Part of the Korean Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale, Time for Trees by Heechan Park + Studio Heech presents a series of spatial installations and sensing devices marking the pavilion’s 30th anniversary. The project explores the evolving relationship between the architecture of the Korean Pavilion and the surrounding trees within the Giardini della Biennale, framing this interaction through visual, auditory, and spatial means.

The installations, ‘A Shadow Caster,’ ‘Giardini Travelers,’ and ‘Elevated Gaze 1995,’ operate as observation tools, offering a framework to perceive how the pavilion coexists with its natural surroundings over time. Emphasizing the pavilion’s original integration into the site without displacing any trees, the project highlights the long-term coexistence of built form and landscape. Rather than treating architecture as separate from nature, the installation acknowledges both as equal components in the spatial composition of the Giardini. Developed through collaborations with various Korean workshops, the work reflects on the logistics and implications of constructing international exhibitions. It also addresses the broader conditions of biennale production, positioning the project as both site-responsive and globally connected. Unlike the closed typology of white cube exhibition spaces, the Korean Pavilion remains visually and spatially open to its surroundings. The installations within are designed to interact with environmental conditions such as light, shadow, and sound, reinforcing the role of time and place in the experience of architecture.

Time for Trees celebrates the Korean Pavilion’s 30 years | all images by Yongjoon Choi unless stated otherwise

Time for Trees showcases three site-specific spatial installations

‘A Shadow Caster’ is a site-specific spatial installation that allows visitors to read and experience the shadows cast by the trees around the Korean Pavilion. The work captures the patterns, shades, and subtle movements of the surrounding Giardini environment, evolving with time, seasons, and changing climate conditions. Visitors experience the relationship that the Korean Pavilion has with the vegetal and topographic conditions

Created by Studio Heech’s team in collaboration with a woodworking shop and a metal workshop in Seoul, the ‘Giardini Travelers’ are structural and modular architectural devices created for site-specific events and rituals at the Venice Biennale. Moving through various national pavilions of Giardini, they explore and celebrate the rich and intriguing histories connected to the surrounding trees and natural environment. These adaptable modular trusses can function as an observation deck, ladder, bench, seating area for visitors, stage for special events, or a setting for temporary exhibitions. In particular, in this exhibition, they are used as a ladder and bench, allowing visitors to experience the stories created through relationships with the surrounding trees. ‘Giardini Travelers’ remains an ‘artwork’ that, even in the 21st century, must be created on the other side of the globe and embark on a long journey to Venice. It serves as both a ritualistic tribute and a critical inquiry into the efforts and dedication of those who create national pavilions every year, as well as the long-standing history and traditions of the Biennale.

‘Elevated Gaze 1995’ is inspired by the quote ‘free independence of the human gaze, tied to the human face by a cord so loose, so long, so elastic that it can stray, alone, as far as it may choose,’ from Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time, Swann’s Way.’ In this passage, the human gaze moves freely and independently, experiencing its surroundings. Through this piece, visitors transcend the limits of their own gaze, rising higher to take in the landscape of the Giardini and the sounds of trees and forests. The long-standing story created by the equal symbiosis of architecture and trees in the Giardini is reinterpreted and shared with visitors through ‘Elevated Gaze 1995.’ The exhibition’s title, ‘Time for Trees,’ draws from Sufi Boise’s essay of the same title in Architectural Review (April 2023).

the project explores the relationship between architecture and surrounding trees in the Giardini

three key installations frame the dialogue between built form and landscape

‘A Shadow Caster’ captures the movement and seasonal changes of tree shadows

visitors engage with environmental patterns created by nearby trees

light and shadow define a shifting spatial experience around the pavilion

the human gaze moves freely and independently, experiencing its surroundings

each installation interacts with sound, light, and time to frame natural processes

the project acknowledges the equal presence of nature and structure in the Giardini

‘Giardini Travelers’ are modular structures built for observation and interaction

project info:

name: Time for Trees
architect: Heechan Park – Studio Heech | @studioheech

venue: Korean Pavilion, Giardini, Venice

dates: May 10th – November 23th, 2025

digital interaction collaborator: Yoosuk Kim (RGB lab)

fabrication coordinator: Il Park (Design Lab)

technical advisor: Junhyuk Park, Junghoon Kim (Archi Terre)

fabricator: KD-Art, Catharsis, RGB lab

project assistant: Yurim Kim (Studio Heech)

photographer: Yongjoon Choi, Yongbaek Lee

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

The post site-specific installations by studio heech fuse korean pavilion with biennale’s giardini trees appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

At Casacor São Paulo 2025, Atelier Marko Brajovic presents Ninho, a prototype of bio-urban equipment that invites humans to slow down, reconnect, and imagine cities as multispecies habitats. Part architecture, part installation, and part exhibition, Ninho nestles into Parque da Água Branca like a light ecological intervention, built from pinewood and recycled plastic. Soft, egg-shaped sofas encourage visitors to lie back, observe the sky, take in the trees, and listen to the ambient sounds of the park. Inspired by the clever ways birds and insects build their homes, this project combines design, nature, and city life to explore how our cities could change to better include and support non-human life. It invites us to think, feel, and imagine a future where people and wildlife can live side by side. 

all images courtesy of Atelier Marko Brajovic

Animal Architects Exhibition accompanies the Ninho installation

Conceived by the Brazilian team of Atelier Marko Brajovic, Ninho embodies a soft, hybrid typology. Inspired by the nests of the boldest birds, those that scavenge at the urban fringe to weave together nature and artifice, the structure challenges traditional ideas of technology, materiality, and authorship. Inside this playful, porous space, people can lie back and gaze at the sky, exchange stories, or learn how animal architects have always outsmarted us.

Surrounding the installation is the Animal Architects Exhibition, curated by the studio, which dives deep into the construction habits of non-human builders. The show is divided into three sections. The first focuses on birds and insects, presenting intricate architectures made from fibers, wax, mud, and even urban debris as instruments of seduction, protection, and survival. Illustrations and models unpack the logic of collective construction and cross-species cooperation. The second section turns the lens back onto humans, showcasing design projects that borrow from animal-made blueprints and exploring biomimetic structures and ecological adaptation. Finally, the Multispecity section asks the big question: what might cities look like if they were truly shared with other forms of life?

bird-eye view of the nest

animals as master architects

In the curatorial text, Atelier Marko Brajovic paints a vivid portrait of animals as master architects long before humans shaped the built environment. Termite mounds with natural ventilation, bee combs with embedded logic, or birds crafting nests from plastic trash — these examples are not just curiosities, but provocations. They remind us that construction doesn’t necessarily require technology, only intention and adaptation. Animals build with bodies and instincts, responding in real time to ecosystems in flux. They improvise, evolve, and even thrive in the heart of our cities.

Completing Ninho is a sensitive landscape intervention by Ana Kamitsuji, who rewilds the surrounding square with micro-habitats that support pollinators and seed-dispersing fauna.

360 pieces of reforested pine were used, along with the application of 40 extruded recycled plastic panels

the panels of recycled plastic are engraved in white with the names of bird species that inhabit the park

Ninho scales up bird architecture to human proportions

part architecture, part installation, and part exhibition, Ninho nestles into Parque da Água Branca

these examples remind us that construction doesn’t necessarily require technology

inspired by the clever ways birds and insects build their homes

project info:

name: Ninho—prototype of a bio-urban equipment

architect: Atelier Marko Brajovic | @markobrajovic

location: Casacor São Paulo, Parque da Água Branca, São Paulo, Brazil

creative director: Marko Brajovic

operations director: Bruno Bezerra

coordinator: Kelen Giordani Tomazelli

lead architects: Teresa Lima, Priscila Sati, Ailton Wenceslau

landscape design: Ana Kamitsuji

exhibition: Animal Architects Exhibition

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: thomai tsimpou | designboom

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The Rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce in Paris transforms into a mesmerizing aquatic and musical landscape with the unveiling of clinamen, an immersive installation by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. On view until September 21st, 2025, and curated by Emma Lavigne, General Director of the Pinault Collection, the large-scale project envelops visitors in a multisensory experience where porcelain bowls, water, and invisible currents form a delicate choreography of sound and movement. At the heart of the Rotunda lies an expansive basin, eighteen meters in diameter, filled with water. This vast, tranquil surface acts as a mirror, reflecting the Parisian sky visible through the museum’s iconic dome. White ceramic bowls drift across its surface, propelled by gentle currents, producing unpredictable melodic chimes as they serendipitously collide. 

While this is not the first iteration of clinamen – earlier versions have been staged at institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, and the Centre Pompidou-Metz – it is the most ambitious to date. ‘This exceptional version of clinamen at the Bourse de Commerce doubles the size of the basin of the largest installations built to date,’ Céleste Boursier-Mougenot tells designboom. The museum’s architecture played a pivotal role. ‘My approach is largely based on taking into account the places and spaces where I am invited to present my work,’ the artist notes,‘I see the architecture of each new exhibition venue as a matrix into which the technical and aesthetic principles of the installation are cast, as if into a mould, resulting in a new version in situ.’ Encased by Tadao Ando’s concrete ring and capped by the monumental glass dome, the Rotunda offers a rare resonance.‘The immense rotunda, encircled by Tadao Ando’s cement casket, under the high glass roof, offers clinamen the opportunity to fully express its planispheric dimension,’ Boursier-Mougenot says.

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, clinamen v.10, 2012-2025, courtesy of the artist, Paula Cooper Gallery (New York), Galerie Xippas (Paris), Galerie Mario Mazzoli (Berlin) | photo by Nicolas Brasseur | all images courtesy of Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection, unless stated otherwise

embracing unpredictability within the clinamen installation

Like many of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot’s works, the Bourse de Commerce installation exists at the intersection of sound, sculpture, and performance. It also marks the culmination of decades of experimentation with sonic systems that operate independently of human control. A musician by origin, Boursier-Mougenot approaches sound as a ‘living material’ – as seen in clinamen, where the traditional constraints of music are shed, replaced by a self-regulating system that breathes and changes with each passing moment. ‘My systems of sound or musical production are modeled or inspired by living, self-regulating forms like organisms,’ the artist explains. 

The title clinamen comes from Epicurean physics and refers to the random, unpredictable motion of atoms. For Boursier-Mougenot, this idea mirrors the elemental operations at play in the installation. ‘The analogy between my work entitled clinamen and the phenomenon of clinamen described by Lucretius in De rerum natura also concerned the notion of declination in the combinatorial sense and the question of exhausting the possibilities of encounter, occurrence and permutation,’ the artist says. He sees the installation as ‘a kind of model, a fairly schematic example, in which all these interactions take place before our eyes and for our ears.’ The inherent unpredictability is central to the experience: ‘if in the moment before two porcelain bowls collide you try to anticipate the resulting note or timbre, most of the time your expectation will be foiled by the sound of the collision.’

clinamen takes over the iconic Rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce

enveloping visitors in a multisensory experience

Boursier-Mougenot deliberately embraces unpredictability in his creative process, a practice he discovered when allowing external sounds to enrich his compositions. This openness led him to ‘think about the production of music based on self-regulating systems. These systems generate musical forms over which I have no control over the order of inputs, but the result is very important to me.’ This philosophy informs the entire structure of clinamen, which runs on a self-regulating system akin to a living organism. The materials, too, are deliberately fragile and mutable. Porcelain, water, sound. ‘It was while playing in my studio with everything needed to produce a catastrophe […] that this work took shape, almost thirty years ago,’ he recalls. Clinamen beautifully embodies a tension between apparent opposites: order and chaos, stillness and movement, silence and sound. The artist’s previous work, harmonichaos, which involved vacuum cleaners playing harmonicas, explored similar themes of unpredictable, self-regulating systems. ‘With harmonichaos, it’s impossible to predict when each of the thirteen vacuum cleaners will work or stop, nor the duration of silences or chords played and held by one vacuum cleaner/harmonica module or another,’ he shares, highlighting the interplay of chance and inherent system logic.

In a world defined by acceleration and distraction, clinamen invites a radical slowing down. Visitors become part of the installation simply by being present. ‘With my installations, I make it clear to everyone who visits that they can find a place within the work and become an integral part of it momentarily by their mere presence,’ he says. ‘The simple fact of inviting people to sit down and rest induces attitudes conducive to listening and daydreaming.’ Ultimately, clinamen is not only a meditation on matter, motion, and sound, but a quietly profound call to attention. ‘I don’t believe my art can change anything in the madness of today’s world,’ Boursier-Mougenot admits, ‘but since I’m invited to present my work, I bring the best I have.’ Read our conversation with the artist in full below, and watch clinamen in action here.

porcelain bowls, water, and invisible currents form a delicate choreography of sound and movement | photo by Florent Michel / 11H45

INTERVIEW WITH Céleste Boursier-Mougenot

designboom (DB): How did the architecture of the Rotunda in the Bourse de Commerce shape this version of the clinamen?

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot (CBM): My approach is largely based on taking into account the places and spaces where I am invited to present my work. I see the architecture of each new exhibition venue as a matrix into which the technical and aesthetic principles of the installation are cast, as if into a mould, resulting in a new version in situ. In this way, many of the installation’s parameters can be redefined by the characteristics and particularities of the venue. At the Bourse de Commerce, the immense rotunda, encircled by Tadao Ando’s cement casket, under the high glass roof, offers clinamen the opportunity to fully express its planispheric dimension.

DB: The immersive installation has been shown before, but never at this scale. What new possibilities—or challenges—did this larger format bring?

CBM: You’re right, this exceptional version of clinamen at the Bourse de Commerce doubles the size of the basin of the largest installations built to date. At this stage, no one can say for sure whether everything will work as usual on this scale. It’s a challenge, with a multitude of technical issues to resolve in order to remain faithful to the work and its simplicity. To achieve this, I’m working with a team of excellent technicians, and it’s only at the time of the tests that we’ll know if everything is working. So it’s quite experimental, as I think any attempt at art should be.

at the heart of the Rotunda lies an expansive basin, eighteen meters in diameter, filled with water

DB: The title clinamen refers to the random motion of atoms in Epicurean physics. How does this idea connect to the movement and behavior of the installation?

CBM: Clinamen, this word and its definition came to me in the summer of 1997, as I was leafing through the pages of a dictionary. I was looking for a title for my new installation that would describe the principle of the work. I had the word declination in mind and was looking for a synonym here and there. The cosmic connotations of clinamen immediately captivated me and I found many analogies between the phenomenon it describes and my work in progress. So I adopted the title. Shortly afterwards, in view of the installation’s appearance, the title clinamen seemed a little pretentious, and for the work’s first exhibition I called it untitled. In the years that followed, untitled enjoyed great success in France and abroad in many different versions. Around 2003, production of the inflatable swimming pool model I had been using came to an abrupt halt. I had to design my installations with floating porcelain by having raised floors made into which one or more round pools could be integrated. Later, for exhibitions in vast spaces without walls, the raised floor took the form of a platform with access ramps and surrounded by circular benches, virtually acting as walls. As versions of the installation became larger and more planispheric, I decided in 2012 to rename the largest of them clinamen.

The analogy between my work entitled clinamen and the phenomenon of clinamen described by Lucretius in De rerum natura also concerned the notion of declination in the combinatorial sense and the question of exhausting the possibilities of encounter, occurrence and permutation. For materialists, the clinamen is the minimum angle that leads atoms, those inseparable and eternal particles, to collide and assemble to produce, by aggregation, all the perishable matter of our world, which constantly disintegrates and reformates : atoms are to matter what the letters of the alphabet are to language and writing, and it is from the variety of their combination that everything exists. In my work, there is also a curved movement that leads the cells represented by the porcelain bowls to collide, producing a world of sounds and potentially all the occurrences of the elements present. We can contemplate clinamen installation as a kind of model, a fairly schematic example, in which all these interactions take place before our eyes and for our ears. But if you try to trace the causal thread of a sequence, it’s impossible to do it live. In other words, if in the moment before two porcelain bowls collide you try to anticipate the resulting note or timbre, most of the time your expectation will be foiled by the sound of the collision.

unpredictable melodic chimes emerge as the bowls serendipitously collide

DB: The piece is guided by invisible currents, where ceramic bowls create sound through chance encounters. How do you work with unpredictability as part of your creative process?

CBM: I discovered the virtues of unpredictability for my music the day I accepted that outside sounds, totally unrelated to my own, such as those of the urban environment of the unspoilt place where I was producing my music, could mix with it and enrich it. Later, during a play by the company whose music I was composing, which was being staged on the roof of a campus building, the sounds of cars in the distance or the sound of the wind could be heard. The sounds of cars in the distance or voices, wind, planes passing in the sky and crows flying overhead mixed with my music for a noisy string quartet and reanimated it. It was all a question of sound levels and permanence of course, but it gave a “here and now” quality to my recorded and broadcast music. Later, I often used microphones to pick up sounds live outside theatres, reinjecting them and mixing them with my music. These experiences opened my ears and gradually led me to think about the production of music based on self-regulating systems. These systems generate musical forms over which I have no control over the order of inputs, but the result is very important to me.

ceramic bowls drift across the water surface, propelled by gentle currents

DB: Your choice of materials—porcelain bowls, water, currents—feels deliberately elemental. What draws you to these fragile, mutable mediums?

CBM: One day, Jack, a friend of mine who’s a piano maker, said to me: the piano is a collection of different materials – metal, wood, felt, glue, etc. – which can be dangerous to each other, and which are also subject to phenomenal mechanical tensions capable of destroying them. Fortunately, the ingenious arrangement of these materials results in an almost living object that only awaits the tension of the pianist’s nervous system to become the alter ego of the player.
For my part, it was while playing in my studio with everything needed to produce a catastrophe (inflatable pool, soft plastic, glass, porcelain, water, pump, electricity, heating element, etc.) that this work took shape, almost thirty years ago. In the field of art and installation, any object can be considered according to criteria that no longer have anything to do with its functionality.

as the bowls serendipitously collide they produce unpredictable melodic chimes | photo by Nicolas Brasseur

DB: You’ve described sound as a ‘living material.’ How do you approach sound, not just as music, but as something sculptural, spatial, and physical ?

CBM: Rather, my systems of sound or musical production are modeled or inspired by living, self-regulating forms like organisms. As I relate with the harmonicaos work and the use of tuners immersed in a form of hesitation or doubt that I notice and exploit to thwart forms of off-putting repetition.

DB: There’s a tension in clinamen—between order and chaos, stillness and movement, silence and sound. How do you see these opposites coexisting in your work ?

It’s funny, towards the end of the nineties, I called an installation harmonichaos. It consists of thirteen silent vacuum cleaners, each of which plays a small diatonic harmonica, whose tonality, or tuning of the vacuumed notes, is different from the twelve other harmonicas. The operation and shutdown of each vacuum/harmonica module depends on a frequency analyzer built into the module. This is a chromatic tuner used by musicians to tune their instruments. It accurately identifies the sound frequency of a single note at a time, but its analysis becomes more than uncertain as soon as the device detects several notes or a chord simultaneously. The device reacts to surrounding sounds, hesitates, contradicts itself …
Observing this, I thought that a logic other than the one for which the device had been designed was at work, because the time division seemed “alive” to me. It was only a short step from there to imagining a specific form of life. I used the device because of its unreliability. With harmonichaos, it’s impossible to predict when each of the thirteen vacuum cleaners will work or stop, nor the duration of silences or chords played and held by one vacuum cleaner/harmonica module or another. Each module interacts with the twelve others in the ensemble ad libitum. What’s more, this low-tech system is disrupted by variations in the voltage of the electrical network feeding it, making any attempt at prediction even more highly improbable.

clinamen is encased by Tadao Ando’s concrete ring and capped by the monumental glass dome | photo by Nicolas Brasseur

DB: Your installations often invite the audience into a sensory, open-ended experience. What role does the visitor play in activating or completing the work?

CBM: When you visit an exhibition, aren’t you yourself sensitive to the presence of other visitors? If they give you the impression of not knowing why they’re there? It can be funny, but it can also be pathetic. If they only look at the works through their cameras or smartphones, and step back without paying attention to the other visitors to frame a masterpiece, I think that’s awful. With my installations, I make it clear to everyone who visits that they can find a place within the work and become an integral part of it momentarily by their mere presence. When I succeed in doing this, I find it makes people more beautiful… I’ve also noticed that when I compose the spaces of my installations using circles or curves, it makes visitors’ trajectories more harmonious and their wandering more fluid than in orthogonal spaces. The simple fact of inviting people to sit down and rest induces attitudes conducive to listening and daydreaming.

DB: In an age of speed and distraction, how do you see your work offering space for slowness, attention, and contemplation?

CBM: I don’t believe my art can change anything in the madness of today’s world, I don’t presume to know what anyone needs, but since I’m invited to present my work, I bring the best I have.

the water surface acts as a mirror, reflecting the Parisian sky through the museum’s dome | photo by Nicolas Brasseur

the installation invites visitors to sit down and slow down | image © designboom

project info:

name: clinamen

artist: Céleste Boursier-Mougenot | @celesteboursiermougenot

curator: Emma Lavigne, Chief Curator and General Director of the Pinault Collection

location: Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection, 2 rue de Viarmes, 75001, Paris, France | @boursedecommerce

dates: June 5th – September 21st, 2025

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British artist Stuart Semple unveils Bloom, a sprawling, glow-in-the-dark installation of 5,000 vividly colored 3D printed flowers at Jersey Zoo, UK, transforming the grounds of Les Augrès Manor into a surreal meadow. On view from June 6 through September 2025, the artwork commemorates the visionary approach of British naturalist Gerald Durrell to zoo-led conservation while embodying Semple’s activist-driven practice rooted in accessibility and ecological responsibility.

Measuring seven by seven meters, the floral field is filled with six of Durrell’s favorite flowers—chrysanthemums, freesias, roses, scarlet pimpernel, crocuses, and pink magnolias—each sculpted from sustainable bioresin made of recycled castor oil and plant fibers. The flowers are hand-painted in radiant hues and coated with Semple’s proprietary ‘Lit’ pigment, allowing them to absorb sunlight and emit a gentle glow after dark. 

images courtesy of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust / Stuart Semple

a vibrant call for collective action

Stuart Semple, whose multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, performance, and social intervention, describes Bloom as a personal full-circle moment. ‘Ever since I visited Jersey Zoo as an 8-year-old child, it’s had a place in my heart,’ the artist shares. ‘This project means the world to me, because now more than ever, Gerry’s philosophy and his conservation ethics are vital to the planet.’ Known for his colorful provocations and democratizing gestures—such as developing the Pinkest Pink and campaigning for open access to creative materials—Semple brings the same ethos to Bloom, using art to empower public agency and celebrate collective impact.

Stuart Semple presents Bloom

the installation is a living tribute to gerald durrell’s legacy

Positioned in the heart of Jersey Zoo, the installation is commissioned by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust as part of GD100, the year-long celebration of what would have been naturalist Gerald Durrell’s 100th birthday, holding special significance for the community. ‘The flowers in Bloom are some of Gerry’s favorites, and I know he would’ve loved to see the colorful meadow pop up in the courtyard of his cherished Les Augrès Manor,’ says Lee Durrell, Honorary Director of the trust. 

Each bloom in the installation is both a tribute and a call to action. By offering the flower sculptures for public purchase, Durrell and Semple invite individuals to literally take a piece of conservation home. Proceeds directly support the trust’s global mission to save species from extinction, with each flower symbolizing a node in the larger network of supporters, scientists, and dreamers who share in Durrell’s original vision of a wilder, healthier world.

a sprawling, glow-in-the-dark installation of 5,000 vividly colored 3D printed flowers

transforming the grounds of Les Augrès Manor at Jersey Zoo, UK, into a surreal meadow

the artwork commemorates the visionary approach of British naturalist Gerald Durrell

the floral field is filled with six of Durrell’s favorite flowers

chrysanthemums, freesias, roses, scarlet pimpernel, crocuses, and pink magnolias

the flowers are hand-painted in radiant hues and coated with Semple’s proprietary ‘Lit’ pigment

sculpted from sustainable bioresin made of recycled castor oil and plant fibers

the flowers absorb daylight

known for his colorful provocations and democratizing gestures, Semple brings the same ethos to Bloom

Semple’s ‘Lit’ pigment allows the meadow to glow at night

each bloom in the installation is both a tribute and a call to action

project info:

name: Bloom

artist: Stuart Semple | @stuartsemple

location: Jersey Zoo, Channel Islands, UK

dimensions: 7 x 7 meters

dates: June 6 – September 2025

commissioner: Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust | @durrell_jerseyzoo

The post glowing meadow of 3D printed flowers by stuart semple takes over jersey zoo in the UK appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

London-based directing duo Tom Wrigglesworth and Matt Robinson — known collectively as Tom & Matt — unveil Flow, a short film powered entirely by wooden waterwheels and the natural current of the River Neath in South Wales. The outdoor installation combines analog animation techniques with environmental storytelling, aiming to spotlight the urgent need to protect the UK’s freshwater habitats. Set along a quiet, picturesque stretch of the River Neath — a site as vulnerable to pollution as it is beautiful — the project transforms the river itself into a kinetic sculpture that brings the story of native wildlife to life through movement.

all images courtesy of Tom & Matt

tom & matt highlight the need to protect UK waterways

Instead of relying on modern tech, Tom & Matt stripped the process down to its essentials: water, wood, and movement. As the river flows, it turns a series of custom-built waterwheels. Each of these 21 wheels holds eight hand-cut wooden paddles, each paddle a single frame in a looping wildlife animation. The result: animated sequences that quite literally come to life through the movement of water. The team constructed a total of 168 individual paddles, each cut from 2mm FSC-certified wood sourced from responsibly managed forests. These loops represent native aquatic species, imagined as emerging from beneath the surface and cycling in endless motion — until the river stops. ‘If the river stops, so does all the wildlife within,’ the directing duo explains, underscoring the project’s message: flowing water is not only life-sustaining but essential to the very animation of ecosystems.

In contrast to the increasing dominance of AI and digital tools in filmmaking, Flow opts for tactility and simplicity. The project channels the spirit of early animation while delivering a contemporary environmental message — all without screens, batteries, or code. It’s a poetic reminder that sometimes, nature itself can be the most powerful storyteller.

as the river flows, it turns a series of custom-built waterwheels

each of the wheels holds eight hand-cut wooden paddles, each paddle a single frame in a looping wildlife animation

animated sequences that quite literally come to life through the movement of water

the project transforms the river itself into a kinetic sculpture

the project channels the spirit of early animation while delivering a contemporary environmental message

the team constructed a total of 168 individual paddles

‘if the river stops, so does all the wildlife within,’ the directing duo explains

the project highlights that flowing water is essential to the very animation of ecosystems

project info:

name: Flow
directors: Tom & Matt

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: myrto katsikopoulou | designboom

The post flowing UK river becomes engine for handcrafted kinetic installation by tom & matt appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

DeepForest³ is a microbial architectural installation developed by ecoLogicStudio in collaboration with the University of Innsbruck and the Bartlett UCL. The project is part of the We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture exhibition at the 24th International Exposition of La Triennale di Milano, curated by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley. The installation proposes a domestic space structured as an active microbial ecosystem. It utilizes biotechnological systems to establish a functional relationship between architecture, biological processes, and environmental conditions. The spatial arrangement includes components that perform photosynthesis, biodegradation, and carbon storage, forming an integrated biotic infrastructure.

At the center of the installation are three types of architectural components: Photosynthesizers, Biodegraders, and Carbon storers. Photosynthesizers, filled with 50 liters of living cyanobacteria, actively capture CO₂ from the gallery environment and convert it into oxygen and biomass. These glass vessels are arranged to form a breathable membrane, both wall and filter, alive with metabolic activity. Biodegraders, built from 3D printed bark-like shells made of algae biopolymers, host living mycelium networks. These fungi feed on spent coffee grounds, a readily available urban waste, and grow into dense, fibrous forms that line the space like living insulation, mimicking salvaged birch trunks but grown from synthetic matter. Carbon storers, such as reclaimed wood elements and active lichen colonies, integrate with these systems to stabilize and reframe the aesthetics of waste as beauty, turning the byproducts of decay into architectural ornament.

all images by Xiao Wang, courtesy of ecoLogicStudio and the Synthetic Landscape Lab

ecoLogicStudio merges biology with digital fabrication

The design strategy followed by ecoLogicStudio’s team aligns the architectural system with Italy’s history of landscape engineering, drawing a comparison between historical interventions and microbial resilience. The spatial configuration compresses forest ecologies into a controlled interior scale. Floor and wall assemblies incorporate engraved and porous substrates, enabling air exchange, moisture retention, and microbial colonization. ‘We are now more and more aware that our own nature is cyborgian and collective, and that our own identities extend far beyond the limits of our bodies. We are microbial ecosystems, we are algorithmic networks. It is a necessary consequence that our home becomes an extension of these ecosystems and networks. Our home is our microbiome,’ shares Prof. Claudia Pasquero.

The installation emphasizes visibility of technical systems. Algae growth chambers, mycelial substrates, air and CO₂ pumps remain exposed, functioning as both operative systems and formal features. This approach integrates the mechanical and biological processes into the architectural language rather than concealing them. ‘The installation aims to celebrate the first time microbial architecture enters the Italian temple of design, the Milano Triennale. I think this is an epochal moment. For this reason, we took great care in its design and detailing. DeepForest³ is really more than just a temporary installation, it delivers a fully functional and tangible biotechnological living system, grounded in the metabolic cycles of algae and fungi, but brought to life through bespoke digital design and unique material craftsmanship,’ comments Dr. Marco Poletto.

DeepForest³ installation presented at the 24th International Exposition of La Triennale di Milano

DeepForest³ exhibits open-source biotechnological integration

A secondary feature of the installation is the Zolla bench, made from modular cork blocks and honeycomb cardboard base. The bench is designed for live mycelium cultivation, which gradually transforms the surface through colonization and mushroom growth. This component demonstrates real-time material transformation and user interaction with biologically active surfaces. The installation supports cyclical material use, passive environmental modulation, and open-source system integration. It is conceived as a domestic prototype for future biotechnological applications in architecture, emphasizing accessible and distributed cultivation of photosynthetic and fungal organisms within built environments.

DeepForest³ forms part of an ongoing research initiative by ecoLogicStudio and the Synthetic Landscape Lab. Parallel projects include Tree.One, Bio.Lab, FundamentAI, and CryoflorE, which extend this inquiry across multiple international venues including the Venice Architecture Biennale, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, and MUDAC Lausanne. The installation opens to the public on May 12th, 2025.

visible systems turn the walls into a living, cyber-organic laboratory

air pumps circulate air and CO₂, supporting algae and mycelium growth

engaged with the living installation

Carbon storer made from reclaimed trees and 3d printed barks

Carbon storer made from reclaimed trees and 3d printed barks

Photosynthesizers and AIReactor in action

Zolla bench is composed of mycelium colonizing cork, with mushrooms starting to sprout

project info:

name: DeepForest³

designer: ecoLogicStudio | @ecologicstudio

location: Milan, Italy

lead designers: Prof. Claudia Pasquero, Dr. Marco Poletto

commissioner: Triennale di Milano

exhibition curators: Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley

academic partners: Synthetic Landscape Lab IOUD Innsbruck University, Urban Morphogenesis Lab BPRO The Bartlett UCL

design team: Prof. Claudia Pasquero, Dr. Marco Poletto, Jasper Zehetgruber, Francesca Turi, Alessandra Poletto

prototyping support team: Jonas Wohlgenannt, Korbinian Enzinger, Felix Humml, Bo Liu, Mika Schulz, Michael Unterberger, Marco Matteraglia, Beyza Nur Armağan, Beatriz Gonzalez Arechiga and Xiao Wang

photographer: Xiao Wang

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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From May 7 to July 13, 2025, the Potager du Roi in Versailles serves as the site for Nous… the Climate, an open-air exhibition forming part of the 3rd Biennial of Architecture and Landscape of Île-de-France (Bap!). Designed by Studio 5•5 in collaboration with Agence TER, the exhibition serves as a spatial manifesto that addresses climate change through a combination of scenography and public installations.

The exhibition’s primary feature is a 300-meter linear table placed within the Potager’s historic layout. This table operates both as a symbolic structure and as a platform for presenting collective responses to climate issues. Its geometry connects multiple zones of the garden and introduces a spatial narrative that begins with the word ‘Nous’ (Us) and concludes with ‘the Climate.’ This layout forms a literal and conceptual axis, framing climate as a shared responsibility across disciplines and sectors.

all images courtesy of Studio 5•5 and Agence TER

Nous… Le Climate scenography adapts to the natural setting

Developed by Studio 5•5’s design team, and commissioned by Agence TER, Nous… Le Climate table features various design projects. These include proposals and interventions related to ecological infrastructure, soil regeneration, urban cooling strategies, and regenerative agriculture. Each contribution emphasizes a landscape-based methodology and presents specific, localized responses to environmental transformation.

Constructed using weather-resistant materials, the scenography adapts to natural conditions. Its layout facilitates varied sensory engagement depending on the time of day and the weather. A key spatial feature of the route includes passage across the central basin of the Potager du Roi, enabling direct interaction with the site’s water systems and microclimatic variations.

a 300-meter table anchors Nous… the Climate at the Potager du Roi

Potager du Roi becomes a living architectural laboratory

Originally designed in the 17th century to support controlled agricultural production, the Potager now functions as a research site for contemporary climate adaptation. The exhibition draws on this historical role to propose new forms of spatial practice, informed by both past horticultural techniques and current environmental strategies.

Incorporated within the site are collective seating areas and shared surfaces designed to host formal and informal dialogues. These elements frame the Potager as a working ground for civic, scientific, and design collaboration.

the exhibition unfolds in the historic gardens of Versailles

public installations connect ecology, design, and dialogue

the table acts as both platform and symbol for climate action

zones of the Potager are linked through the table’s linear geometry

ecological infrastructure projects line the exhibition path

the scenography changes with sun, wind, and rain

the exhibition serves as a spatial manifesto that addresses climate change

the open-air layout encourages informal discussion and exchange

Studio 5•5 and Agence TER frame climate as a collective issue

a route across the central basin highlights water and microclimates

Nous… the Climate: a spatial sentence tracing shared responsibility

project info:

name: Nous…Le Climat
designer: Studio 5•5 | @studio5.5

commissioner: Agence TER | @agence_ter

location: École nationale supérieure de paysage, 10 rue du Maréchal Joffre, 78000 Versailles, France

dates: May 7th – July 13th, 2025

Studio 5•5 design team: Florian Stechenko, Anthony Lebossé, César Potel, Simon Lancelle, Marie Aujames, Eliott Bulle

Agence TER design team: Henri Bava, Michel Hossler, Olivier Philippe

construction: BARAKA & Cie

landscape team: Julien-Labruyere Degas Beatrice, Maëlys Laporte, Karima Agha, Leret Surrault, Anouk Lucile, Augiron Célia, Banyik Aldo, Jiménez Felipe, Philippine Ciupek

support: École nationale supérieure de paysage

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Atelier Alter Architects transforms the Chinese Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale into a galaxy of cultural memory with Dunhuang Con-stella-tion, a luminous sculptural installation. Architects Yingfan Zhang and Xiaojun Bu materialize a 12×8×6.5-meter 3D star field using metal rods, spherical forms, mesh, and multicolored acrylics. This construct acts as a spatial telescope linking two ancient ports of knowledge exchange, Dunhuang and Venice, through a radiant cloud of artistic and philosophical symbolism drawn from Indian, Persian, Greek, and Chinese traditions.

At the global stage of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, Dunhuang Con-stella-tion is one of the twelve featured works in the China Pavilion, selected under the curatorship of Ma Yansong (MAD) (read designboom’s interview with MAD’s Ma Yansong here). Interpreting the exhibition’s theme, CO-EXIST, the installation reimagines Cave 285 from Dunhuang’s Mogao Grottoes as a celestial archive of civilizational fusion.

all images by Demone, Mint, Atelier Alter, Li Chunchao

Cave 285 as a celestial archive of ancient knowledge

The Mogao Caves, carved into China’s Mingsha Mountain beginning in 366 CE, are a Silk Road palimpsest where spiritual belief intertwines with global exchange. Cave 285, a focal point of the installation, contains the earliest known star chart of the Northern Hemisphere, painted across a four-sloped dome in the Western Wei period. This celestial ceiling combines deities and iconography from a rich cross-section of cultures: Indian Brahma and Ganesha, Sogdian sun and moon gods, Chinese phoenixes and Fuxi, and Persian motifs, all rendered in polychromatic harmony. The duo of Atelier Alter abstracts this cosmic fusion into an artificial nebula, where each material element represents a stroke of ancient craftsmanship, a brush of stardust floating in architectural orbit.

By reframing the cave’s sacred geometry through contemporary topological language, Dunhuang Con-stella-tion reveals a nonlinear constellation of meaning. The installation positions the original cave as a ‘civilizational energy diagram,’ mapping out four cultural nebulae, Indian Buddhism, Central Asian commerce, Persian artistry, and Greek sculpture, into a shared cosmological grammar. Ancient astrological systems become dynamic fields of data, visually and conceptually resonating with modern geometric thought. This echoes the Tang Dynasty’s Dunhuang Star Atlas, whose constellations mirrored imperial Chang’an’s night sky and aligned with three schools of astronomy, a precedent for this contemporary act of cultural coding.

a galaxy of cultural memory

Dunhuang Con-stella-tion, a model of cultural rebirth

Curated by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, Dunhuang Con-stella-tion responds to the Biennale’s global constellation of architectural thought by aligning the ancient inclusivity of Dunhuang with the fluid hybridity of Venice. The installation aims to be a speculative model of cultural rebirth. Every metal sphere, every dust particle becomes a mnemonic device, a poetic echo of how civilizations have long intertwined through migration, translation, and artistic syncretism. As Atelier Alter suggests, cultural convergence is not about layering styles, but about generative collision, where flying apsaras dance with Greek Bodhisattvas, and Sogdian phonemes echo through Chinese sutras.

Atelier Alter Architects transforms the Chinese Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Biennale

Yingfan Zhang and Xiaojun Bu materialize a 12×8×6.5-meter 3D star field

metal rods, spherical forms, mesh, and multicolored acrylics compose the structure

Con-stella-tion takes its place in the China Pavilion

a spatial telescope links two ancient ports of knowledge exchange

a radiant cloud of artistic and philosophical symbolism

drawing from Indian, Persian, Greek, and Chinese traditions

one of twelve featured works featured in the China Pavilion

the installation reimagines Cave 285 from Dunhuang’s Mogao Grottoes as a celestial archive of civilizational fusion

project info:

name: Con-stella-stion:Dunhuang
artist: Atelier Alter Architects | @atelier_alter_architects

location: Chinese Pavilion, Venice, Italy

lead designers: Yingfan Zhang & Xiaojun Bu 

curator: Ma Yansong (MAD)

program: Venice Architecture Biennale | @labiennale

dates: May 10th — November 23rd, 2025

dimensions: 12 × 8 × 6.5 meters

photographers: Demone, Mint, Atelier Alter, Li Chunchao

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: thomai tsimpou | designboom

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Returning for its third edition, Osaka Art & Design transforms the city into an urban-scale showcase of creativity from May 28 to June 24, 2025. Expanding its footprint to around 60 venues, the event connects a rich network of art, design, and architecture across Umeda, Nakanoshima, Shinsaibashi, Namba, and the newly added Abeno district, turning Osaka into a walkable museum of contemporary culture. Visitors can encounter a broad range of artworks, design objects, and fashion pieces, with several works available for purchase across galleries, department stores, and public spaces.

Taking place alongside EXPO 2025 Osaka, OAD 2025  positions the city as a dynamic stage for global cultural dialogue. Under the theme ‘Overlaps —Where Passions Encounter,’ the program unites emerging and established talents from Japan and abroad through large-scale installations, exhibitions, and cross-disciplinary showcases. Highlights include a collaborative installation by Sayaka Miyata and Mirodi Hirota, spanning the north-to-south concourse of Osaka Umeda Twin Towers North and the windows of Hankyu Department Store, as well as a special presentation by fashion designer Joanna Hawrot, organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute of Poland.

Osaka Art & Design 2025 key visual | all images courtesy of Osaka Art & Design

YOKAI UNITY

Blending folklore with playful urban interventions, this installation reimagines yokai — traditional Japanese spirits — through a colorful, pop-inspired lens. Emerging unexpectedly from city gaps, the creatures animate Osaka’s streets with humor and mystery, while a sculptural form based on the Hokkai Jo-in mudra adds a contemplative layer of compassion and coexistence.

exhibition period: May 28 – June 10, 2025

location: Nankai Namba Station 2F Concourse

participating creators: Maki Takato

Yokai Unity by Maki Takato

HAWROT: WEARABLE ART – UNSEEN THREADS

Joanna Hawrot’s Unseen Threads exhibition explores womanhood through wearable art, blending Polish textile traditions with Japanese kimono culture. Presented alongside portraits by photographer Zuza Krajewska, the works spotlight Japanese and Polish women wearing Hawrot’s designs, weaving personal stories into a cross-cultural celebration of identity, diversity, and contemporary femininity.

exhibition period: May 31 – June 24, 2025

location: Daimaru Shinsaibashi

participating creators: Joanna Hawrot

HAWROT: Wearable Art – Unseen Threads by Joanna Hawrot | image © Zuza Krajewska

THE NEW MUSEUM OF WONDER: THE GENE OF CURIOSITY

Inspired by Ernst Haeckel’s illustrations and global textile motifs, artist Sayaka Miyata embroiders a poetic fusion of natural science and art. In collaboration with designer Midori Hirota, she unveils a large-scale installation across Osaka Umeda Twin Towers North, merging handcraft and AI to spark curiosity and evoke the atmosphere of a museum of wonder.

exhibition period: May 8 – June 23, 2025

location: Osaka Umeda Twin Towers North 1F Concourse

participating creators: Sayaka Miyata and Midori Hirota

The New Museum of Wonder: The Gene of Curiosity by Sayaka Miyata and Midori Hirota

NEW COLLECTION

Charlotte Perriand designed the Indochine Chaise Longue in 1943 while serving as Director of Crafts in Vietnam. Confined to bed late in her pregnancy, she created a rattan chaise longue with armrests to continue reading, writing, and designing despite wartime steel shortages. Since 2004, Cassina has expanded the Charlotte Perriand collection in close collaboration with Perriand’s daughter, Pernette Perriand-Barsac. To mark the collection’s 20th anniversary in 2024, Cassina will introduce a newly industrialized model, celebrating Perriand’s enduring creative legacy.

exhibition period: May 28 – June 24, 2025

location: Cassina ixc. Osaka shop

participating creators: Cassina

New Collection by Cassina

ONE MILLION PEOPLE’S CANDLE NIGHT

‘One Million People’s Candle Night in Osaka City: Chayamachi Slow Day’ softly illuminates the Umeda district each summer with candlelight art and quiet charm. In 2025, under the theme “Miracle,” installations, candle-lined streets, and artist-made works invite visitors to reflect, connect, and wander through a glowing cityscape. Highlights include the Candle Market, live music at select venues, and a collective lights-off moment from 8 to 10 p.m., offering a peaceful pause from everyday life.

exhibition period: June 5, 2025

location: the entire Chayamachi area, Umeda

One Million People’s Candle Night in Osaka City: Chayamachi Slow Day

SENSE OF WONDER

At Marco Gallery, Joe Takahashi presents a solo exhibition titled Sense of Wonder – Yugen, offering a sculptural exploration of gravity as a timeless, universal force. Centering his practice on themes such as plant life, rotation, horizons, and light, Takahashi creates spatial compositions that subtly distort perception. His works invite contemplation of natural phenomena through abstract forms, drawing viewers into a nuanced interplay between material presence and conceptual depth.

exhibition period: May 31 – June 29, 2025

location: Marco Gallery

participating creators: Joe Takahashi

Sense of Wonder by Joe Takahashi

THE GLITCH

Akira Terada, the first fully digital artist to win the Gallery Seek Award at the 3rd ARTIST NEW GATE, presents a solo exhibition showcasing his distinctive visual language. Without using any physical tools, Terada transforms everyday landscapes by flipping and rotating photographs, creating unexpected, imaginative scenes that challenge conventional perspectives.

exhibition period: June 4 – June 10, 2025

location: Kintetsu Main Store Abeno Harukas

participating creators: Akira Terada

Holographic Divers(c)ity-4 | image © Akira Terada

THE SOUND OF BEGINNING, THE SOUND OF ENDING. – ILLUSTRATED ALPHABET

Inspired by the question, ‘What would letters look like if they started to dance?,’ this work captures a single hiragana character spinning rapidly in 360 degrees. The result is a striking visual that gives motion, depth, and delicate form to a flat symbol, expanding the expressive potential of written language.

exhibition period: June 11 – June 24, 2025

location: Osaka Takashimaya Department Store

participating creators: Katsunari Shishido

The sound of beginning, the sound of ending. – Illustrated alphabet by Katsunari Shishido

project info: 

name: Osaka Art & Design 2025:  Overlaps —Where Passions Encounter
areas: Umeda, Dojima, Nakanoshima, Kyomachibori, Honmachi, Shinsaibashi, Namba, Abeno, and other areas in Osaka
dates: May 28 – June 24, 2025

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At the 2025 Venice Biennale, the Korean Pavilion engages in a process of self-unbuilding, reconfiguring the national pavilion as a porous, adaptive structure shaped by trees, time, and the unhuman. The exhibition reconsiders spatial boundaries and historical constructs, integrating built and unbuilt elements above and below ground level.

Marking its 30th year at the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the pavilion does not expand its architectural presence but revisits it through subtraction and reinterpretation. The exhibition, titled Little Toad, Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion, derives its name from a Korean children’s song associated with cycles of destruction and renewal. Curated by the Curating Architecture Collective (CAC), the exhibition unfolds across a series of site-responsive installations by ATELIER KHJ’s Kim Hyunjong, Studio Heech’s Heechan Park, Flora and Fauna’s Lee Dammy, and Plastique Fantastique’s Yena Young, each navigating the thresholds of construction and disappearance, permanence and ephemerality. Together, their works unbuild the pavilion not through destruction, but through acts of listening, layering, and looking beneath the surface.

the Korean Pavilion unbuilds itself at the 2025 Venice Biennale | image by © Yongjoon Choi

Yena Young’s installation draws from archaeological fiction

It is beneath this surface that Yena Young’s (Plastique Fantastique, see more here) installation quietly shifts the ground. Titled 30 Million Years Under the Pavilion, her work imagines the Korean Pavilion as an accidental capstone atop a fossilized mystery. Drawing from speculative science and archaeological fiction, Young excavates the story of Nanogyna acephala, a headless, hominid-like organism allegedly unearthed in 1993 beneath the very soil of the Giardini. Through surveillance feeds, animals living underneath, and half-buried figurines, her work opens a portal not just to a fictional past, but to a destabilized present. What narratives have been lost, buried, or excluded in the construction of cultural identity? Just as the toad in the curatorial title is a mythic figure of transformation and trickery, Nanogyna embodies a radical form of re-memory: a creature that challenges scientific certainty, evolutionary hierarchy, and even bodily design. It is not a monument, but a murmur, reminding us that unbuilding is not only architectural, but biological, historical, and environmental.

a porous structure shaped by trees, time, and the unhuman | image by © designboom

Exhibition explores Architecture in Continuous Regeneration

Above ground, the pavilion continues to be gently unsettled: Heechan Park’s (Studio Heech, see more here) intervention traces the interdependence between the built structure and the trees surrounding it; Lee Dammy’s (Flora and Fauna, see more here) ghostly layers recompose forgotten narratives in the walls; Kim Hyunjong’s (ATELIER KHJ, see more here) rooftop observatory orients the pavilion toward new horizons. Together, these gestures challenge the traditional role of the national pavilion and ask: what is preserved, and what is erased, in the name of architecture? In this 30th year, the Korean Pavilion does not mark a legacy in stone, but in sediment. Little Toad, Little Toad is not about arrival, but about continuous regeneration, architectural, ecological, and imaginary. And down below, in the shadowy underlayer, Nanogyna waits, a reminder that even the most stable foundations rest on myth, soil, and time. 

‘Little Toad, Little Toad’ draws from cycles of destruction and renewal | image by © Yena Young

the pavilion marks 30 years by dismantling its own boundaries | image by © Yena Young

Incubator for Nanogyna acephala | image by © Yena Young

architecture reimagined through presence and absence | image by © Yena Young

Yena Young imagines what lies beneath the pavilion | image by © designboom

fossilized fiction beneath the Giardini | image by © designboom

tracing what architecture chooses to preserve, or erase | image by © Yena Young

under the pavilion Nanogyna acephala | image by © Yena Young

surveillance feeds and half-buried figures suggest deeper layers | image by © Yena Young

inventory of Nanogyna acephala | image by © Yena Young

Nanogyna is not a monument, but a murmur in the soil | image by © Yena Young

project info:

name: 30 Million Years Under the Pavilion

exhibition: Little Toad, Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion

designer: Plastique Fantastique | @plastique.fantastique
lead designer: Yena Young

artists/architects: Kim Hyunjong – ATELIER KHJ | @atelier_khj, Heechan Park – Studio Heech | @studioheech, Lee Dammy – Flora and Fauna | @florafaunavisions, Yena Young – Plastique Fantastique | @plastique.fantastique

venue: Korean Pavilion, Giardini, Venice

dates: May 10th – November 23th, 2025

curated by: Curating Architecture Collective (CAC)

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina vergopoulou | designboom

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