What if architecture didn’t just exist in nature, but behaved like it? That’s the provocation behind BIOTOPIA: Propagative Structures, the visionary installation by The Why Factory and artist Federico Díaz at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. Presented in the main exhibition curated by Carlo Ratti under the theme Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., the project reimagines a future in which biology becomes the basis of design, and our cities are not just livable but alive.
Developed by The Why Factory, the think tank led by Winy Maas at TU Delft, in collaboration with visual artist Federico Díaz, BIOTOPIA is part installation, part cinematic speculation. It proposes a built environment that mimics the logic of living systems, growing, adapting, decomposing, and regenerating in harmony with its ecosystem.
At the core of the project is a sculptural installation titled Propagative Structures, inspired by the resilience and networked intelligence of natural systems like mangrove roots. Created by Díaz, the structure captures a moment in ongoing biological transformation. It suggests a future where buildings are no longer static objects but evolving processes, initiated, rather than completed ,becoming active participants in the planet’s metabolic flows.
“We are not designing finished objects,” says Díaz. “We are initiating life processes.”
Paired with the installation is a film directed by Winy Maas and produced by The Why Factory. The film visualizes an urban future where bio-matter reshapes human settlements into self-sustaining systems. Cities become forests, buildings grow like trees, and bioluminescent lighting lines the streets. It is a speculative world built not merely with nature, but as nature.
The idea is rooted in years of research at The Why Factory and developed through design studios at TU Delft and CTU in Prague. BIOTOPIA challenges the wasteful, rigid conventions of modern construction and advocates for a shift toward regenerative, biologically attuned systems of living. It is not just about sustainability, it is about embracing a new design ethos that aligns with the intelligence and rhythms of the natural world.
Winy Maas poses the central question: “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.”
On view at the Corderie dell’Arsenale from May 10 to November 23, 2025, BIOTOPIA: Propagative Structures invites visitors to step into an architectural ecosystem in the making.
All images courtesy of MVRDV.
