Venice Apply Now
June 30 – July 11, 2025
STUDIO
SNØHETTA
Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, Oslo, Norway. 2008
Studio Details
Location
Venice, Italy
Date
30 June-11 July, 2025
Studio Directors in Venice
Jette Cathrin Hopp (Director, Snøhetta)
Tommaso Maserati (Architect, Snøhetta)
Studio Project
Urban Regeneration and the Venice Lagoon
Field Trips and Site Visits
A kayaking tour in the Venetian lagoon
A site visit to the islands of the lagoon
Studio Project
The Venetian lagoon is a complex ecosystem supporting diverse plant and animal life, from marine algae and halophytes to flamingos, herons, and fish communities. Despite its ecological importance, with Barene absorbing 85 tons of CO2 per square kilometer annually, the archipelago has been heavily altered by human use over centuries. Islands have served defensive, medical, and religious purposes, with structures like forts, hospitals, and monasteries imposed upon the landscape without meaningful interaction with the lagoon’s natural systems.
Today, many of these islands and abandoned structures are being converted into exclusive tourist resorts that treat the lagoon merely as scenic backdrop rather than engaging with it as a living ecosystem. This studio proposes an alternative approach: creating spaces of contemplation that function as instruments for experiencing and understanding the lagoon’s natural phenomena. These minimal interventions could, for example, frame views, amplify natural sounds, reveal tidal patterns and wildlife movements, and explore non-anthropocentric design that gives agency to other species. The goal is to shift from a paradigm of consumption to one of conservation through phenomenological awareness and deeper ecological engagement.
Beyond conservation, the studio is also open for exploration of spaces of production (as a continuation of the main theme conducted by Snøhetta during these years at Venice Studio) and the creating of spaces that actively enhance ecological wealth through symbiotic relationships with natural processes. Rather than depleting (Consumption) or preserving (Conservation), these structures could generate ecological wealth through the potential integration of scientific research, workshops, sustainable resource cultivation and other unexplored forms of production. Such programs might include innovative aquaculture installations that restore marine populations, cultivation facilities to strengthen plant communities, laboratories studying climate adaptation strategies, or entirely new functional typologies that transform our understanding of how architecture can participate in environmental systems while demonstrating how active human presence might contribute positively to ecological processes rather than merely consuming/conserving them.
Key Questions:
Would It be possible to “exploit” the Venice lagoon, not only for Its strategic values but to envision architectural interventions that celebrate and enhance the unique ecosystem of the lagoon itself?
Is it possible to explore new architectural typologies that work with the lagoon and don’t become a repetition of traditional “terrestrial” expressions?
Which emergent spatial typologies might arise when we abandon the anthropocentric view of design in favor of a more-than-human framework?
How can a new approach define spaces of collective wonder and contemplation challenging our relationship with the lagoon?
How can active human presence contribute positively to ecological processes rather than merely consuming/conserving them?
Snøhetta (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈsnøːˌhɛtɑ]) began as a collaborative architectural and landscape workshop, and has remained true to its trans-disciplinary way of thinking since its inception. Our work strives to enhance our sense of surroundings, identity and relationship to others and the physical spaces we inhabit, whether feral or human-made. Museums, products, reindeer observatories, graphics, landscapes and dollhouses get the same care and attention to purpose. Today, Snøhetta has grown to become an internationally renowned practice of architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, product, graphic, digital design and art, with 280 employees of more than thirty different nationalities, and an equal gender distribution. Snøhetta is a place nobody is from, but anyone can go to.
|| Oslo, New York, San Francisco, Innsbruck, Paris, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Adelaide, Melbourne || Web link || Instagram link ||
Partner
TBA21–Academy
TBA21–Academy is TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary’s research center fostering a deeper relationship with the Ocean and other bodies of water through the lens of art to inspire care and action. Established in 2011, the Academy has since worked as an incubator for collaborative inquiry, artistic production, and environmental advocacy, catalyzing new forms of knowledge emerging from the exchanges between art, science, policy, and conservation. In 2019, TBA21–Academy opened Ocean Space in Venice, a planetary center that hosts exhibitions and public activities that accelerate critical ocean literacy through the arts. Building on TBA21–Academy’s expansive work, this embassy for the Ocean fosters wonder, engagement and collective action on the most pressing issues facing the Ocean today.
|| Venice, Italy || Web link || Instagram link ||
Internships
Students accepted into the Snøhetta Studio at Venice Studio may be considered for available internship or job opportunities at Snøhetta. Selection of candidates is at the sole discretion of the studio director and Snøhetta. Places are not guaranteed.