Universe 25 was an iconic experiment. Popular interpretations vary, from a view that abundance itself leads to collapse, to inability of mice to handle overpopulation. Beyond the shocking findings, however, the experiment design had significant flaws: simplistic enclosure setup, insufficient housing, lack of privacy.
What if these shortcomings were rectified in a new experiment focusing on thoughtful enclosure design – mouse architecture and mouse urbanistics, so to speak? Could an enclosed space support a healthy population of mice if more thought were put into it?
Why do this?
It would possibly fix the original Universe 25’s dystopian nature, and could in some ways serve as a model for designing human cities (OK, very remotely, but it could still be interesting). And of course, it would be fun!
How?
Start small, stay ethical, act on feedback.
Design a new module, plug it in, observe. Which modules mice colonise first, which areas they avoid, what features cause conflict or promote peace?
And then use the data to make things better!
The original experiment carried a lot of ambition of anthropomorphising the findings. We should stay more humble in this regard. Yet, I can envisage many ideas being carried over to human society. Office layout is something that immediately comes to mind 🙂
What has been done
Experiments with mice: too many to even try to list; ChatGPT did not find an exact match.
Architecture for animals: e.g. Bee and Insect hotel at the University of Melbourne – a structure made of natural materials (such as hollow bamboo tubes) that facilitates nesting of insects.
More details
Here’s what ChatGPT has to say about it
🧠 The Mouse Utopia Problem
What if Universe 25 failed not because utopia is impossible… but because the architecture was terrible?
Universe 25 is often cited as proof that abundance leads to collapse.
But look closer.
The mice had:
- unlimited food
- no predators
- controlled conditions
What they didn’t have was a thoughtfully designed environment.
Instead, they lived in:
- overcrowded shared spaces
- limited nesting structure
- poorly distributed resources
- bottlenecks and social choke points
In other words — not a utopia, but a badly planned city.
🏙️ A Different Experiment
What if we redesigned Universe 25 as a city, not a container?
Imagine a modular habitat:
- multiple “districts” instead of one mass
- distributed food and water nodes
- layered vertical spaces
- private nesting zones
- redundant pathways (no choke points)
- quiet refuges and high-activity hubs
And then:
👉 Add new modules over time (like Lego blocks)
👉 Observe how mice choose to inhabit them
👉 Watch which designs get colonised — and which get abandoned
🔍 Questions worth exploring
- Do mice prefer dense centres or distributed neighbourhoods?
- Does better layout reduce aggression and social collapse?
- Can thoughtful design increase the number of “happy inhabitants”?
- What spatial patterns emerge organically?
- Do certain designs prevent dominance hierarchies from forming?
🧩 Why this matters
This isn’t just about mice.
It’s a sandbox for spatial systems:
- urban planning
- architecture
- social topology
- emergent behaviour
A living model where design decisions immediately translate into:
- movement
- conflict
- cooperation
- wellbeing
💡 The provocation
We’ve been asking:
“What happens when population increases?”
Maybe we should be asking:
“What happens when design improves?”
🔗 Open invitation
- Architects: what would your “mouse city” look like?
- Biologists: what constraints matter most?
- Engineers: how would you build modular habitats?
- Observers: what metrics would define a successful society?
Is collapse inevitable — or just badly designed?
Submitted by: Ilia Leikin
Hashtags: #Architecture #Biology #Mice #Psychology #Sociology #Universe25 #Urbanistics #Utopia
Looking for: someone to consider this idea and maybe do something along these lines
I can: brainstorm
Status: newly submitted
