Venice Architecture Biennial
We would like to share that our collaborative research on earthen architecture was featured at the Pavilion of Türkiye at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Curated by Ceren Erdem and Bilge Kalfa around the theme “Grounded” (Yerebasan), the exhibition reimagines earth as a living archive, natural intelligence, and a dynamic laboratory for contemporary spatial practices.
Together with Fulya Akipek and our interdisciplinary teams, we contributed to the pavilion with three architectural prototypes:
- Common-action Walls: A re-production of our 2017 compressed earth wall system that explores contemporary formwork technologies and geometric research.
- BIRE-PAN: A research prototype supported by Istanbul Bilgi University, investigating the mechanical enhancement of compressed earth blocks through biological additives, realized in collaboration with Fibrobeton.
- Robotic Earthcrafts (REC II): A project from our student workshop at Bilgi Architecture, focusing on robotic fabrication for custom earth-block formwork design.
Digital design and fabrication tools can often feel distant from nature. However, in these projects, our primary goal was to bring advanced digital workflows and traditional earth building techniques together into a unified material dialogue. At times, computational geometry pushed the physical boundaries of the material; at other times, the natural behavior of earth redefined our digital parameters. As architecture continuously evolves alongside the environment, we believe the intersection of computational methods, biomaterials, and collective intelligence offers answers to today’s ecological questions. We are grateful to the curators, our collaborating institutions, and the entire team for bringing this to the international stage.
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