The Australian Institute of Architects has announced Lived In as Australia’s exhibition at the 20th Venice Architecture Biennale, which will take place in Italy from 8 May to 21 November 2027. The Institute has proudly served as Commissioner for Australia’s exhibitions at the global event since 2008, and in 2028 will partner with the Museums of History NSW to see the presentation of Lived In exhibited in Australia. The exhibition is presented on behalf of the nation, and in partnership with Creative Australia.
Lived In examines how housing shapes, and is shaped by the way Australians live. Developed in partnership with Creative Australia, the exhibition draws on the Housing Atlas of Australia, a national research project capturing more than a century of inventive multi-dwelling housing built across every state and territory.
Developed collaboratively by Kerstin Thompson of Kerstin Thompson Architects, Professor Maryam Gusheh, Associate Professor Lee-Anne Khor and Professor Louise Wright of Monash Urban Lab, Lived In brings together research, practice and education to tell a national story of housing through drawings, data, photography, film and resident stories.
Following Venice, the project returns to Australian audiences through the 2028 Australian Architecture Exhibition, co-presented with Museums of History NSW, extending its public, professional and cultural impact nationally.
The theme for the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale, previously revealed by curators Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, is Do Architecture – For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality, proposing a vision of architecture that incorporates the past as a living matter of the present. In response, Lived In will exhibit and capture the responses to context, climate and culture across both canonical and lesser-known works in Venice through drawings, data, photographs and film to show how housing shapes and is in turn shaped by everyday life.
The Venice Architecture Biennale states that Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu’s theme aims to “return architecture to its most concrete, physical and essential dimension: that of building in direct relation to the land, to the materials, to the communities, and to the reality of places. Their philosophy reaffirms the value of ‘doing’ as a cultural, ethical and constructive act, shunning spectacle and global standardisation”. Lived In claims and validates architectural knowledge and its impact on people’s lives. It looks backwards at expressions of living and forwards as Australia currently considers its housing supply and the environmental impact of its cities. It will also contribute to the international ongoing conversation around housing.
Kerstin Thompson AM is Founding Principal and Design Director of Kerstin Thompson Architects. Committed to design-based research and education, she is also Adjunct Professor at RMIT and Monash Universities. In recognition of her teaching, industry leadership and internationally recognised design excellence, she was awarded the RAIA Gold Medal in 2023.
Maryam Gusheh is a Professor in architecture at Monash University and co-director of the Monash Urban Lab. Her work examines the relationship between architectural practice and the social and political contexts in which the built fabric is designed, constructed, and received.
Lee-Anne Khor is Associate Professor in architecture at Monash University, co-director of the Monash-AHURI Research Centre and a member of Monash Urban Lab. Her research focuses on the intersection of design, policy and cross-sector collaboration to drive the sustainable transformation of established suburbs.
Louise Wright is a Practice Professor of architecture and co-director of the Monash Urban Lab at Monash University. She is also a co-founder and director of the architectural practice Baracco+Wright Architects, based in Melbourne, Australia. Her research and practice focus on the intersection of architecture with the natural environment.
The Australian Institute of Architects has proudly served as Commissioner for Australia’s exhibition at the International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia since 2008. We are honoured to select, fund, and deliver this exhibition on behalf of the nation, and in partnership with Creative Australia.
The Institute’s leadership and Board, in consultation with National Council, have revised the framework for participation to:
The 2025 exhibition, Home, was funded entirely from industry partnerships, government grants and philanthropy via the Australian Institute of Architects Foundation totalling $750,000 and this same funding model will be used in 2027.
We began the 2027 Biennale campaign by inviting Australian schools of architecture to put forward future-focused research projects.
Twenty-one submissions from 11 institutions were received, and the Institute’s selection panel, National President Adam Haddow; SONA President Senlina Mayer; EMAGN President Candice Halliday; RAIA CEO Cameron Bruhn; and Michelle Newton, representing Creative Australia – shortlisted four teams: How We Survive, University of New South Wales; Lived In, Monash University; Material Migrations, University of Melbourne; and Making Room, Monash University.
We asked the schools to put forward collaborative research projects that:
The Institute’s framework for the Venice Architecture Biennale will be reviewed following the delivery of the 2027 exhibition.
The 20th International Architecture Exhibition is titled Do Architecture — For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality, curated by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu of Amateur Architecture Studio. The theme positions architecture as a direct, physical practice grounded in materials, labour, landscape and lived experience.
The Biennale runs 8 May – 21 November 2027 (pre-opening 6–7 May), across the Giardini, the Arsenale and venues throughout Venice.
Australia is one of 29 countries with a permanent exhibition site within the Giardini della Biennale. In 2015, the Australia Council for the Arts unveiled Australia’s new permanent pavilion, designed by Denton Corker Marshall. This replaced a temporary exhibition space designed by Philip Cox in 1988, in use until 2013.
The Australian Institute of Architects has served as Commissioner for Australia’s exhibition at the Biennale since 2008.
Dr Michael Mossman, Emily McDaniel and Jack Gillmer-Lilley
Home presented an immersive experience grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems, conceptualising home as a convergence of memory, sensation, relationships and future. Visitors engaged with the Country Sphere, an interactive space for sensory engagement with earth, sound and tactile elements, and were invited to contribute to the Living Canvas.
Anthony Coupe LFRAIA, Julian Worrall RAIA, Emily Paech, Ali Gumillya Baker and Dr Sarah Rhodes
Australia’s identity is built on a double rupture: the expropriation of First Peoples’ lands; and the displacement of settler populations from their ancestral motherlands. The country’s wealth is based on an extractive relation to nature, regarding it as a standing reserve for exploitation. A dominion within the Commonwealth, Australia’s statehood is bound to the British Crown. This structure of relations to land, people, and nature are inscribed in the patterns of its settlements, its architecture the spatial language of this inscription.
Queenstown’ is the name we give to this pattern of relations. At the end of the second Elizabethan Age, as the voice of First Peoples calls for reckoning, and with planetary urgencies pressing, the settled configuration of this contested inheritance is under question. Queenstown is being unsettled. This exhibition explores and participates in this unsettling, weaving elements from real places and gleanings from current architectural intelligence in search of ingredients to contribute to Venice’s Laboratory of the Future.
Jefa Greenway and Tristan Wong
Inbetween premiered on Thursday 20 May, and will be exhibited this year throughout Australia, across the Pacific region and more broadly, as well as online. “Not being tied to the space in Venice has meant that we’ve been able to create something that can be experienced by a much larger audience. The great thing about the new format is that essentially anyone can access it and it has longevity beyond the dates of the Biennale.” explains Tristan. “This project isn’t a collection of artefacts; it’s forward looking and presents the innovative potential in learning from Indigenous methods and ideas. Embedding practices and knowledge that has been around for more than 60,000 years into the way we design buildings creates opportunities for a new kind of architecture that is better for people, cities and the environment.”
Mauro Baracco, Louise Wright with Linda Tegg
Repair focused on Australian architecture that integrates built and natural systems to effect repair of the environment, and in so doing, mend or improve other societal, economic, and cultural conditions.
On entering the Pavilion, visitors found over 10,000 native Australian grassland plants arranged inside and outside of the Pavilion’s granite structure. This field of vegetation, titled Grasslands, allowed visitors to enter a physical dialogue between architecture and the endangered plant community – with just one percent of these threatened species left in their native Australian environment.
Amelia Holliday, Isabelle Toland (Aileen Sage) and Michelle Tabet
Using the pool as a lens through which to explore Australian cultural identity, the Australia Pavilion was transformed through the use of light, scent, sound, reflection and perspective to create a series of perceptual illusions within a designed landscape.
Eight prominent cultural leaders from various fields were selected to share their personal stories, using the device of the pool as a platform to explore the relationship between architecture and Australian cultural identity. These included Olympic gold medal winning swimmers Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould, environmentalist and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, fashion designers Romance Was Born, writer of best-selling book The Slap Christos Tsiolkas, winner of the 2012 Miles Franklin Prize Anna Funder, Indigenous art curator Hetti Perkins and Australian rock-musician Paul Kelly.
The aim of the exhibition was to step outside the architect-to-architect discourse to show how a familiar, common object, the pool, is in fact pregnant with cultural significance, it is both artefact and catalyst of change. The Pool is about public space as a vital component to society and shows the many ways in which its public character is interpreted and occupied.
felix._Giles_Anderson+Goad
Augmented Australia provided a virtual journey through 23 of Australia’s most intriguing unbuilt projects through the use of a dedicated app.
Augmented Australia’s virtual experience began under a temporary Cloud Space, where display images of each project automatically triggered three-dimensional (3D) augmented models, animations and interviews when viewed through the app. Including a 1:1 scale virtual model of the new Australia Pavilion by Denton Corker Marshall overlaid on its construction site.
The exhibition then extended beyond the Giardini with real-world scale augmented models of each unbuilt project geographically positioned in various locations around Venice, marking the largest exhibition of its kind ever seen.
Anthony Burke, Gerard Reinmuth, with TOKO concept design
Formations provided a cross-section of the state of Australian architecture and singled out thirty-three unique practice structures corresponding to its agenda. The project was essentially made up of two components: the exhibition, with the unassuming Australia pavilion as its nucleus, and an accompanying catalogue. Of the total thirty-three surveyed practices, the pavilion exhibited six.
The optimism and pluralist sensibility of Formations was laudable. Indeed, it may soon be the case that, as Ole Bouman says, “architecture has become a universal access code, a mother key that may open countless doors in culture and in society.” However, in the meantime, for any current student or young practitioner of a discipline and body of knowledge in turmoil, the need for professional (role) models is acute. The emancipatory bent of Formations is more timely than ever.
John Gollings and Ivan Rijavec
Now and When explored the challenges facing our cities, engaging in timely issues that included sustainability, urban sprawl and density.
The ‘NOW’ component featured aerial views of Australian urban landscapes, including Melbourne, Sydney and Surfers Paradise, contrasted with giant mining pits at Kalgoorlie and Mt Newman by renowned architectural photographer John Gollings. The ‘WHEN’ component, overseen by Ivan Rijavec and produced by FloodSlicer, featured a sequence of ideas from 17 architectural collaborations of possible future urban spaces, including floating or submerged cities, or desert spaces.
Now and When exhibited on a completely new form of 3D stereoscopic technology, which goes beyond the latest cinematic release. Visitors were able to move around these urban scenes and experience the urbanised worlds from different perspectives.
Neil Durbach, Vince Frost, Wendy Lewin, Kerstin Thompson and Gary Warner
Abundant Australia explored the astonishing ability of Australian architects to blend new influences, dramatic landscapes and Australia’s unique multicultural society. Featuring over 140 architectural models of both domestic and commercial buildings from prominent Australian architects, including Ashton Raggatt McDougall, Denton Corker Marshall and Iredale Pedersen Hook, the exhibition revealed an architecture that is distinctly Australian.
Janet Holmes a Court AC
Penelope Seidler
Anita Belgiorno-Nettis AM
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis AM
The Venice Architecture Biennale, the premier global platform for architectural innovation, presents partners with a unique opportunity to align with a prestigious international event that attracts a global audience of professionals, decision-makers, and design enthusiasts.
This exhibit comes at a critical moment in Australia’s history, following the Referendum No Vote on the Uluru Statement from the Heart. HOME serves as a timely and profound response, inviting a deeper understanding of First Nations perspectives and reinforcing the importance of truth-telling and cultural exchange.
To bring this vision to life, we are seeking your partnership. Sponsoring the Australia Pavilion will support the design team as they execute a dynamic public program in Venice and achieve their mission of sharing First Nations perspectives with the world. Moreover, your sponsorship will contribute to the Institute’s plans for a national display of the exhibition in 2026, ensuring its impact continues beyond Venice.
Sponsoring the Australia Pavilion offers your organisation a unique opportunity to advance its Reconciliation Action Plan by supporting First Nations procurement and meaningful engagement. By partnering, you will play a pivotal role in amplifying the voices and expertise of a First Nations design team, showcasing Country-led ideas and practices on a global stage.