—one crack, one sprout at a time.