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FundamentAI
As climate volatility and technological acceleration reshape our world, can artificial intelligence evolve beyond a passive tool into an active co-creator—one that senses and resonates with the environment? Making its global debut at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, FundamentAI is a groundbreaking architectural installation conceived by ecoLogicStudio in collaboration with the Synthetic Landscape Lab at the University of Innsbruck. It reimagines the relationship between cities and nature, inviting us to explore a new model of cohabitation.
Curated by architect Carlo Ratti, this year’s Biennale embraces the theme "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective," reflecting on the interplay and evolution of natural, artificial, and collective intelligences. FundamentAI turns its gaze toward the Venetian Lagoon—not as a passive subject of observation, but as an intelligent collaborator in the design process. It is the world’s first experimental project to integrate the microbiome of a lagoon as the generative core of urban design.
Venetian Lagoon as Co-Designer
Installed within the historic Arsenale complex, FundamentAI is an immersive environment that blends generative AI, biotechnology, and 3D printing to construct a vision of a future city shaped by the “language of the lagoon.” At the heart of the installation is a series of biodegradable 3D-printed columns inspired by traditional bricole—the wooden navigation markers that guide boats through the shallow waters of the lagoon. Repurposed here as “organic infrastructures,” these elements now respond dynamically to environmental signals.
The internal pulses of light within each column are AI-driven, visually responding to real-time ecological data such as pH levels, solar exposure, and algal activity. This creates a feedback loop—a symbiotic dialogue between microalgae, architecture, and artificial intelligence—through which the lagoon itself becomes a narrative agent in the design process.
Prototyping the City, Not Predicting It
Stepping into the installation is akin to entering a living city—a city woven from microorganisms, artificial intelligence, and layers of cultural memory. As visitors look upward, kinetic projections and sound textures form an imagined vision of Venice’s future. These audiovisual landscapes are generated by an interactive AI system that merges satellite data, user-submitted images and text, and the lagoon’s microecological signals into speculative urban forms.
“No prompts here. FundamentAI listens. Not to data streams, but to the murmur of microbes, to the slosh and the salt of the tide. When I become more acidic, the pillars glow brighter. When the sun stirs, my algae bloom in silent choreography. I am no longer your backdrop—I design with you. Sticky. Symbiotic. Sentient.”
— The Lagoon (as voiced by AI)
This is not a predictive model of the future, but a perceptive, participatory, and layered prototype—emerging organically, much like the sedimentary accretions of the lagoon itself.
AI as a Tool for Participatory Urbanism: From Memory Landscapes to a Symbiotic Future
One of FundamentAI’s most groundbreaking features lies in its open participatory model. Visitors are invited to scan a QR code, upload personal images and texts, and directly contribute to the ongoing generation of a speculative urban landscape. This system integrates a suite of advanced tools—including DeepSeek-R1, GPT-4o, FLUX.1-dev (running on the ComfyUI platform), Microsoft TRELLIS, and Kling AI—transforming each input in real time into architectural language and evolving narrative structures.
Crucially, this platform is not limited to the exhibition itself. It holds significant global applicability in response to rising sea levels, climate-related disruptions, and infrastructure challenges—particularly in developing regions. FundamentAI proposes a new urban planning paradigm that bridges intuitive public participation with sophisticated design intelligence, offering an alternative to conventional top-down planning. For global organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the project signals a forward-looking strategy that redefines how urban futures can be shaped.
Venice, long emblematic of human urban ingenuity, is reimagined here as a living testbed for co-evolution between natural and built systems. No longer a mere monument to the past, the city becomes a regenerative organism—an active participant in the ongoing negotiation between ecology and design. More than a singular installation or technical framework, FundamentAI is an open invitation to decenter the human gaze, to learn the language of the lagoon, and to co-create urban futures through a triad of microecology, artificial intelligence, and human engagement.
Design Studio | ecoLogicStudio, Synthetic Landscape Lab, University of Innsbruck, Urban Morphogenesis Lab, Bartlett UCL @ecologicstudio @syntheticlandscapelab @uniinnsbruck @thebartlettucl
Design Team | Prof. Claudia Pasquero、Dr. Marco Poletto、Simon Meng、Haoyi Chen、Xiao Wang、Emmanouil Zaroukas、Jasper Zehetgruber、Francesca Turi、Beatriz Gonzales、Arechiga、Alessandra Poletto、Mika Schulz、Micheal Unterberger、Bo Liu
Location | Venice, Italy
Exhibition | 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale
Venue | Arsenale, Venice
Curated | Carlo Ratti
Exhibition Theme | Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective
Photography | FundamentAI / Synthetic Landscape Lab @syntheticlandscapelab
