The 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia 2025, curated by Carlo Ratti, runs from May 10 to November 23 and turns Venice into a collective laboratory exploring how architecture can adapt to environmental and social transformation. Under the title Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., the exhibition investigates how human, technological and ecological intelligence can interact to shape the future of living.
Defined by Ratti as the age of adaptation, this Biennale invites architects, researchers, and artists to collaborate across disciplines, presenting design as an open and inclusive process.
THE ITALIAN PAVILION: TERRÆ AQUÆ
Curated by Guendalina Salimei, the Italian Pavilion presents Terræ Aquæ. Italy and the Intelligence of the Sea, hosted at the Tese delle Vergini in the Arsenale. It examines the meeting point between land and sea as a territory of coexistence, transformation, and ecological awareness. Projects explore coastal resilience and the intelligent reuse of infrastructures as a way to build new relationships between environment, culture, and design.
MY PARTICIPATION
I took part in the Italian Pavilion through the national call Terræ Aquæ with two contributions.
The first, “LISA – Laboratorio Innovativo per la Sostenibilità e l’Analisi“, developed as my thesis and research project, studies how disused offshore structures can become autonomous research centers powered by renewable energy.
The second, “Hellas Gioiosa Project” , created with the SicilyLab team and presented in the section Social Activation and Participation, focuses on the revival of an ancient Greek-Sicilian site through community-based design and land art. Both works engage with regeneration, environmental intelligence, and architecture as a social and cultural bridge.
LISA – Laboratorio Innovativo per la Sostenibilità e l’Analisi,
Hellas Gioiosa Project – Gioiosa Marea (ME)
THE 2025 BIENNALE CONTEXT
The 2025 Biennale presents a wide range of reflections on adaptation and collaboration. Instead of proposing definitive answers, the exhibition unfolds as a dialogue between different approaches to ecology, material culture, and collective intelligence.
One of the central installations, Canal Café by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, transformed Venice’s canal water into espresso through visible systems of purification.
The project turned a simple ritual into a reflection on infrastructure, care, and the role of design in making visible what sustains urban life.
Read more on Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s official page
The Danish Pavilion, curated by Søren Pihlmann and titled Build of Site, approached the same theme from a material perspective, reconstructing its own building from existing elements and exploring circularity in construction.
Further details on ArchDaily
In the United Arab Emirates Pavilion, Pressure Cooker by Azza Aboualam explored how architecture intersects with food security and climate resilience through modular greenhouses designed for arid regions.
More on National Pavilion UAE
The Slovenian Pavilion, Master Builders, curated by Ana Kosi and Ognen Arsov, reflected on the link between architect and craftsman, showing how manual skill and collective making remain central to contemporary design.
Full article on ArchDaily
Taken together, these perspectives reveal how adaptation in architecture is less about invention than about understanding transformation as an ongoing process of learning, reuse, and shared creativity. Other pavilions, from Northern Europe to Asia, continued this dialogue through experiments in ecological construction, material intelligence, and social participation, showing that the Biennale is not a competition but a conversation among diverse cultures and practices.
OPENING AND REFLECTIONS
The opening days at the Arsenale were animated by curiosity and exchange among architects, curators, and visitors. Experiencing the Biennale through the Italian Pavilion allowed me to connect academic research with practice and to contribute to a broader discussion on how design can mediate between innovation, environment, and shared imagination.
