Some art just can’t be contained, even by the buildings that house it, expanding beyond these constrictions like alien appendages to burst through windows, wrap around columns and slink onto the sidewalks below. Inorganic materials take on the qualities of living things, manifesting as artificial parasitic growths as they cling to the facades of buildings in architectural installations that take on lives of their own.

Hyperbolic Installation by Crystal Wagner, Poland

An alien-like growth wraps itself around the corner facade of a historic building in Lodz, Poland, stretching tentacle-like appendages in shades of vivid pink, blue and purple. The site-specific work by Crystal Wagner is made from woven strips of plastic.

Wood Tentacles by Henrique Oliveira

Wooden forms expand to fill entire interior spaces, taking over light root systems to push through windows and doorways and into the streets, or in one case, to act as a secret system of interior tunnels. Artist Henrique Oliveira of Brazil typically installs his organic sculptures in gallery spaces, but one particular work has it bursting out of the confines of Casa dos Leoes in Porto Alegre.

10,000 Bats on the Nature Concert Hall

Thousands of bats stream straight out of the front door of the Nature Concert Hall at Zalenieki Manor in Latvia, forming a surreal cloud on its lawn. Architecture firm DJA took inspiration from the unpredictable formations found in nature when assembling the congregation of 10,000 paper bats, which create a tunnel effect when viewed from below.

Vortex by 1024 Architecture, Bordeaux, France

Strips of wood have taken it upon themselves to escape one building and grip the exterior of another, streaming toward it in a manner suggestive of autonomy. ‘Vortex’ is a generative light sculpture by 1024 Architecture almost completely made of scaffolding, installed on the Darwin Ecosystem Project’s green building in Bordeaux, France. “Merging organic materials with new technologies, this hybrid architectural artwork wraps around and embraces the footbridge between the complex’s two buildings, revealing and enhancing the venue’s dynamic energy while working as a live visualizer of energy consumption.”

Biografias by Alicia Martin, Madrid

An ornate second-floor window seems to vomit thousands of books onto the sidewalk below in this installation by artist Alicia Martin, as if they, too, are hoping to escape the building. The effect is enhanced by the movement of the pages as they’re blown by the wind. Martin has created similar site-specific installations in buildings all over her home country of Spain.

Glowing Star in an Unfinished Building by Jun Ong

Like some kind of alien life form that started out tiny and suddenly expanded, impaling an entire building upon itself, this five-story star made of light by Jun Ong suggests rapid growth that could not be contained. The artist envisions the LED sculpture as a physical manifestation of a glitch.

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Parasitic Art 11 Installations Taking Over Buildings Like Organic Growths

Prefab structures jut out from the roofs of Paris’ charming architecture, adding affordable real estate to the densely-packed, land-scarce city in the only way possible: building up. While other cities across the world are knocking down one older structure after another to build shiny new condos that stretch up into the sky, the new units are often too expensive for the average urban resident, and significantly alter the historic character of each individual place.

Whether historically significant or not, the older buildings in most cities help give each location its own particular flavor. Razing them to throw up generic condominiums for people with upper-middle-class incomes not only displaces existing residents, it erases much of each city’s personality. A new project called 3BOX aims to compromise.

Stéphane Malka Architecture has designed a series of rooftop prefabs that work within the context of Paris’ new property law, the Loi ALUR, which aims to construct 70,000 new dwellings per year while also stabilizing rent. The law comes with a relaxation in planning and zoning, enabling new rooftop construction.

While many of the new dwellings built under Loi ALUR will go on brownfield sites, like those currently owned by French rail company SNCF, others will have to be woven into the fabric of the city in more creative ways. ‘Les Toits Du Monde,’ or the Roofs of the World, offers three different prefab structures bolted onto existing buildings with steel supports.

Not everyone will be crazy about altering 19th century buildings with these prefab boxes, no matter how science-fiction it may start to look, but the rooftop terraces help make them more attractive, and they could be a good option for structures with less aesthetic value.

As the economic divide grows and affordable land becomes more scarce, local residents could re-take outlying spaces and even iconic local structures with self-governed parasitic micro-cities. In French architect Stephane Malka’s concept ‘P9 Ghetto-Mobile,’ a collection of rectilinear rooms in a shocking hue of red seems to float within a lace-like structure, hovering above the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris.

The modular system of private and public spaces, connected by footbridges, could be adapted for all sorts of disused urban settings. The designer describes the scheme as a ‘voluntary ghetto’ in which local residents choose to create their own miniature city with residences, offices, galleries, night clubs, shops and playgrounds, all owned and run by themselves.

Mounted on scaffolding, the structures can be quickly assembled and disassembled to move on to a new location when necessary, adapting into new configurations as the site and number of participants changes. Says Malka, “It is a voluntary ghetto, an organized community of ideas, a hood built from an appropriation of land both conquered and controlled.”

The concept calls to mind other bridge city designs, which either reinvent existing bridges like the London Bridge and abandoned stretches of highway in Italy, or create entirely new infrastructure to stretch architecture across canyons or bodies of water.

In cities around the world, people are feeling the effects of a weak global economy and homeless populations continue to rise. Taking shelter in cardboard boxes or in isolated tents can be dangerous – not only due to inclement weather, but also for the fear of robbery or violence.

The A-Kamp47 project from Malka Architecture gives the homeless a safe place to sleep. Using a blank vertical expanse of wall, they installed 23 small tent pods. The pods are “parasitic” structures, meaning that they rely on another structure to provide them a place to sit.

Each tent provides a private space for the city’s homeless. The grouping of tents embodies the old adage “safety in numbers.” Residents can enter their tents via the scaffolding between the wall and the tend pods.

The project is not without controversy; the wall used by the architects exists in a grey area between private and public space. They hope, however, that their efforts will lead to increased awareness of the homeless problem and encourage people to get involved in the cause.

Upon the centuries-old architecture of Place Vendome in Paris, nest-like structures of head-scratching proportions have appeared; messy wooden lean-to huts clinging to verdigris pillars and posh old buildings. It seems as if giant birds have descended upon the city and made it their home.

The parasitic structures are the ‘tree huts’ of Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata, a continuation of a series that has taken him around the globe.

Five small cabins have been installed in key places in the Place Vendome, including the Vendome column, built in 1702 as a monument to the armies of Louis XIV.

The confusion of wooden slats draws the curiosity of onlookers, wondering who – or what – could be inside. The structures will be up for a month as part of FIAC 2013, an art festival in Paris. Among the other places in which Tadashi’s parasitic architecture has been installed are New York’s Madison Square Garden, Florence and Switzerland.