An installation that weaves together three site-specific collaborations, each grounded in locally sourced biomaterials, craft,and community practices. The project takes on the call of the Biennale Architettura 2025, curated by Carlo Ratti.
At the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, 3XN and its innovation unit, GXN, in collaboration with the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA), presented something that felt refreshingly grounded. Their installation, Local Resource / Collective Knowledge (LR/CK), offered a different way of thinking about materials—one that didn’t start with shipping containers or spreadsheets, but with what’s right in front of us: local materials, craft traditions, and the people who know them best.
The structure itself was hard to miss — a 7-metre tower tucked away at the end of the Arsenale. It twisted upwards in three distinct panels, each one telling a story from a different part of the world. From woven palm fronds in Cuba, to compressed algae and mussel shells from the Venetian lagoon, to bacteria-grown biocement in Denmark, the panels showed how material innovation doesn’t always mean starting from scratch. Sometimes it means looking more closely at what’s already part of a place.
What made this installation stand out wasn’t just the materials—it was the method. Each panel came out of a hands-on collaboration between architects, researchers, ecologists, and local makers. Together, they combined traditional knowledge with contemporary design tools, not to impose a new aesthetic, but to make something that worked with local resources, rhythms, and expertise.
For anyone in the AEC space, especially those working with EPDs or thinking about material performance and provenance, LR/CK felt like a live case study. It explored how waste streams—like blue biomass from mussel farming—can be turned into durable components. Or how emerging processes like biomineralisation can open the door to new, lower-impact materials like biocement. Each approach was rooted in place but carried wider potential for construction workflows elsewhere.
Inside the tower, a small inner room played videos from the collaborators. These weren’t glossy promos, but stories—people showing how materials were gathered, tested, and adapted. You got the sense that architecture, in this case, was less about form-making and more about listening.
At its heart, LR/CK was about rebalancing the equation. Instead of seeing sites as empty lots to fill, it asked what architecture can become when we start with what’s already there: the people, the materials, the knowledge.
It’s a perspective that fits well with where construction is headed—towards approaches that are more adaptable, material-aware, and informed by real context. For those of us who work with material data every day, it’s a timely reminder that behind every figure or EPD is a story—and sometimes, it’s worth listening a bit more closely.
Check out the full collection here: https://platform.revalu.io/collections/community/67fcf6bc63f3fd4bf980312d/6825cf18fb34b925258c5026
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