How technology gives nature a voice

FundamentAI by ecoLogicStudio doesn’t design, it listens, turning Venice’s lagoon into an active co-creator of a symbiotic city of the future.

What if urban planning wasn’t just realised by humans – but was also shaped by microbes, algae, and ecological rhythms? FundamentAI, an installation created by ecoLogicStudio and the Synthetic Landscape Lab at the University of Innsbruck, shows what such a future could look like at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025.

In the historic Arsenale, the former centre of shipbuilding, an architectural cosmos is emerging that merges biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and real-time data from the lagoon. Biofabricated, 3D-printed columns react to chemical changes in the water and are reminiscent of the traditional ​‘bricole’ – the wooden markers that guide boats through Venice’s lagoon. Howeverm these new markers are intelligent: they glow, pulsate and change with the state of their environment. 

Visitors are invited to feed their own images or texts into the system via QR code. AI tools such as DeepSeek-R1, GPT-4o, and Kling AI then transform them into speculative architectural visions. The result is a participatory, collective shaping of the future – a dialogue between humans, machines, and microorganisms. 

Curated by Carlo Ratti, the 2025 Biennale is entitled ​‘Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.’ and asks how architecture can reinvent itself in an era of climate crisis. The focus here is on adaptation rather than mere damage control. Over 750 international participants from the fields of architecture, science, art, and craftsmanship will showcase interdisciplinary approaches – Venice itself will become a ​‘living lab.’

FundamentAI is taking this approach even further: it uses open AI tools such as FLUX.1‑dev and TRELLIS as well as biodegradable materials to understand architecture not as a product, but as a living process. The installation serves as a testing ground for cities worldwide – especially in endangered coastal regions of the Global South, where classic planning models often fail. Institutions such as the UNDP also see it as a new path for participatory urban development.

‘No prompts here. FundamentAI listens. Not to data streams, but to the murmur of microbes,’ reads the poetic statement accompanying the installation. Architecture is not designed here – it emerges. Symbiotically. More-than-human. Alive.

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