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The international spotlight will focus on architecture’s responsibility to the environment at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.
The theme for this year’s biennale is “Freespace”, and the creative directors of Australia’s exhibition at the 2018 biennale have chosen the theme “Repair” which encompasses 15 projects.
Central to Australia’s theme this year is an exploration into collective history, building and city-making as one also of erasure – of landscapes and eco-systems.
One component of the exhibition, “Grasslands Repair”, serves as a reminder of what is at stake when we occupy land.
Related reading: 7 Key Trends in Urban Design
The exhibit will display a collection of Indigenous Australian grassland species featuring 10,000 plants arranged in a multi- sensory living installation.
The installation set across indoor and outdoor spaces, sustained by Skylight – 100 LED lights suspended between the ceiling and the grassland, will occupy the same amount of space as a typical Australian family sized house.
The exhibition, a collaboration between Melbourne architects Baracco and Wright and artist Linda Tegg, signals the importance of environmental rehabilitation in architectural practice.
“We have often struggled with our relationship as architects when considering the use of land – it’s no small act.”
--Creative director of the Australian exhibition at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, Louise Wright.
“We believe there is a role for architecture to actively engage with the repair of the places it is part of, which our exhibition will communicate.
“We hope the discussion we’re presenting will engage the profession as enthusiastically as it has already done here in Australia.”
Related reading: 13 Multi-Billion Dollar Urban Renewal Projects
The Woods Bagot/Tridente former Mitsubishi main assembly building in South Australia is among the 15 projects on exhibition, via projections of the buildings in their contexts, filmed by Linda Tegg. The Mitsubishi factory has been re-purposed from its car manufacturing industrial past into a new clean technology research and education centre.
Repair will be the seventh exhibition presented by the Australian Institute of Architects at the Biennale Architettura.
The Biennale, held in Venice Italy’s Biennale gardens, is an opportunity for architects and designers to showcase new projects and address the academic side of architecture.
It will be open to the public from 26 May to 25 November.
