Living Room Collective to represent Canada at 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale
The Canada Council for the Arts has announced that the Living Room Collective will represent Canada at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 10 to November 23, 2025.
Led by biodesigner Andrea Shin Ling, the Living Room Collective is a group of architects, scientists, artists and educators who work at the intersection of architecture, biology and digital fabrication technologies. The collective seeks to move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones by inventing design methods and processes that centre on natural systems. They intend to use the platform of the Venice Biennale to generate national and international conversations that ask: How does one fabricate a biological architecture? What are the conditions of stewardship? What are the strategies to instigate this at scale, regionally and globally?
The group’s project for the Biennale proposes a large-scale living pavilion that utilizes materials embedded with biologically active, living cells in an architectural context. “Using innovative fabrication techniques, functionalities such as structural reinforcement and carbon sequestration will be integrated into living structures that are then tended to throughout their life cycle,” writes the group. “In the face of climate collapse, the Living Room Collective proposes a new model of architecture that places regenerative processes and care at its core. The project seeks to upend an architectural legacy of a human-centred built environment, imagining a radically transformed future for both Canadian and global architecture.”
The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee.
Since 1895, the Venice Biennale is and has been one of the most important cultural institutions in the world. The International Architecture Exhibition consists of a central exhibition with more than 100 international participants, 60 national pavilions and collateral events throughout the city.
“It is an incredible honour to have been selected to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale,” writes the Living Room Collective. “In demonstrating the possibilities of a collaborative relationship with nature, we look forward to leveraging this global platform alongside national and international partners to engage in a critical dialogue around alternative design practices that can sit alongside contemporary carbon neutral building strategies.”
“The Canada Council is proud to support the Living Room Collective, who have been selected to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. My sincere congratulations to our national and international selection committee in choosing such a timely proposal from this unique group, where design and biology will converge to imagine a better future for our living spaces,” said Michelle Chawla, director and chief executive officer, Canada Council for the Arts.
Living Room Collective
Andrea Shin Ling is an architect and biodesigner who works at the intersection of design, digital fabrication and biology.
Vincent Hui is a distinguished professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, imparting knowledge across diverse domains from design studios to digital tools.
Clayton Lee is a curator, producer and performance artist. He is currently the director (artistic) of the Fierce Festival, in Birmingham, UK.
Nicholas Hoban is a computational designer, fabricator and educator. He works at the intersection of computational design, robotics, construction and simulation in pedagogy, research and practice.
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