With just a few days left before the six-and-a-half-month 19th Venice Architecture Biennale comes to an end, it is possible to look back on some of the most notable contributions within its thematic framework. Marked by the largest call for participants to date, the Biennale's diversity of topics and the range of installations on display go beyond easy recapitulation. As part of that reflection, several initiatives can be highlighted as illustrative of the principles reflected in the curatorial theme, "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." The concepts interwoven in Carlo Ratti's title form a call to address the urgent need for substantial solutions amid the accelerating climate crisis, positioning the Biennale as a platform for diverse design proposals and experiments organized around three forms of intelligence: natural, artificial, and collective. Beyond the national pavilions and numerous collateral events held throughout Venice over the past six months, among the more than 700 participants are projects that, through practice, embody four shared intentions: opening conversations about the future, proposing systemic responses to local realities, placing technology at the center of design innovation, and pursuing material research rooted in local sensitivity.
From Craft to Climate: Opening Conversations on Architecture's Collaborative Future
In the context of an exhibition, the first point for starting a conversation is recognition. Among the participants in the Venice Biennale are installations that point toward the present to reformulate the practice of architecture toward the future. At the very entrance of the Arsenale, Terms and Conditions confronts visitors with the hidden consequences of thermal comfort by bringing indoors the "outside" of the air conditioner, exposing the waste heat produced by cooling the exhibition rooms and transforming it into a spatial allegory of global inequality and environmental imbalance. The Other Side of the Hill makes the emergency visible through a sculptural landscape that represents the exponential growth and projected decline of the human population, reflecting on the fragile future of biodiversity and the need for new forms of intelligence inspired by the natural world.
Related Article
One Month Until Closing: 10 Must-See National Pavilions at the 2025 Venice Architecture BiennaleIn turn, installations such as Ancient Future: Bridging Bhutan's Tradition and Innovation and 10,000 Hours of Care explore the intersection of craftsmanship, technology, and heritage as sources of renewal for architectural practice. The former bridges traditional Bhutanese woodcarving with AI-driven robotics to imagine a future where preservation evolves through innovation, while the latter translates artisanal dedication into architecture through a low-carbon, energy-positive workshop that redefines industrial design with care and precision, Hermès Workshops in Normandy. Together, these works propose collaborative pathways between tradition and technology, signaling new directions for the design and construction of our material environment.
Terms and Conditions / Transsolar, Bilge Kobas, Daniel A. Barber
The Other Side of the Hill / Beatriz Colomina, Roberto Kolter, Patricia Urquiola, Geoffrey West, Mark Wigley
Ancient Future: Bridging Bhutan's Tradition and Innovation / Bjarke Ingels Group, Laurian Ghinitoiu, Arata Mori
10,000 Hours of Care / Lina Ghotmeh Architecture
Circular Design and Contextual Innovation: Systemic Changes Adapted to Local Conditions
An important concern of this year's Biennale is the commitment to circularity: an approach that challenges the throwaway culture of large-scale exhibitions and redefines the afterlife of their materials and structures. The event called for practices that extend beyond temporary installations to propose durable, adaptable systems capable of responding to the needs of different contexts. Within this framework, several projects stand out for translating circular principles into locally grounded architectural and social responses. Circularity Handbook offers a practical guide to implementing zero-waste strategies across all stages of exhibition-making, while its accompanying installation demonstrates how collaboration can lead to tangible environmental change. Alternative Urbanism: The Self-Organized Markets of Lagos, winner of one of this year's Special Mentions, shifts the focus to the informal economies of African cities, revealing how self-organized networks turn industrial waste into productive ecosystems of reuse. HouseEurope!, featured in a documentary series by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and recipient of this year's OBEL Award, advocates for European legislation that prioritizes renovation and reuse over demolition, framing adaptive transformation as both an ecological necessity and a civic right.
Circularity Handbook / PILLS, JIN ARTS, typo_d, Archi-Neering-Design/AND Office, Róng Design Library, Valeria Tatano, Massimiliano Condotta, Xiaoqing Cui, Zhengwei Tang
Alternative Urbanism: Self-organizing Markets of Lagos / Oshinowo Studio
HouseEurope! / HouseEurope!, s+ (station.plus, D-ARCH, ETH Zurich), b+ Prototypen, CCA – Canadian Centre for Architecture
Digital Intelligence and Adaptive Systems: Technology at the Forefront of Architectural Solutions
This year's Biennale highlights the role of technology not as an end in itself, but as a tool for rethinking how architecture can respond to social and environmental urgencies. Across several installations, technological innovation becomes a medium for experimentation, bridging natural systems and human ingenuity to propose adaptable models for the future. Awarded the Golden Lion for Best Participant in the exhibition, Canal Café transforms the waters of the Venetian Lagoon into espresso through a hybrid purification system that combines bio-filtration and artificial processes, turning a symbol of vulnerability, Venice's canals, into a source of renewal. From a different geographic and climatic context, Deserta Ecofolie explores off-grid living in Chile's Atacama Desert through a compact prototype that integrates fog catchers, solar panels, and wind turbines to sustain a minimum dwelling in extreme conditions. Meanwhile, Circularity on the Edge introduces an AI-driven approach to identifying and reusing materials from buildings damaged in Ukraine, proposing technological circularity as a framework for post-conflict reconstruction.
Canal Café / Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, Davide Oldani
Deserta Ecofolie: A Prototype for Minimum Dwelling in the Atacama Desert and Beyond / Pedro Ignacio Alonso and Pamela Prado
Circularity on the Edge / Kateryna Lopatiuk, Herman Mitish, Yana Buchatska, Orest Yaremchuk, Oleksandr Sirous, Roman Puchko
From Experiment to Substance: Material Research Shaping Architecture's Sustainable Future
Following the exploration of technology as a catalyst for architectural change, material research emerges as its most tangible expression, where experimentation meets construction, and innovation takes physical form. The projects showcased in this section demonstrate how contemporary design can redefine matter itself as an active agent in sustainability, energy performance, and cultural continuity. Water-Filled Glass: Fluid Architecture and Liquid Engineering transforms one of architecture's most traditional materials into a living system, circulating water through transparent panels to regulate indoor temperatures and drastically reduce energy consumption. Elephant Chapel, also awarded a Special Mention, pushes the boundaries of natural materials, reimagining brick construction through bio-based components made of elephant dung to achieve lightweight strength with minimal environmental impact. Meanwhile, Alternative Skies bridges craft and computation by exploring roof and floor systems that combine vernacular building wisdom with digital fabrication, creating structures that are as culturally resonant as they are technically advanced.
Water-Filled Glass: Fluid Architecture and Liquid Engineering / Water-Filled Glass, Hydro Building Systems
Elephant Chapel / Boonserm Premthada
Alternative Skies / Wesam Al Asali, Sigrid Adriaenssens, Romina Canna, Robin Oval
We invite you to check out ArchDaily's comprehensive coverage of the 2025 Venice Biennale.
