open call - biennale college architettura 2023

The International call for applications opens today for the first-ever Biennale College Architettura, which will run from 25 June to 22 July 2023 in Venice, Italy.

The College is open to graduate students, graduates under the age of 30, to early career academics (PhD candidates, researchers, assistant professors, tutors, teaching fellows, etc.) and emerging practitioners under the age of 35. In line with the general goals of all Biennale Colleges (cinema, dance, music, theatre, art), this first Biennale College Architettura will seek to complement and enrich the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, The Laboratory of the Future (20 May – 26 November, 2023) by exploring how to place the Exhibition’s central themes, decolonisation and decarbonisation, at the heart of architectural education.

The process will culminate in a documentary, which will be screened as part of the Exhibition.

Biennale College Architettura encourages applicants from as wide a range of built environment disciplinary backgrounds as possible (such as landscape architecture, urban design, interior architecture, design engineering or similar built environment practices), following the overall ambition of The Laboratory of the Future to broaden our understanding of our discipline. Preference will be given to applicants with strong design skills and interests, whether expressed through visual, text-based or performance media.

Up to 50 eligible participants will be selected following the open call deadline by the Director of the Architecture Department of La Biennale di Venezia, Lesley Lokko, whose decision will be final. They will work alongside a global cast of renowned practitioners, academics and built environment professionals on a range of design projects at different scales that map out new possibilities for architectural education in the coming decades.

This educational experience will be thematically and physically situated amongst the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. Those participating in the College will enjoy direct access to the exhibited work of the participants of the Biennale Architettura 2023. The Biennale College Architettura 2023 will operate through a series of experimental studios, seminars, lectures and public reviews, drawing on the rich history of radical and transformative pedagogies that have surfaced in architectural education over the past fifty years. The College will thus provide an explorative space for graduate students, early career practitioners, and emerging teachers and academics, to critically and creatively engage with each other, with experts and with the two most pressing concerns of our time: decolonisation and decarbonisation.