FundamentAI explores Responsive Urban Design at Venice Biennale
At the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, ecoLogicStudio presents FundamentAI, a collaborative installation developed with the Synthetic Landscape Lab at Innsbruck University and the Urban Morphogenesis Lab at the Bartlett, UCL. The project explores the intersection of architecture, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence through the lens of Venice’s unique lagoon ecosystem.
Installed at the Arsenale, FundamentAI proposes a new model for urban design that includes real-time ecological data as a driver for architectural formation. The installation integrates environmental signals, particularly from lagoon microorganisms, with generative design processes enabled by multimodal AI systems. Its design references Venice’s traditional wooden ‘bricole’ foundation poles, reinterpreted as bio-fabricated, biodegradable 3D printed columns embedded with responsive technology. The project employs a participatory design interface, allowing visitors to contribute images and texts that are interpreted by AI models to generate urban forms. This system incorporates several AI technologies: DeepSeek-R1 and GPT-4o for image and text analysis; FLUX.1-dev on ComfyUI for image generation; TRELLIS for 3D modeling; and Kling AI for animation output. These tools collectively produce adaptive, AI-mediated architectural responses that are informed by both user input and environmental data, such as acidity levels and microbial activity in the lagoon.
FundamentAI installation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale | all images courtesy of ecoLogicStudio and the Synthetic Landscape Lab
Microbial Signals and AI Shape Immersive 3D printed installation
Architecturally, the installation includes a full-scale immersive environment featuring 3D printed columns made from biodegradable material. These elements are designed using origination points from microbial and climatic signals in the Venetian lagoon. They respond to changing environmental conditions with subtle lighting effects powered by an AI video system, visually encoding data streams such as light, acidity, and microbial growth into atmospheric shifts within the space.
FundamentAI, a collaborative initiative by architecture innovation firm ecoLogicStudio, Synthetic Landscape Lab at Innsbruck University, and the Urban Morphogenesis Lab at the Bartlett, UCL, aims to reframe foundational urban elements as symbiotic and ecologically attuned rather than static or anthropocentric. The installation treats the lagoon not only as a geographic context but also as an active participant in the design process. Ecological data is captured, processed, and translated into form, giving the lagoon agency within the architectural narrative. FundamentAI also introduces the ‘Capsule Urbanism’ concept, an approach to urban design that incorporates compact, modular, and ecologically responsive elements. The installation uses capsule-scale fabrication as a testbed for ideas that could scale to broader urban contexts, particularly in coastal areas facing environmental precarity.
the installation explores architecture shaped by AI and microbial signals from the Venetian lagoon
Expanding Public Participation in Design Through AI-Driven Tools
One of the central ambitions of the project is to demonstrate how AI tools can expand public participation in urban planning. By scanning a QR code, visitors are invited to upload photographs of their surroundings in Venice. The system processes these visual inputs to generate speculative urban models that are visually and structurally informed by both user data and real-time environmental feedback from the lagoon. While rooted in Venice’s history and material culture, FundamentAI is conceived as a globally relevant framework, particularly for cities in the Global South facing rapid urbanization and ecological vulnerability. The adaptive design method allows for responsive, data-integrated planning that accommodates non-human actors and environmental variability, potentially offering new strategies for climate-resilient development.
Beyond its exhibition at the Venice Biennale, the project forms part of a broader research trajectory by ecoLogicStudio and its partners. Related upcoming projects include DeepForestCube, to be presented at the Triennale International Exhibition 2025, and Tree.One with the BioLab, scheduled for launch at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn in June 2025.
3D printed biodegradable columns reinterpret Venice’s traditional bricole foundations
generative AI processes respond to real-time environmental data like acidity and light
interaction between the bio-fabricated columns and the video projection
close-up view of 3D printed sculptures in biopolymers
subtle lighting shifts reflect microbial activity and lagoon chemistry in real time
