How Will We Live Together?

The 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice is curated by architect and scholar Hashim Sarkis. The theme “How will we live together?“ was chosen because we need a new spatial contract. In the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities, architects can imagine 115 spaces in which we can generously live together.

Hashim stated: “The pandemic will come and go, but issues like climate change, mass migration, inequalities, etc. will not disappear if not tackled.

The usage of natural elements and the exploration of new materials that stem from the surrounding fauna and flora as well as vernacular practices, triggered by environmental challenges, underline a “return to nature” phenomenon.

Con-nect-ed-ness

The Danish pavilion, titled Con-nect-ed-ness, explores the circularity of water. Architecture studio Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects and curator Marianne Krogh created the installation, using a cyclic rainwater system.

Visitors follow the pipe and a stream of water, inside, a host serves herbal tea from the plants to display water as a stimulating, nourishing element. Through living bodies, evaporation, photosynthesis and percolation, people and water engage in a mutual process: we meet and influence each other in an immediate sensory experience which can help us see our own place in the greater whole.

Ego to Eco

Copenhagen-based studio EFFEKT created a settlement with a miniature forest titled “ego to eco”. The architects say that these projects offer potential solutions to the challenges of today and depict what it means to think and design ecosystems.

American Framing

Wood was also very central at the Venice Architecture Biennale. The U.S pavilion, a huge wooden structure, created by Andersen and Preissner, called American Framing. The balloon frame is the most common construction method used to build houses. The basic element is always the same, there is something egalitarian about this construction system.

The narrative that the architects choose to tell, in a time when the United States is inflamed by social protests, is that of the most familiar architecture to Americans unites its people.

Co-housing

Norwegian architecture studio Helen & Hard built a 1:1 cross-section of a co-housing project made from spruce wood. The idea is to share spaces, resources and services that can help to reduce our carbon footprint by living more efficiently while at the same time increasing our social welfare and quality of life.

Post-Anthropocene future

All forms of life on Earth, from humans to animals, plants and fungi, are given an equal seat at the table in the Refuge for Resurgence installation by London studio Superflux. A four-metre-long table has been carved from wild oak set for twelve different species of flora and fauna. The table was designed for a speculative, post-Anthropocene future, in which plants and wildlife have reclaimed our cities and mankind has learned to celebrate its dependence on other lifeforms.

Everything is connected

Curator Neyran Turan worked together with architecture and research firm Nemestudio to create stories of multi-species solidarity where, after years of resource extraction, the ‘extractivist’ era has ended. The yellow colour unites everything; nature, industry, and waste and shows how everything is connected and impacted by heavy industry.

2038

Another very pronounced element in this year’s biennale is the digital aspect. Germany introduced a visually-emptied pavilion with only QR codes on the walls that redirect the visitors to videos. The German pavilion, “2038”, imagines the world in the era of “New Serenity”, and tells the story of an alternative future.

In a series of films, 2038 tells the story of a better world in which everything, though imperfect, is better in some pretty profound and radical ways. It shows a look back from the future, to a world where many of today’s problems have been overcome. Digital technology makes it possible to visit the pavilion from anywhere in the world.

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Why this matters

Architecture plays an important role in solving the issues of the future such as population density, warming cities and the lack of contact with nature. It tackles systems by creating solutions and art explores what these solutions might be. In the Nature First chapter of vision 2023 we discuss how masterplans are needed to create future cities that work.