IAAC at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025

Building as Collective Prototyping – The Barcelona Urban Tech Hub

One of the central exhibits at the Biennale will be Building as Collective Prototyping, featuring a large-scale model of the future Barcelona Urban Tech Hub, the new headquarters of IAAC, designed by IAAC’s Director, Daniel Ibáñez and Founder, Vicente Guallart, with their practice Urbanitree. Selected for the Central Pavilion at the Arsenale, this project, developed in collaboration with the Barcelona City Council, reimagines an obsolete industrial site in the 22@ district into a cutting-edge hub for urban innovation.

This new building, integrating biomaterials, industrialized construction, and self-sufficiency strategies, stands as a manifesto of regenerative architecture. Research from IAAC has shaped its design, incorporating elements such as robotic timber construction, decentralized energy systems, 3D-printed earth structures, urban greenhouses, and environmental monitoring sensors. The installation at the Biennale will highlight how intelligence—natural, artificial, and collective—can shape the cities of tomorrow.

Metabolic Home – A Prototype for Circular Living

Areti Markopoulou, IAAC’s Academic Director, together with Lydia Kallipoliti from Columbia GSAPP and Post-Spectacular Office, present The Metabolic Home: New Forms of Cohabitation and Decarbonization in the Dense City, a housing prototype redefining regenerative architecture. The project envisions the home as a self-sustaining organism, where every drop of water, organic material, and waste has a purpose.

Far from metaphorical, Building Metabolism here becomes a tangible architectural, social, and ecological framework for circular living. Inhabitants of the home—both human and more than human—participate in resource flows, transforming waste into energy, materials, and nourishment. Domestic spaces interconnect, exchanging outputs and generating new domestic and hybrid typologies.

The housing prototype selected for the Central Pavilion at the Arsenale challenges us to rethink waste, care, and cohabitation, transforming homes into miniature ecologies embedded within the urban fabric.

The opening days of the Venice Biennale will also mark the launch of Areti and Lydia’s new book, Building Metabolism: Recipes for Food and Resource Cycles.

From Extracting to Metabolizing – Building with Wood in the Basque Country

Daniel Ibáñez, IAAC’s Director, presents Materials: From Extracting to Metabolizing within the Spanish Pavilion Internalities. The installation explores the role of industrialized solid wood construction—particularly cross-laminated timber—as a strategic response to the environmental challenges of the building sector.

Developed in collaboration with photographer María Azkarate and researcher Carla Ferrer, the project focuses on the Basque Country, where a strong regional ecosystem is leading the way in timber-based architecture. From forest to building, the installation traces the full life cycle of wood as a local, regenerative material—shedding light on the actors, landscapes, and infrastructures behind it.

The piece is closely linked to the work of Mass Madera, a national network in which IAAC plays a key role, committed to advancing decarbonization through timber innovation.

Made possible with the support of Egoin Wood Group and Built by Nature, the installation showcases both data and design, inviting us to reimagine materials not as anonymous commodities, but as drivers of territorial balance and architectural transformation.

Community Building for Hope Village – 3D-Printed Earth Architecture

Another major project representing IAAC’s ethos of innovation and impact is the Community Building for Hope Village, One Heart Tanzania, developed in collaboration with Hassell and the One Heart Foundation. Designed by Hassell as part of a larger masterplan to support vulnerable young girls in Kibaha, the building will serve as a multifunctional hall within a growing community hub that also includes family housing, a school, and training facilities.

The project builds on research developed within IAAC’s 3DPA postgraduate programme, led by Edouard Cabay and Alexandre Dubor, and was prototyped through a series of full-scale tests at IAAC’s Forest Campus in Barcelona. Using 3D WASP Crane Technology, students and researchers explored the potential of local earth as a low-carbon construction material.

By bringing research into the field, the project translates experimental design into a built solution with direct social impact. As part of a broader initiative by Hassell, One Heart, and ClarkeHopkinsClarke, the building becomes a central space for everyday life in Hope Village—supporting care, education, and connection through architecture rooted in place.

FRICKS – Circular Materials from Construction & Demolition Waste

IAAC students Pinelopi F. Karali, Juliana Simantob, and Claudia Gowgiel have been selected to present FRICKS: Upcycled Foamed Bricks within the Central Pavilion at the Arsenale. The project redefines the potential of upcycled foamed geopolymers, transforming construction and demolition waste into lightweight, thermally efficient materials for architectural applications.

FRICKS was developed during the Digital Matter Studio of the Master in Advanced Architecture 23/24, which promotes a resource abundance paradigm, exploring alternatives to traditional high-carbon materials and positioning waste as a raw material for the future.

Created in collaboration with Areti Markopoulou, Nikol Kirova, Daniil Koshelyuk, and Aleyna Gültekin, the project demonstrates how designing with reclaimed matter can redefine architectural aesthetics, performance, and sustainability, offering a new vision for circular material innovation in construction.

Lavaforming – Reimagining Lava as an Architectural Resource

IAAC Alumna Arnhildur Pálmadóttir presents Lavaforming as Iceland’s national pavilion at this year’s Biennale. Developed with her team at s.ap architects, the project proposes a radical shift in how we perceive and use volcanic activity—transforming controlled lava flows into a method for shaping future cities.

At the heart of the installation is a short animated film that envisions a city built entirely from formed lava, told through the voices of six characters reflecting on the social and environmental impact of this groundbreaking approach.The speculative narrative is supported by real-world experiments, revealing the immense potential of lava as a renewable and local construction material.

Rooted in optimism and innovation, Lavaforming challenges dominant building practices and invites us to imagine a world where geology becomes architecture—and a perceived threat becomes a powerful resource for addressing global ecological concerns.

MycoMuseum – Exploring Mycelium as a Building Material

IAAC Alumni Bhakti V. Loonawat and Suyash Sawant, co-founders of Anomalia, have been selected to present MycoMuseum within the Biennale’s Spaces for Ideas section. Their research delves into the potential of mycelium as a sustainable construction material, an investigation that began during their time at IAAC and has since evolved into a fully-fledged architectural practice.

Anomalia operates at the intersection of design, technology, and material innovation, and their Venice Biennale installation will demonstrate how fungi-based structures can offer an alternative to conventional, resource-intensive building materials.

ARBOR – Growing Architecture through Computation and Craft

IAAC alumna Maria Kuptsova presents ARBOR. Pilae, a sculpture that invites visitors to consider how architecture can be grown, and how future spaces might emerge from deeper collaboration between code, machine, and the natural world. Developed through Maria’s ongoing research, artistic, and design practice, ARBOR.Pilae is a large-scale 3D-printed sculpture embedded with the complexity of living wood.