Architecting Futures: Climate, Cities, Change

The 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, themed “Changing Space, Changing People,” positions architecture at the frontlines of some of the world’s most pressing crises. Architecting Futures: Climate, Cities, Change explores how the built environment is becoming a vital tool in responding to climate instability, mass migration, and growing social inequality. With a spotlight on voices from Africa and the Global South, curator Lesley Lokko reframes architecture not just as aesthetics or function but as a transformative discipline that builds resilience and equity. This Biennale challenges architects, urban planners, and policymakers alike to reconsider how cities are shaped, who they serve, and how they can endure in the face of accelerating global pressures.

Key Takeaways

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 focuses on climate change, urban transformation, and social justice through a global lens.
Curator Lesley Lokko centers voices from the Global South and questions Eurocentric urban design paradigms.
This Biennale marks a shift from celebrating form to promoting architecture as a mechanism for resilience and equity.
Comparisons to past Biennales and global exhibits show a growing trend: design thinking as a response to real-world urgencies.

Setting the Stage: A World in Flux

Architecture today confronts an unprecedented convergence of challenges. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), over 1 billion people could be displaced by 2050 due to climate-related disruptions. Urbanization trends published by UN-Habitat show that nearly 70 percent of the global population will live in cities by 2050, intensifying the demand for adaptable and inclusive urban design. These overlapping dynamics place architecture at a pivotal intersection, where housing, resilience, sustainability, and equity must harmonize for thriving urban futures.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 seizes this moment. Under the stewardship of Lesley Lokko, the event draws attention to how cities reflect larger geopolitical and climatic tensions. While urban design cannot reverse climate change or halt forced migration, it can guide how we adapt and who gets to belong. This Biennale spotlights that potential, establishing architecture as both a diagnostic tool and an agent of change.

Theme Deep Dive: “Changing Space, Changing People”

This year’s theme calls for reflection on how spatial reconfigurations alter human behavior and societal structures. “Changing Space, Changing People” highlights the reciprocal relationship between the environment and the body politic. By examining post-colonial urbanism, informal settlements, and climate-resilient infrastructure, exhibits tackle what it means to live ethically within shifting ecologies.

Lesley Lokko, architect, academic, and author, places identity, memory, and power at the core of her curatorial framework. Her background, which fuses architectural scholarship with Afro-futurist literature, brings a multidisciplinary depth to the Biennale. Lokko explains, “We can no longer design buildings or cities in isolation from the larger historical, ecological, and political systems in which they operate.” Her methodology orients around three prisms: demography, climate, and equity, each embedded into the design logic of the exhibits.

Voices from the Global South

A defining feature of the 2025 Biennale is its deliberate centering of the Global South. Contributors from Accra, Lagos, Dhaka, Bogotá, and Jakarta reveal how communities adapt through vernacular techniques, communal architecture, and ecological knowledge. Projects from African nations explore adaptive reuse in flood-prone zones, solar bioclimatic housing systems, and mobile infrastructure responsive to migrant flows.

This inclusion corrects the long-standing exclusion of non-Western narratives in dominant architectural discourses. Many of these projects emerge from resource-constrained environments, where sustainability is not a trend but a necessity. The Biennale thus reasserts that ingenuity does not require wealth, and that lessons from the Global South carry relevance far beyond their borders.

Architect Rashid Ali of Somalia, for instance, presents a prototype for climate-resilient schools built from rammed earth. His design centers local materials and labor, emphasizing circular economy practices. Gabriela Carrillo’s Mexico City-based exhibit investigates how Indigenous spatial practices offer insight into sustainable land use. These entries contribute a dialog across geographies and reinforce that design justice must be contextual, not universalized.

Why This Matters Now

From the record wildfires of 2023 across Canada and Greece to rising sea levels threatening Jakarta and Miami alike, climate-influenced urban risks are no longer abstract. Mass displacement due to weather extremes, drought, and conflict already exceeds 60 million people, according to UNHCR. Urban planners face the urgent task of designing cities capable of absorbing population surges, mitigating heat, and preserving both cultural heritage and access to resources.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 comes at a time when design decisions are life-saving. Building elevation models, green infrastructure, and heat-reflective materials are not optional but critical. Yet inclusion remains just as urgent. Displacement often disproportionately impacts marginalized communities that are already structurally disadvantaged. By expanding who gets to build and be built for, the Biennale informs a more equitable architectural response to current crises.

Comparisons: Evolution Across Biennales and Global Design Events

Compared to the 2023 Biennale, which laid the groundwork for expanding the architectural canon through the Global South, the 2025 edition adds strategic depth. While 2023 focused heavily on cultural and historical redress, 2025 links these themes to the climate clock. Exhibits develop from abstract narratives to solution-driving propositions. Climate change architecture transitions from commentary to commitment.

Globally, other design forums echo these thematic shifts. The 2023 London Design Biennale featured work examining migration and technological equity, while the 2024 Sharjah Biennial emphasized decolonial design languages. Yet Venice remains uniquely positioned due to its interdisciplinary panels and citywide installations, framing architecture not just as practice but diplomacy, storytelling, and innovation at scale.

Expert Views: Defining Equitable Architecture

Equitable architecture is not merely about affordable housing or net-zero buildings. According to Professor Marina Tabassum, one of the Biennale’s featured voices and a pioneer in climate-conscious design in Bangladesh, “Equity lies in access and recognition (in who occupies what space, what histories are honored, and whose expertise informs resilience).”

Echoing this, Nigerian architect Tosin Oshinowo advocates for contemporary African architecture rooted in material truth and cultural specificity. Her work appears both as commentary and case study for integrating sustainable design without erasing traditional identities. These expert reflections push the Biennale’s concept into real-world relevance, especially in urban regions where planning and exclusion often intersect.

For students, these insights scaffold a new framework for architectural education. Every proposal must now account for geopolitics, emissions, and ethics. For policymakers, the Biennale functions as a reference model when scaling interventions. For architects, it redefines the purpose of the craft (not as an end but as a medium to facilitate just outcomes).

What’s Next for Urban Design Thinking?

The momentum generated by the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 is expected to echo across policy rooms, architecture studios, and university halls. The emphasis on climate-informed, socially conscious design practices reflects a broader shift across built environment disciplines globally. Organizations like the Urban Land Institute and C40 Cities are already aligning development goals with sustainability metrics, reflecting the kind of integrated thinking showcased in Venice. Concepts linking artificial intelligence and climate change are also influencing future design strategies.

In parallel, architecture schools worldwide are revising their curricula to include climate ethics, housing justice, and participatory planning. This critical mass indicates that architectural futures will revolve around systemic impact. As technologies and geographies change, design must offer continuity, care, and capacity-building for generations to come. Urban resilience will also depend on integrating smart city innovations that prioritize equitable access to infrastructure and services.

The Biennale’s biggest success lies in igniting this conversation at scale, creating a shared vocabulary for a profession that must now serve not just clients, but citizens and climates.

References

Downton, Paul F. Ecopolis: Architecture and Cities for a Changing Climate. Future City Series, Springer, 2008, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4020-8496-6.
New York City Council. Securing Our Future: Strategies for NYC in the Fight Against Climate Change. New York City Council, 2025, https://council.nyc.gov/data/securing-our-future/.
Mayors Migration Council. Future Urban Landscapes: Climate Migration Projections in Cities. Mayors Migration Council, 18 Sept. 2024, https://mayorsmigrationcouncil.org/news/future-urban-landscapes-report/.
UN-Habitat. World Cities Report 2024: Cities and Climate Action. UN-Habitat, 2024, https://unhabitat.org/wcr/.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Sixth Assessment Report
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), “World Cities Report 2022”
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2023”
Lokko, Lesley. Curatorial Statement, Venice Architecture Biennale 2025
ArchDaily. “The Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 Unveils Global South Focus”
Dezeen. “How Architecture Biennales Are Taking on Climate Change”