Studio Details

Location
Venice, Italy

Date
29 June-10 July, 2026

Team Leaders
Lorenzo Mattozzi (Associate Architect, MVRDV)
Cosimo Scotucci (Senior Project Leader, MVRDV)
with
Luca Beltrame (Co-Founder, Beltrame Breuil)
Camille Breuil (Co-Founder, Beltrame Breuil)

Program
Public space and playfulness

Field Trips and Site Visits
Sacca della Misericordia (representing Venice before Venice)
Giardini del Redentore (reflecting early urban consolidation)
Alberoni – Macondo (contemporary living within the lagoon)

Project

Fondamenta Minore
We will explore the potential of public space in Venice, reimagining it as a catalyst for social life, play, and ecological resilience by designing a new neighborhood of approximately 1.5 hectares on the northern edge of Venice, combining contemporary housing and services with sports facilities and generous public spaces, particularly for children and young people.

This focus responds to one of Venice’s most pressing challenges: the progressive decline and aging of its resident population, coupled with a growing lack of spaces dedicated to everyday life. While Venice is globally recognized for its cultural heritage, it increasingly struggles to support the needs of permanent residents, especially families and younger generations. By prioritizing housing, play, sport, mobility and accessible public space we frame design as a tool to reclaim Venice as a city for living, not only for visiting.

The site is Sacca della Misericordia, currently a marina and small-boat dockyard that represents a missing piece in the puzzle-like structure of Venice. Rich in historical layers yet open to transformation, the site offers the opportunity to design a new piece of Venice, extending the city through a process that is both artificial and deeply rooted in lagoon dynamics.

We will focus on the integrated design of architecture, public space, and landscape, with particular attention to residential typologies and sports and play facilities for children and young people. Projects will investigate how materials, colors, and spatial sequences can support orientation, accessibility, and inclusive use of public space, encouraging everyday appropriation by residents of different ages.

MVRDV’s design methodology will guide the studio process, emphasizing contextual analysis, scale, typology, and narrative clarity. AI and AR tools will be explored as instruments for scenario testing, design development, and spatial communication. Sustainability strategies will be framed through the ESG framework.

MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. Based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the company has a global scope, providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues in all regions of the world. It is a highly collaborative environment where architects, clients, stakeholders, and experts from a wide range of fields, come together during the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects that enable cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.

The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Completed projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.

The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. Two hundred and fifty architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process that involves rigorous technical and creative investigation.

Rotterdam + Berlin, Paris, Shanghai and New York
|| Web || Instagram ||

Collaborating Architect

Beltrame Breuil

We are a European team of architects and designers.
Grown up amidst forests and lakes, we developed a deep connection to nature and landscape—values that continue to shape our work today.
We envision an architecture that engages in dialogue with its surroundings while challenging its status quo—radical in its ideas and ecological in its principles. Not an architecture that blends into the built environment but rather refers to the natural context.
As an oxymoron, we embrace and live through contrasts, creating positive emotions and unexpected solutions by mediating between landscape and cities, wilderness and user’s experience, technology and tradition, simplicity and creativity.
We believe in working with raw materials, enhancing their characters. We design buildings, landscapes, interiors, installations and furniture through research and practice.

At every scale, in every context, what we do reflects our philosophy:
Architecture for the Landscape.

Tarvisio and Vienna
|| Web || Instagram ||

Internships and Opportunities

Young designers and students accepted to join MVRDV at Venice Studio may be considered for available internship or job opportunities at MVRDV and/or Beltrame Breuil. Selection of candidates is at the sole discretion of the team leaders, MVRDV and Beltrame Breuil. Places are not guaranteed.

Program Information & Ticketing

Learn more about the program, inc., the application process and pricing here →