Living Room Collective to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale
The Canada Council for the Arts is delighted to announce that the Living Room Collective will represent Canada at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, from May 10 to November 23, 2025.
Selected by a Council-designated selection committee from among the group of five shortlisted candidates, the Living Room Collective will curate the next architecture exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee. Together this group of architects, scientists, artists and educators will work at the intersection of architecture, biology and digital fabrication to situate architecture as an integral and supportive component of our ecosystem.
“The Canada Council is proud to support the Living Room Collective, who have been selected to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. My sincere congratulations to our national and international selection committee in choosing such a timely proposal from this unique group, where design and biology will converge to imagine a better future for our living spaces.”
—Michelle Chawla, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Council for the Arts
The selection committee was comprised of the following members:
- Aziza Chaouni, architect, principal, Aziza Chaouni Projects (Toronto │ Morocco) │ associate professor, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario)
- David Garneau (Métis), painter, curator and critical art writer │ professor, Visual Arts Department, University of Regina (Regina, Saskatchewan)
- Daniel Pearl, architect, principal, L’OEUF Architectes (Montréal) │ professor, School of Architecture, Université de Montréal (Montréal, Quebec)
- Siamak Hariri, architect, founding partner, Hariri Pontarini Architects (Toronto, Ontario)
- Sepake Angiama, curator and educator │ artistic director, Institute for International Visual Art (London, United Kingdom)
“It is an incredible honour to have been selected to represent Canada at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. In demonstrating the possibilities of a collaborative relationship with nature, we look forward to leveraging this global platform alongside national and international partners to engage in a critical dialogue around alternative design practices that can sit alongside contemporary carbon neutral building strategies.”
—Living Room Collective
Living Room Collective
Andrea Shin Ling is an architect and biodesigner who works at the intersection of design, digital fabrication and biology. Her work focuses on how the critical application of biologically and computationally mediated design processes can move society away from exploitative systems of production to regenerative ones. She is the 2020 S+T+ARTS Grand Prize winner for her work as Ginkgo Bioworks’ creative resident designing the decay of artifacts in order to access material circularity. Andrea is a founder of designGUILD, a Toronto-based art collective, and was a researcher in the Mediated Matter group at the MIT Media Lab, where she worked on Aguahoja I, a 3D-printed bio-material pavilion. She is currently a doctoral fellow at the Chair of Digital Building Technologies at ETH Zurich.
Nicholas Hoban is a computational designer, fabricator and educator. He works at the intersection of computational design, robotics, construction and simulation in pedagogy, research and practice. Nicholas is the director of applied technologies at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design and a lecturer within the Daniels technology specialist program, leading various research and teaching labs while developing curriculum for studios and seminars on advanced fabrication and robotics within architecture. His research focuses on the application of robotics within fabrication and construction and on how we can solve critical problems in geometry through integrated processes. Nicholas was a lead fabricator and computational designer for two previous Venice Biennales: for the 2014 Canadian Pavilion for Lateral Office’s Arctic Adaptations and for the 2016 Swiss Pavilion for Christian Kerez’s Incidental Space.
Vincent Hui is a distinguished professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Department of Architectural Science, imparting knowledge across diverse domains from design studios to digital tools. His pedagogical excellence has earned him multiple teaching accolades, as he delves into the intersections of architecture, fabrication and allied disciplines. With over 25 years of experience, his extensive publication portfolio focuses on design pedagogy, simulation, prototyping and technological convergence, complemented by a rich body of creative work showcased globally. Collaborating with esteemed organizations such as the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA) and the Canadian Architecture Students’ Association (CASA), Vincent endeavoiurs to empower the next generation of designers, navigating emergent shifts in praxis. Committed to bridging academia and industry, he advocates for experiential learning initiatives and outreach endeavours for aspiring designers. His remarkable contributions have culminated in his induction into the esteemed RAIC College of Fellows.
Clayton Lee is a curator, producer and performance artist. He is currently the director (artistic) of the Fierce Festival, in Birmingham, UK. He was previously the director of the Rhubarb Festival, Canada’s longest-running festival of new and experimental performance, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. Clayton has also worked as creative producer on Jess Dobkin’s projects, including For What It’s Worth, her commission at the Wellcome Collection, in London, UK; as curatorial associate at the Luminato Festival; and as managing producer of the CanadaHub at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His performance projects have been presented in venues across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. He was one of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2023 artists-in-residence.
About the Venice Architecture Biennale
The Venice Biennale is and has been one of the most important cultural institutions in the world since 1895. The International Architecture Exhibition consists of a central exhibition with over 100 international participants, 60 national pavilions and collateral events throughout the city. It is a prestigious exhibition and international platform that engages critical conversations about contemporary architecture—among them architects, artists, designers, critics, politicians, students, and cultural leaders from around the world.
Past Exhibitions
Curator: Architects Against Housing Alienation
- 2021 Impostor Cities
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Curator: David Theodore, Presenter: T B A / Thomas Balaban Architect
- 2018 UNCEDED
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Curators: Gerald McMaster, David Fortin, Presenter: Douglas Cardinal Architect
- 2016 Extraction
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Curator: OPSYS │ Pierre Bélanger
- 2014 Arctic Adaptations: Nunavut at 15
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Curator: Lateral Office │ Lola Sheppard, Mason White, Matthew Spremulli
- 2012 Migrating Landscape
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Curators: 5468796 Architecture + Jae Sung Chon
- 2010 Hylozoic Ground
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Exhibitor: Philip Beesley Architect Inc.
- 2008 41° to 66°: Architecture in Canada – Region, Culture, Tectonics
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Curators: John McMinn, Marco Polo, Presenter: Cambridge Galleries
- 2006 SweaterLodge
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Curators: Chris Macdonald, Greg Bellerby, Presenter: Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Exhibitor: Pechet and Robb Studio
- 2004 Found Object
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Curator: Georges Adamczyk, Exhibitor: Saucier & Perrotte Architectes
- 2002 Next Memory City
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Curators: Michael Awad, John Knechtal, Presenters: InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre and Alphabet City, Exhibitors: Michael Awad, Eve Egoyan, David Rokeby
- 2000 Un dictionnaire ...
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Curator: Phyllis Lambert, Presenter: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Exhibitor: Melvin Charney