The 19th Venice Biennale of Architecture is open to visitors from now until November 23rd, 2025.This year, the exhibition features over 300 contributions from more than 750 participants, including architects and engineers, farmers and fashion designers, mathematicians and climate scientists, woodcarvers and writers, philosophers and artists, chefs and coders, and many more.The exhibitions are organized in historic Pavilions at the Arsenale, the Giardini, and in the city center.
Several of the exhibitions on display were created with 3D printing.WASP & Columbia University: Earthen Rituals Founded in Massa Lombarda, Italy in 2012, the World’s Advanced Saving Project, better known as WASP, is always working to improve the world, answer human needs, and inspire others through technological innovations, like its large-scale 3D printers that work with natural and local materials.At this year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture, the company has its name on two installations.
3D Printed Earth-Fiber Mixture by The Natural Materials Lab with WASP 3MT LDM WASP collaborated with The Natural Materials Lab of Columbia University GSAPP to create Earthen Rituals, a unique installation exploring “the intersection of AI-driven design with traditional materials rooted in embodied human histories.” The unique project actually grew from the lab’s existing partnership with WASP, using its ceramic WASP 40100 LDM as part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance research on building materials based on raw earth and fiber.“By addressing extractive practices, colonial legacies, and climate crises, Earthen Rituals proposes ceremonial avenues that fuse approaches to human hand, tools, and machines; radical approaches that embrace raw materials and their messy, porous, and variable qualities; and devotional approaches that negotiates critical material design with fundamental scientific rigor,” WASP explained.WASP 40100 LDM The Natural Materials Lab asked WASP for production support in this project, specifically for making hundreds of earthen tiles within a tight timeframe.
The company actually hosted the lab team at its own facility as part of the WASP Residency Program, which gave members access to WASP’s LDM technologies.The 40100 Production system was used for 24/7 customized serial production, combined with the WASP 3MT LDM and HD Continuous Feeding System, which makes it possible to print complex LDM materials with a high percentage of fibers or other aggregate materials.To create the installation, existing earthen textures were digitally translated into code and 3D printed into tiles using a soil and fiber mixture, which was made by combining agricultural by-products with construction waste.
Earthen Rituals exhibited at the Arsenale area of Venice Biennale of Architecture 2025 “The 3D printed mixture was developed through a kitchen approach, informed by ancient earth construction techniques cultivated in regions of the globe (e.g., Terracruda in Italian, Lehm in German, Toub Laban in Arabic, and Udongo in Swahili) to blend vernacular wisdom with cutting-edge material science to push the boundaries of what digital cleanliness is,” the company explained.The overall structure and “visual character” of the 3D printed Earthen Rituals installation was inspired by other craft techniques, such as basketry, figurine-making, and weaving.Inside, there are light projections and what WASP describes as “earthy scents.” These not only showcase the life cycle and and recyclability of—and interplay between—manufacturing and handcrafting, but also enhance the sensory experience.
You can find Earthen Rituals in the Natural section of the Venice Biennale of Architecture’s Arsenale area.WASP & MIT: To Grow a Building The second installation WASP helped to create for the Venice Biennale of Architecture, To Grow a Building, was done in collaboration with architect Nof Nathansohn of the MIT School of Architecture.Just like with Earthen Rituals, Nathansohn’s team were hosted at WASP’s facility as part of the company’s Residency Program.
Here, they used 100% local soil from Massa Lombarda to create a 3D printed structure, embedded with seeds and small living creatures, that will grow over time.“To Grow a Building stands at the threshold where mechanical precision meets nature’s sublime unpredictability,” the company stated.The team used the newly developed Crane WASP Scara for the organic To Grow a Building installation.
This construction 3D printer features a mechanical joint, which offers a much greater range of motion, and can print close to existing structures and organisms like walls, natural formations, and trees.The structure it built out of soil-based material for the installation is 5 meters in diameter, includes 14 different plant species, and has about 8 kilometers of printing tool path.The team studied plant communities, and chose their seeds carefully to celebrate both ecological necessity and local wisdom.
To inform the design, they relied on botanical data, such as seasonal cycles and mature dimensions of plants, their specific light and moisture requirements, and symbiotic relationships with other species.This resulted in “a harmonious ecosystem where plants thrive collectively.” “Rather than resisting time, these buildings embrace it: germinating, flourishing, and eventually returning to the earth.As seeds sprout, their roots thread through the architectural body, not as invaders but as natural reinforcement, weaving strength through biological collaboration.” Due to the large size of the installation, To Grow a Building can only be seen in the Natural section of the Arsenale area at the Venice Biennale of Architecture through photos and videos; the structure itself is located at WASP’s headquarters.
Crane WASP Scara The Living Room Collective: Picoplanktonics Speaking of living installations, the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture has been transformed into an aquatic laboratory and micro-ecosystem with Picoplanktonics—a 3D printed living artwork that incorporates cyanobacteria.These ancient, tiny organisms can sequester carbon dioxide, so their use in this project was essential to turn 3D printed architecture into a living structure.Courtesy of the Living Room Collective Canadian architect and interdisciplinary designer Andrea Shin Ling leads the Living Room Collective, a group of architects, scientists, artists, and educators who work at the intersection of architecture, biology, and digital fabrication.
Their goal is to move society away from exploitative production systems to regenerative ones.How? By using, and developing, design methods and processes focused on natural systems.That’s why the Venice Biennale of Architecture is such a great opportunity for this project.
Four years of experimental research went into Picoplanktonics, with help from material engineers, roboticists, and scientists at ETH Zürich and other partners.The installation, featuring 3D printed architectural-scale structures seeded with living cyanobacteria, was designed according to regenerative architecture principles, and is actually capable of interacting with its environment.These structures will grow, evolve, and naturally degrade over time.
Courtesy of the Living Room Collective “Their research focuses on harnessing the design principles of living systems as the basis for sustainable, intelligent, and resilient materials and technologies for the future, resulting in the development of a first-of-its-kind robotic 3D printing process that infuses a sedimentary scaffold with bacteria to make living structures that realize a biological function,” the Living Room Collective explains on its website.Courtesy of the Living Room Collective During the printing process, Synechococcus PCC 7002, a marine cyanobacteria capable of bio-mineralization, was embedded into the structures, and will sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide throughout the course of the exhibition.The biofabrication platform was initially only able to print structures in the millimeter to centimeter scale, but can now print living structures at architectural scale, like a nearly 3.5-meter-tall photosynthetic living structure.
Over 100 of these living structures were printed at ETH Zürich facilities from January through April of this year.They were then extracted and incubated for a few weeks, before being taken to Venice and assembled into the final structures for the Picoplanktonics installation.Courtesy of the Living Room Collective Those who visit the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture will have the chance to see these living structures in a carefully structured environment, which was adapted to offer the right balance of light, moisture, and warmth so the cyanobacteria 3D printed within the structures can grow.
Caretakers will maintain the space throughout the exhibition, spraying the structures with customized solutions and taking measurements to ensure optimal growth.“Design for partnership with life forms like Synechococcus PCC 7002 demonstrates one approach towards planetary remediation as global carbon emissions continue to rise past sustainable levels,” the Living Room Collective wrote.“This mode of production demands a shift in design practice, to value working in symbiosis with the underlying logic of natural systems rather than building over them.” Courtesy of the Living Room Collective All three of these installations, made with 3D printing, are examples of what’s possible when we work with the Earth, instead of against it.
Subscribe to Our Email Newsletter
Stay up-to-date on all the latest news from the 3D printing industry and receive information and offers from third party vendors.Print Services
Upload your 3D Models and get them printed quickly and efficiently.Powered by FacFox
Powered by 3D Systems
Powered by Craftcloud
Powered by Endeavor 3D
Powered by Xometry
3DPrinting Business Directory
3DPrinting Business Directory
