The Why Factory and artist Federico Díaz present BIOTOPIA: Propagative Structures at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025

At the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, The Why Factory – a think tank and research institute led by Winy Maas at the Delft University of Technology – alongside visual artist Federico Díaz unveiled BIOTOPIA, their joint contribution to the main exhibition curated by Carlo Ratti under the theme Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective. BIOTOPIA is a bold vision for a living, evolving planet and a call to reimagine design, proposing a future where biology becomes the foundation of everything. The presentation brings this vision to life through two related elements: a sculptural installation that explores the idea of living matter in continuous transformation, alongside a film that visualises this future. The work will be on view at the Corderie dell’Arsenale from May 10 to November 23, 2025.

How can we transform our planet into a sustainable home for over 8 billion humans – and countless other species? BIOTOPIA is an invitation to dream and act: to imagine cities becoming forests, architecture growing like trees, and streets illuminated by bioluminescent lighting, alive with biodiversity. It envisions a world designed not just with nature, but as nature. At the heart of BIOTOPIA lies the vision of a global Sponge: a dynamic bio-matter architecture that cools, filters water, generates energy, and shelters life while adapting like a living organism. This bio-matter grows, shrinks, and regenerates, creating a seamless, sustainable integration of biology and technology.

The BIOTOPIA film, directed by Professor Winy Maas and produced by The Why Factory, imagines a future where bio-matter transforms human settlements into self-sustaining systems. It advocates a shift from today's largely unrecyclable design processes to a future where architecture mirrors nature – fully integrated, regenerative, and waste-free. Rooted in years of research initiated at The Why Factory (T?F) and developed through design studios at TU Delft and CTU in Prague, BIOTOPIA challenges traditional notions of architecture. It envisions a radical integration of biology, technology, and collective intelligence to rethink how we inhabit the planet.

“Today, more than ever, everything is biology. Everything is nature”, says Winy Maas. “What can we innovate, technically and spatially? How can natural sciences, automation, nanomaterials, robotics, biotechnology, or biomimicry contribute to establishing new relationships among humans and all other living organisms? Let’s invent and dream. Let’s imagine Biotopia.”

The Propagative Structures installation, designed and realised by visual artist Federico Díaz, gives sculptural form to the idea of living matter in continuous transformation. “We are not designing finished objects—we are initiating life processes”, says Díaz. “Propagative Structures explores architecture as something that grows, adapts, and eventually decomposes, just like living organisms. In this way, the built environment becomes a partner in the metabolic flows of the planet, not a disruption.”

Emerging from long-standing research into biomimicry, algorithmic design, and adaptive structures, Díaz’s work proposes architecture as an active participant in ecological cycles. The installation draws on the resilience and intelligence of natural systems, such as mangrove root networks, to explore how structures might one day grow, adapt, and decompose like living organisms. Propagative Structures captures a moment in this unfolding process: a hybrid entity where form is not fixed, but generated through interaction between data, material, and environment. It suggests that future habitats could emerge not through construction, but through cultivation.

BIOTOPIA: Propagative Structures was made possible by a grant from the Creative Industries Fund NL, which supports projects by Dutch architects, landscape architects, spatial designers, and researchers invited to the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Carlo Ratti.