The 19th Biennale Architettura, which opened in Venice on May 10th, 2025, sees the Belgian pavilion transformed by an exhibition titled "Building Biospheres," curated by a team comprising landscape architect Bas Smets and biologist Stefano Mancuso. Initiated by the Flemish government and the Flanders Architecture Institute, this thought-provoking exhibit explores a transformative approach to architecture through the lens of plant intelligence.
Architectural grafting, a concept recently popularized by Jeanne Gang in The Art of Architectural Grafting, presents a transformative approach to urban regeneration and sustainability. Drawing inspiration from botanical and horticultural practices — where new growth is added to existing plants for enhanced resilience — this architectural method integrates new structures with existing ones, allowing them to coexist and adapt. Rather than pursuing demolition, grafting prioritizes adaptation, extending the life of buildings while safeguarding their cultural and historical significance.
While Studio Gang has played a pivotal role in advancing this method, architectural grafting embodies a broader principle that architects have long used to enhance sustainability, conserve resources, and honor heritage. Across scales — from individual buildings to urban landscapes —grafting reshapes the relationship between past and present, adapting existing structures for contemporary needs while addressing environmental demands. By reimagining historic buildings for modern use, this approach fosters a sustainable evolution of cityscapes.
In honor of World Cities Day, which concludes Urban October, this year's theme, "Youth Leading Climate and Local Action for Cities," reflects a growing momentum for sustainable urban solutions championed by local communities and progressive policies. Around the world, cities face intensified demands for resilience, preservation, and innovation as they address challenges from the climate crisis to cultural heritage conservation. These initiatives illustrate a global trend in urban planning, where sustainability, adaptability, and inclusive community priorities take center stage.
In this roundup, ArchDaily consolidates this year's transformative updates in cities worldwide, organized into thematic clusters that capture the evolving nature of urban design and policy in 2024. Projects like the extensive renovations of Barcelona's La Rambla and the preservation efforts around Chicago's historic skyscrapers highlight preservation of urban heritage, while initiatives in Venice and Los Angeles respond to overtourism and housing pressures, balancing livability with growth. Meanwhile, ambitious master plans have been announced, including the revitalization of industrial sites in Tallinn and Connecticut, reflect how cities are reimagining their urban fabric. Finally, post-disaster rebuilding in Kharkiv and Türkiye underscores the urgency of resilience-driven design, ensuring that cities can endure and evolve even in challenging times. Together, these updates offer a glimpse into the global forces reshaping urban landscapes
Iceland presents the Lavaforming at its National Pavilion for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Led by architect Arnhildur Pálmadóttir, founder of s.ap architects, the pavilion is commissioned by Halla Helgadóttir, Iceland Design and Architecture. Lavaforming envisions a provocative and speculative future in which the elemental force of lava is no longer seen solely as a natural hazard but instead embraced as a generative, architectural medium. By harnessing and directing controlled lava flows, the project explores the potential of molten rock to shape urban environments, transforming destruction into construction. Through a series of physical experiments and research-driven installations, Lavaforming demonstrates how this often-feared geological phenomenon could become a renewable and expressive material in the creation of future cities.
The relationship between architecture and naval design has been a fascinating interplay of form and function that has evolved significantly. Both disciplines have a shared history of innovation, aesthetics, and functionality that have informed and inspired each other. This "love affair" has seen architects drawing inspiration from boats, particularly in the modernist era when ships' streamlined, efficient designs influenced the aesthetic of buildings. Conversely, architectural principles have also been adapted to enhance the functionality and form of boats, demonstrating a reciprocal exchange that continues to shape both disciplines.
Contrary to common belief, artificial islands have a lengthy historical background in many regions worldwide. This heritage dates back to the reclaimed islands in Ancient Egypt, the hundreds of Stilt crannogs found in Scottish and Irish lakes and waterways, and the ceremonial islands constructed during the Aztec Empire. By definition, an artificial island is an island that has been constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Artificial islands can be built for many different reasons, and these reasons are only increasing as the world faces the looming issue of space scarcity.
In the past, these islands were intended for ceremonial or agricultural purposes, often verging on solutions for urban space. More recently, the islands have been built to mitigate overcrowding, reclaim land, provide new urban expansions, and meet infrastructure and industrial needs. Artificial islands also have certain strategic advantages and economic gains and can lead to geopolitical benefits. However, these types of projects come at a significant cost to our ecosystem, harming the environment in severe and vast ways.
This article was originally published on Common Edge in 2021 to celebrate Venice's 1,600th birthday.
"We native Venetians and long-term residents number just over 50,000. We are dying out. Soon, we will disappear. The city prefers to be inhabited by someone else: not so much by other categories of human beings but by another way of being in the world.” – Tiziano Scarpa
March 25, 2021, dawned quietly in Venice. The city was still in full lockdown, a Zona Rossa. The Piazza was empty, the calli were eerily still. It was a subdued day to celebrate the birth of Venice. According to 16th century Venetian historian Marin Sanudo, the city was founded in 421 AD. In a city brought to a halt by the pandemic, the joyful clamor of bells ringing out across the city commemorating 1,600 years of existence was a welcome respite from the dreaded silence.
A new exhibition presenting the works of artist Zeng Fanzhi has opened in the historic Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice, Italy. Running from April 17 to September 30, 2024, concurrent with this year’s edition of the Venice Arts Biennale, the “Zeng Fanzhi: Near and Far/Now and Then” exhibition showcases the latest breakthroughs in the artist’s practice in a space adapted by architect Tadao Ando.
Carlo Ratti, the curator of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, along with The President of La Biennale di Venezia, Pietrangelo Buttafuocco, have just revealed highly anticipated details for the upcoming edition. Titled "Intelligens," the exhibition will be running from May 24th to November 23rd, 2025 in Giardini, the Arsenale, and various landmark locations throughout Venice.
The 3rd edition of Shaping the City, a forum on sustainable urban development, took place in Venice between November 24-25, following successful events in Chicago and New Orleans. Organized by the European Cultural Centre, this forum was running in parallel to the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennial exhibition, Time Space Existence. The event, hosted at Palazzo Michiel del Brusà in Cannaregio, brings together global urban planners, architects, academics, and politicians. Notably, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was among the experts invited to explore the intersection of nature and the built environment in Japanese architecture.
Over two days, the conference set out to explore crucial themes such as education, urban commons, displacement, nature integration, and the future of architecture media, a subject discussed during a panel talk attended by ArchDaily’s managing editor, Christele Harrouk. While on-site in Venice, the ArchDaily team sat down with Kengo Kuma to discuss his unique approach to nature-inspired and site-specific designs.
Italian architect and industrial designer Gaetano Pesce has passed away at the age of 84, as announced today on the creator's official Instagram page. Known for the famous UP5 Chair (2000) by B&B Italia which can be compressed like a sponge, and the Organic Building in Osaka, Japan (1993), with a vertical garden irrigated by a complex, computer-controlled hydration system, Pesce dedicated over six decades to his craft, accumulating a portfolio that spanned architecture, product design, and art.
During Milan Design Week 2024, a monographic exhibition titled "Nice to See You" showing at Biblioteca Ambrosiana, is set to feature unreleased works of Gaetano Pesce. Additionally, Gaetano was presenting "L’Uomo Stanco" an outdoor installation in Piazza San Pio XI.
“Reinventing Cities,” C40’s renowned global design competition, has just announced its fourth edition. The competition’s main goal is to “transform underutilized sites or buildings into beacons of sustainability and resilience and act as a showcase for future zero-carbon urban developments.” This year, 15 cities have stepped up the challenge, inviting professionals from various disciplines to reimagine underutilized urban sites and design transformations prioritizing sustainability and inclusivity.
With a commitment to zero-carbon, urban resilient projects, Reinventing Cities has engaged over 3,500 businesses worldwide with 40 projects currently under development globally. This year’s competition is characterized by its ambitious environmental and social objectives; with participating cities spanning continents, including Almere, Bilbao, Bologna, Brussels, Glasgow, Milan, New York, Palermo, Renca, Rome, San Antonio, San Francisco, São Paulo, Seattle, and Venice.
Venice authorities have launched a pilot program for their long-term discussed plan to introduce fees for day-trippers visiting the city. The program, which has been delayed several times citing logistical issues, was officially launched on January 16th, when the online payment platform became operational. While the scope of the program is expected to expand, for now, it will be applied only on certain days during the most crowded season, between April 25 and July 14.
As we reflect on the tumultuous events of 2023, it becomes evident that the challenges posed by changing environmental conditions have left an indelible mark on communities worldwide. In response, architects and urban planners have set out, searching for the ways in which their actions can help create safer environments for communities worldwide, responding with both fast-to-deploy emergency architectures and long-term strategies to build resilience and mitigate risks.
Beyond merely responding to events like the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, Syria, and Morocco, or the widespread flooding in Libya or Pakistan, professionals are attempting to take proactive approaches, developing strategies that extend from predictive modeling to the application of re-naturalizing techniques or the ongoing research into the physics of safer and resilient structures.
The 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia closed on November 26th. A total of 285,000 people visited the exhibition, making it the second most highly attended Architecture Biennale in its history. Named "The Laboratory of the Future," this edition led by curator Lesley Lokko, has been the first to focus on Africa and its diaspora, exploring the “fluid and enmeshed culture of people of African descent that now straddles the globe,” in the words of the curator, with themes of decolonization and decarbonization.
This edition has attracted a wide array of visitors, 38% of whom are represented by students and young people. Visitors organized in groups represented 23% of the overall public, with a large majority of groups coming from schools and universities. The numbers denote an event centered on the transmission of knowledge and circulation of ideas.
While exploring the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, the ArchDaily team had a chance to engage in conversation with several curators of the national pavilions, along with Lesley Lokko, the curator of the entire exhibition. The discussions delved into the unique character of this year’s edition focused on an understanding of Africa as a “Laboratory of the Future.” Through this lens, the biennale became “a healing experience,” in the words of Lesley Lokko, reinterpreting and deconstructing the meaning behind ideas such as decolonization, decarbonization, resource management, or finding the hidden potential in vernacular forms of practice.
Following Lokko’s curatorial direction, the exhibitions presented at the national pavilions explored the specific conditions of their territories, striving to uncover and highlight the unique challenges and opportunities faced by their local cultural landscapes. During the interviews, the curators opened up in regard to their personal inspirations and the drive behind the choice of program, the messages embedded in the displays, and their hopes for the future of the profession.
