We are honored to share that we were shortlisted, alongside four other teams, for the curation competition of the Danish Pavilion 2027 at the 20th Venice Biennale.
It has been very exciting to present our ideas and vision to this important jury, consisting of the Danish Arts Foundation Committee for Architecture Grants, the philanthropic association Realdania, and DAC - Danish Architecture Centre - on behalf of the Danish Ministry of Culture.
Our proposal, The Habitable Skin, illustrates how architecture can serve as a tool to facilitate life for both humans and more-than-human species. We focused on the critical nexus between a building's interior and exterior—the skin—where nature and humans, land and city, resources and materials, place and building, are converging.
Towards an Ecocentric Welfare Model
Each line is a boundary for some and a connection for others. Architecture creates differences; it includes and excludes, as philosopher Hannah Arendt points out. Architecture is fundamentally aggressive, imposing itself and speaking its own language where it stands, while simultaneously extracting resources and leaving scars on the landscape elsewhere. But architecture can also care, unite, and create opportunities. What if we expanded the concept of welfare—the cornerstone of the golden age of Danish architecture—to encompass not just humans but also more-than-human life?
We can no longer see ourselves as separate from the Earth and its living ecosystems. More-than-human life has not only created the conditions for our presence on Earth; it continually shapes humanity's survival. With architecture as a complex tool, we will explore a new Ecocentric Welfare Model by inviting animals, plants, soil, and water back into the ruins of 'The Great Acceleration.' We aim to seek out a new architecture that creates space for coexistence among various forms of life on Earth.
A Sensory Experience
With "The Habitable Skin," we offer a multisensory and kinesthetic experience of a genuine site-specific art installation that transforms the Danish Pavilion into a habitable skin (to the extent possible) and unfolds the theme through interior installations. It builds on the tradition of Danish welfare architecture, which unites social awareness and aesthetic sensitivity, as well as the Danish, trust-based collaborative approach across knowledge areas. Through "The Habitable Skin," we engage with new material uses, new production methods, new understandings of place, new aesthetic expressions, and the architect's evolving roles: a contribution towards a new architecture!
Rethinking the Primary Nexus of Architecture
We focus on perhaps the most critical point of architecture: the transition between the "cocoons" we build for ourselves to inhabit the Earth and all the living systems they integrate into. This transition between inside and outside, the building's facade, walls, roof, and floor—the building's skin.
We will therefore think, draw, and construct towards the sealed climatic envelope of the "Western prototype," as known from Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome. We aim to expand and spatialize this thin technological barrier: transparent as glass and thin as a line on a drawing. Yet in our relationship with nature, animals, resources, water—indeed everything—it resembles the Berlin Wall: thick, coarse, divisive, and polarizing. How can we make this skin habitable for beings other than humans, and what new spatialities, sensory experiences, and uses does this open up?
Given that the Venice authorities had reservations about building further in the Giardini di Castello, believing that "the park had reached its saturation point" (Elgaard Architecture), we wish to temporarily (or permanently) return the space to nature with our proposal.
Through a practice of maintenance, repair, and support for all living things, "The Habitable Skin" will function as both a pavilion, a garden, and a place—it will be at once an exhibition object and a framework for itself.
In other words, we articulate the dream of a New Ecocentric Welfare Model within and through the pavilion itself.
Regeneration and Material Welfare for All
We see the pavilion and the built environment as part of a living world. Materials are alive, and they come from somewhere. Within the framework of a regenerative practice, we examine the origin, creation, management, and fabrication of materials.
Ecocentric architecture works with, not against, the processes of nature. It is an architecture that literally both grows and sprouts, where the cross-section reveals a microcosm. Behind this living surface lie spaces shaped and inhabited by the planet's best architects—other species.
We aim to both reduce direct and indirect impacts on climate and nature and contribute to the establishment of life-giving systems locally and beyond. With "The Habitable Skin," we expand our understanding of materials to prioritize how different species inhabit the world through their material interactions with nature. We explore how birds build nests and how ants and bees live in collective habitats.
ABOUT LISTENING TO THE PLACE - and understanding life
– uncovering the living systems that surround the Danish pavilion, and exploring their life patterns, rhythms, behavior and movements.
Well-being for all living things is not abstract – it is completely concrete. But it unfolds differently depending on local conditions. We listen to our 'Place', the Danish Pavilion, and see it as an integral part of its surroundings and thus as a condition of life for many species other than the visitors to the biennale. For this we get help from local and international experts, among others from the sound artist Jana Winderen and the NGO We Are Here Venice.
Despite the Anthropocene state, living systems are still present and we depend on their survival. When humans retreat – as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic – nature regains its footing, becomes more visible and alive. Birds migrate over the Giardini and eat insects that live in the trees, that grow in the ground, that absorb rainwater and that…
Building as a Landscape...
We look at the urban and artificial landscapes as habitats for more than- human life, to explore the Danish pavilion as its own landscape and examines its potential as a habitat for many living systems.
The Danish pavilion in the Biennale Giardini is both part of the landscape and a landscape in itself, thus becoming a possible habitat for living systems. We investigate the spatial, topological, physical and material conditions in the building and in its relationship to its surroundings as a space for coexistence between humans and animals, insects, and plants.
As a network of tangled relationships co-exist-all living species are under one planetary roof. We connect knowledge and opportunities, create an overview and identify 'missing links', 'grand opportunities' and 'in need of care'.
This map shows a selection of species observed near the pavilion. Data collected through the iNatural-ist platform for biodiversity observations.
The Habitable Skin explores core ideas that our studio believes are essential to integrate into our profession, and we are committed to developing and materializing them to the best of our ability with our work.
We responded to the open call as a team consisting of Ellen Braae, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, Mikkel Møller Roesdahl for Terroir, and Taryn Cullen Humphrey, founder of Shisho Studio and Industrial PhD student.
