unEarthed, Second Nature, PolliNATION is one of the eleven official collateral events selected by Curator Carlo Ratti to be part of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia.

The project is being carried out by students and faculty at Virginia Tech Honors College and by Cloud 9 Architecture. It is curated by Dr. Enric Ruiz Geli and Dr. Anne-Lise Velez and, with the participation of 142 students and 12 faculty members, will showcase 11 student Honors Projects that bring together the educational power of transdisciplinary educational pedagogy.

The project takes the form of an ephemeral observatory installed in the Giardini della Marinaressa in Venice. It is intended as a place of transformative experiential learning, through the creation of a new garden with 60 plants that attract 7 different pollinators. The installation and its central pavilion will promote awareness about how gardens and their pollinators encourage sustainability and will act as a manifesto about interspecies architecture.

To start the conversation about unEarthed, Second Nature, PolliNATION, Cloud 9 Architecture has invited Aaron Betsky to be the moderator of a symposium, where the relationship between architecture, nature, and science will lead to speculations on what truly organic architecture might be.

A dozen participants from around the world will bring their own perspective and experience with creating work that intertwines architecture with both human made and natural systems to a series of hour-long discussions.

Speakers:

Aaron Betsky, Moderator
Carlo Ratti, Curator, Venice International Architecture Biennale
Kevin Jones, VT Honors College
Elizabeth Diller, Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Vicente Guallart, Urbanitree
Summer Islam, Material Cultures
Olalekan Jeyifous, Brooklyn-based Artist/Designer
Mitchell Joachim, Terreform 1
Maria Lisogorskaya, Assemble
Ferdinand Ludwig, OLA/TUM
Mireia Luzarraga, TAKK
Qingyun Ma, Mada s.p.a.m.
Claudia Pasquero, Ecologic Studio
Enric Ruiz Geli, Cloud 9 Architecture

We are a PolliNATION.

Event sponsored by USM Modular Furniture.

Symposium: “UnEarthed, Second Nature, PolliNATION”