ASSEMBLY #9: ECOLOGIES OF BETTER LIVING | Austrian Pavilion, Biennale Architettura 2025
THE ASSEMBLY FOR BETTER LIVING
A program of workshops, presentations, and excursions will take place in the Austrian pavilion between June and October. The events will use an ASSEMBLY format. The “Space of Negotiation” in the courtyard of the pavilion offers a platform with an open center. People sit together without hierarchy in a circle-like form. The conditions for a future BETTER LIVING will be discussed and negotiated by invited architects, administrators, researchers, politicians, planners, activists, and social groups, together with visitors to the Biennale. Short statements by experts will be followed by moderated open talks. The essence of the talks will be documented through different media.
Austrian Pavilion
Giardini della Biennale
11 a.m.
Environment, Patrimony, and Mass Tourism.
Encounter with Forum Territoriale Parco delle Energie (Rome), Sarah Gainsforth (Rome), and Maurizio Veloccia (Assessor of Urban Planning, City of Rome)
2.00 p.m.
Curator’s guided tour through the pavilion
3.00 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.
OPEN ASSEMBLY
Guests: Michele Colucci (CNR – ISMed, Rome), Michele De Sanctis (Sapienza University, Rome), Forum Territoriale Parco delle energie with Centro di Documentazione Maria Baccante – Archivio Storico della Viscosa, CSOA eXSnia, and Lokomotiv (Rome), Sarah Gainsforth (Rome), Sergio Scalia (Assessor for Urban Planning, V Municipality, Rome) Lina Streeruwitz (Studio Vlay Streeruwitz, Vienna), Philip Ursprung (ETH Zürich), Alessandra Valentinelli (Rome), Maurizio Veloccia (Assessor for Urban Planning, City of Rome).
Planned and spontaneous re-naturalizations in urban environments are giving rise to unpredictable, emerging ecosystems. These are places where ecological dynamics are becoming negentropic — promoting biodiversity instead of reducing it, as is happening in most places today. Such ecosystems are becoming crucial in addressing climate change and global warming in cities. They function as new kinds of urban nature reserves, developing unpredictable ecological relationships right in the heart of urban areas. But how should humans interact with and inhabit these spaces without putting their ecological future at risk? These places are becoming increasingly attractive — for both residents and tourists. But how should they be visited or temporarily inhabited? How should urban development engage with them? Human behavior has always transformed the environment — but could the environment now begin to shape collective human behavior? And as former urban spaces revert to nature, how might their use become truly environmentally friendly? Land use has always shaped environments — but could environments now begin to shape land use?
