How To Make A Compost Battery
Workshop led by IPA Fellow Martin Rodriguez Jr.
Friday July 24, 2026
@ Earth Matter
Governors Island
PROJECT SPOTLIGHT︎︎︎
MARTIN WANTS YOU TO GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY
Interview with 2026 Summer Fellow Martin Rodriguez Jr.
July 24, 2026
2026 Summer Fellow Martin Rodriguez Jr. held a compost battery making workshop on July 24, 2026 with the Earth Matter NY's Compost Learning Center & Soil Start Farm on Governors Island. He speaks with Deborah Garcia (IPA Residency Director) about compost-as-network, getting your hands in the dirt (literally), and slower futures.
DG:
Collaboration was essential to your initial project proposal for the IPA Independent Project Residency - how did that develop during your residency period, and what did this workshop help you explore?
MRJ:
As part of my IPA fellowship, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with two incredible nonprofit organizations: Earth Matter and Community Tech NY. Both have generously contributed their time, knowledge, resources, and space to help make this project possible.
My research during this residency explores compost as an alternative energy source alongside public-facing, locally accessible digital infrastructure. It asks what it means to connect and disconnect, how systems are maintained, and what alternative technologies can offer at a time when resilience and resistance feel increasingly necessary.
This past week, I led a compost-battery workshop at Earth Matter, a nonprofit focused on resource recovery, compost education, and healthy soil. Seven volunteers and a class of high school students learning about social justice and community resilience came together to build compost batteries. We explored how microorganisms break down organic matter and release electrons, producing small amounts of voltage that can power low-tech devices and potentially contribute to powering a local server.
My research during this residency explores compost as an alternative energy source alongside public-facing, locally accessible digital infrastructure. It asks what it means to connect and disconnect, how systems are maintained, and what alternative technologies can offer at a time when resilience and resistance feel increasingly necessary.
This past week, I led a compost-battery workshop at Earth Matter, a nonprofit focused on resource recovery, compost education, and healthy soil. Seven volunteers and a class of high school students learning about social justice and community resilience came together to build compost batteries. We explored how microorganisms break down organic matter and release electrons, producing small amounts of voltage that can power low-tech devices and potentially contribute to powering a local server.
DG:
Your research has also focused on prototyping an off-grid internet server that is powered by compost. I imagine these servers and batteries operate very differently from the everyday versions that we have become so accustomed to in our daily lives. How does your approach to technology complicate our ingrained relationship to being chronically online and plugged in?
MRJ:
The internet often feels immediate, effortless, and always available. Because we have become accustomed to constant access, even a weak modem signal or a connection tied to a particular location can feel frustrating. We are not simply inconvenienced; we feel cut off from information. My work asks how we might break from this cycle and develop a more intentional relationship with technology.
Off-grid servers and compost batteries make the infrastructure behind our digital lives tangible. They require us to pay attention to where energy comes from, how a network functions, and what it takes to maintain it. By treating the internet as an ecology that needs to be tended—like a garden or a flower arrangement—it becomes something visible, material, and participatory. We can learn how it works, decide what information belongs there, and create resources that are locally useful and shareable.
I think people find satisfaction in making something with their own hands and seeing its parts come together. The compost-battery workshop reinforced this for me. Participants wanted to learn not only how to build a battery, but also how to care for it and what they could power with it. That curiosity points toward a form of collective care: technology becomes less about passive consumption and constant access, and more about tending, learning, making, and sharing.
Off-grid servers and compost batteries make the infrastructure behind our digital lives tangible. They require us to pay attention to where energy comes from, how a network functions, and what it takes to maintain it. By treating the internet as an ecology that needs to be tended—like a garden or a flower arrangement—it becomes something visible, material, and participatory. We can learn how it works, decide what information belongs there, and create resources that are locally useful and shareable.
I think people find satisfaction in making something with their own hands and seeing its parts come together. The compost-battery workshop reinforced this for me. Participants wanted to learn not only how to build a battery, but also how to care for it and what they could power with it. That curiosity points toward a form of collective care: technology becomes less about passive consumption and constant access, and more about tending, learning, making, and sharing.
DG
I love that you mention collective care - especially in the context of a live-in residency program. How does the framework of communal living feed into your research?
MRJ:
For me, collective living at the Block House creates a microcosm of care. We compost what we eat, share meals, work together in the library, exchange ideas about our projects, and take turns caring for shared spaces and resources. It is an active community built through communication, reciprocity, and respect.
Being an IPA Fellow has given me the time and space to explore these questions through public engagement and collaboration. Living with seven other fellows who are equally excited to contribute to one another’s growth has allowed my project to evolve through their knowledge and experiences. It has also reinforced my belief that this work cannot happen alone. It requires shared resources, collective experimentation, and a willingness to imagine different ways of connecting, maintaining, and living together.
Martin Rodriguez Jr. is an architectural designer, educator, and researcher working across architecture, digital technology, and cultural production. His work explores how aesthetics, publicness, and digital media can shape more playful and inclusive spatial experiences while opening architecture to questions of identity, performance, and spatial language. Most recently, he completed a research associate position and residency at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College Visualization Lab. He is currently a faculty member in architecture and design at the University of Houston.
Being an IPA Fellow has given me the time and space to explore these questions through public engagement and collaboration. Living with seven other fellows who are equally excited to contribute to one another’s growth has allowed my project to evolve through their knowledge and experiences. It has also reinforced my belief that this work cannot happen alone. It requires shared resources, collective experimentation, and a willingness to imagine different ways of connecting, maintaining, and living together.
Martin Rodriguez Jr. is an architectural designer, educator, and researcher working across architecture, digital technology, and cultural production. His work explores how aesthetics, publicness, and digital media can shape more playful and inclusive spatial experiences while opening architecture to questions of identity, performance, and spatial language. Most recently, he completed a research associate position and residency at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College Visualization Lab. He is currently a faculty member in architecture and design at the University of Houston.
Participants
