Architecture -
Biennale Architettura 2025: GENS Public Programme (Workshops)
The Workshops take place in the Speakers’ Corner at the Corderie dell’Arsenale from 8 May 2025 throughout the 6 months of the Exhibition.
The workshops at the Speakers’ Corner
As part of the GENS Public Programme, Workshops will run starting from the first pre-opening day, Thursday 8 May, throughout the six months of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, titled Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., curated by Carlo Ratti (10 May – 23 November 2025).
Located at the heart of the Exhibition, the Workshops will take place in the Speakers’ Corner at the Corderie dell’Arsenale, emphasizing interdisciplinary dialogue as a key theme of Intelligens. Along with Conferences as part of the GENS Public Programme, Workshops invite the public to engage with the ideas and materials of the Exhibition, mobilizing collective intelligence to transform the built and natural environments in response to the climate crisis, and expanding the meaning of Intelligens through public discourse.
The Speakers’ Corner is designed by Christopher Hawthorne (Senior Critic, Yale School of Architecture), Johnston Marklee (Johnston Marklee & Associates), and Florencia Rodriguez (Director, University of Illinois Chicago School of Architecture), with the support of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The Workshops constitute an ongoing program of initiatives conceived by the participants in Space for Ideas and numerous other key figures on the international scene.
Complementing these events is Restaging Criticism, a series of meetings dedicated to contemporary architectural criticism, curated by Christopher Hawthorne and Florencia Rodriguez for the Speakers’ Corner, and structured around four categories: Modes and Platforms, Territories, Operative/Operation, Emerging Voices.
The GENS Public Programme is continuously evolving, with Conferences and Workshops regularly added to the event calendar. Carlo Ratti, curator of the 19th Exhibition, will be participating in many of these sessions, including those scheduled during the pre-opening days. The public is encouraged to visit the official website of La Biennale di Venezia for further information and real-time updates on the programme.
Workshops
GENS Public Programme
12 - 14 May 2025
Monday, May 12
12 pm - 1 pm
Biourban Acupuncture Kharkiv
Since 2022, Kharkiv, Ukraine has been in a war zone. New knowledge around nature-based socio-biological solutions for regenerative urbanism and urban biological restoration in Kharkiv are being developed through local knowledge, and the interdisciplinary research, innovation, design, and implementation centre, Ruin Academy Kharviv. This discussion will investigate cross-over architectural interventions, urban acupuncture, biourbanism and Constructivist biology.
Speakers: Marco Casagrande (Biourbanist Professor, O.M. Beketov National University of Urban Economy,Kharkiv); Menno Cramer (Biourbanist, Neuro-Scientist, International Society of Biourbanism).
2.00 pm - 3.30 pm
Soft Tactics: Tailored Assemblies
In The Subversive Stitch, historian Rozsika Parker examines how weaving, once relegated to ideas of female domesticity, became a celebrated fine art practice and a critical form of knowledge production. This hands-on session begins with a discussion about weaving and other "soft knowledges" and their applications to architecture as ultra-thin material practices, representations of cultural identities, and forms of collective authorship.
Speakers: Stephanie Rae Lloyd (Assistant Professor, Rhode Island School of Design), Sam Sheffer (Critic, Rhode Island School of Design), Emily Ezquerro (Critic, Rhode Island School of Design), Emma Sheffer (Filmmaker, Channel Films).
4.30 pm - 5.30 pm
My Grandfather’s House
An interdisciplinary approach connects personal and public archives, the built environment, urban anthropology, and feminist urbanism to understand the tensions surrounding Argentine democracy. A house, the story of a person, and the history of a country are all explored in conversation.
Speakers: Natalia Dopazo (Urban Planner, Asemblea Desobediente), Carolina Ipes (Associate Director, Urban Design & Masterplanning, Urban & Estate Regeneration, Community Engagement, PRP London).
Tuesday, May 13
2.30 pm - 3:30 pm
Circular Reconstruction and Material Reuse Strategies for Ukraine
Along with Exhibition participants (Circularity on the Edge), this session brings together architects, urbanists, policymakers, and cultural practitioners from Ukraine and across Europe to explore how material reuse can be reimagined through collective intelligence. In the context of Ukraine’s post-war recovery, the panel focuses on the systems, partnerships, and forms of knowledge needed to enable circular practices in real-world reconstruction.
Speakers: Lian Blok (Architect, Dutch Board of Government Advisors, Advisor on nature-inclusive architecture and sustainable urban development), Kateryna Lopatiuk (Researcher and Designer, ReThink; Author and participant in the Circularity on the Edge installation), Piero Petrucco (President, FIEC and Vice-President, ANCE).
Moderated by Roman Puchko (Co-Founder & CEO, ReThink).
Wednesday, May 14
2.00 pm - 4.00 pm
Manifesto for the Rights of the Venice Lagoon
The Venice Lagoon represents a unique co-creation between human and non-human intelligens — an evolving, hybrid ecosystem shaped by millennia of interactions, adaptations, and tensions. This two-hour workshop opens up a conversation with architects, activists, policymakers, and the Biennale public, in which we explore how spatial disciplines can respond to more-than-human realities. If nature can hold rights, architects and urbanists cannot remain silent. Their voices — and their actions — are central to how we shape just, livable futures for both humans and non-humans.
Speakers: Venice Lagoon (Nature), Mitchell Joachim (Terreform ONE)
Amalia Rossi (IDRA and Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti), Ren Yee (UNStudio), Francesca Tarocco (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, NICHE), Adelita Husni-Bey (TBA21), Elena Longhin (TU Delft, Urban Design), Alex Putzer (IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law), Katja Schechtner (MIT, Senseable City Lab & LCAU).
Conferences and Workshops of GENS Public Programme →
To access the Corderie dell’Arsenale and the Speakers’ Corner, visitors must hold a valid Exhibition ticket for Biennale Architettura 2025.
Admission to the Biennale Architettura 2025 is not included.
