CreativeStack Dispatch: Venice Architecture Biennale 2021

Balancing new ideas and shiny objects

The 17th Venice Architecture Biennale posed the question “How will we live together?” 

Architecture and exhibition design often go hand in hand. Both architecture and exhibit design utilize technology to propagate narratives, whether that is in defining the function of the space, or the emotional response that the designers want to elicit in the participant. The 2021 Biennale exhibitors had the additional challenge of considering our past year of immersion into remote technologies as that fits into architecture.

Adding interactivity to a space can either augment the experience greatly, or become a distraction that dilutes the topic at hand. Consistency in the language of interaction is also important. Often “less is more” in Experience Design, but the hard thing is to gauge exactly how much less, given all the different interaction typologies that can be exploited to get visitor engagement in the story. 

Exhibitors at the Venice Biennale obviously grappled with all of these issues. Add to this the complexities of conceptualizing, building, shipping and installing exhibits through the challenges imposed by unpredictable Covid-19-related lockdowns.

An important function of events like the Architecture Biennale is to inspire the community of designers with one another’s works. Within this is also the capacity to experiment with new approaches. Studios exhibiting at the Biennale leveraged many of the established solutions that we are all familiar with — from projections and projection mapping, screens of all sizes, localized audio, mobile-app based AR and even a VR experience (at the  Time Space Experience exhibition space).

Given Covid-19 protocols the existence of a VR headset was surprising. A somewhat inconsistent implementation of Covid protocols resulted in other touch-based interactive exhibits (at the Great Britain pavilion, for example) being non-functional “due to Covid-related restrictions,” according to the ushers. 

I don't often see the overlaying of content on screens (i.e., adding either transparent or opaque physical layers on LCD scenes themselves). Multiple studios used this typology (with varying success). One particularly interesting version used translucent printed relief topologies overlaid on an LCD table, in sync with a video loop, to highlight map areas. The content on the screen came through the printed relief, adding dimensionality to the data-visualization.

A variant of this approach is intervening digital works to augment a physical narrative. Studio SuperFlux’s “Refuge for Resurgence” framed a video screen as the window out to a fictional future cityscape abutted to their fictional multi-special dinner sitting. This type of minimal juxtaposition is often surprisingly effective - simply frame technology so it’s not “the other”!

Great Britain’s pavilion, “The Garden of Privatized Delights,” calls for new models of privately owned public spaces in cities across the UK. The exhibit poses questions around the historical and present-day roles of different “accessible public spaces.” The exhibit utilizes various interaction typologies, from image recognition connected to personalized screen output, to a redesigned ATM, to localized audio. 

The Germany Pavilion, “2038 looking back to 2020” (online at https://2038.xyz/) boldly presented an empty space with the provocation to enter the space through a mobile web application with manually navigated spatial triggers. With the premise of “bridging space and time, exploring how communication in mixed reality can come to life,” the experience is intended to engage visitors with embedded content by a team of experts. In-experience functionality to listen to and converse with other visitors who also have the app is an interesting attempt to collaborate while still being remote.

The Russia pavilion’s Open considers the role of cultural institutions in the current state of global crisis and in the future. The pavilion itself is being renovated, and in the process the curators have added a gaming platform to create a digital analogue that one can be further immersed into. 

A multitude of perspectives on the topics within “How will we live together” are most widely explored in the Arsenale Central Pavilion. I would have considered a football-pitch sized space like this most problematic to present individual ideas; the potential for distraction is high. This is a core challenge in spatial design — keeping visitor’s attention when there are too many shiny objects around. Anything that took more than 30 seconds to understand (and anything that required any in-depth reading) was pretty much ignored. Experiences really need to keep the adage in mind: “Get to the point, and make it easy to understand.” But this is, of course, far easier said than done!

An unusual interactive implementation was Enlace Arquitectura’s La Palomera ethnobotanical piece which encouraged visitors to use the NFC reader on their device 

This was the first time I’ve encountered an NFC-based trigger. Sadly I could not make it work on my phone, but the idea was more intriguing than QRCodes, which have their share of issues. I’m hopeful to see a lot more well-implemented NFC (and UWB) based interactions, assuming mobile devices make it more seamless.

Several studios utilized the vertical, which is an underused modality. Hanging structural elements from the ceiling and forcing visitors to navigate them at eye level is a simple yet effective way to hold attention. There is an opportunity to exploit the fear of knocking into things while being aware of elements all around oneself in the pursuit of the narrative.

I have some criticisms around the overall execution of digital elements at this event. Most, I think, are obvious to those in the field but worth stating anyway:

• Don’t treat technology as an afterthought. If you’re going to use technology, integrate it into your design early! Tech is hard to wedge-in meaningfully later.

• AR, VR and MR are hard to execute well. Carefully consider the user's entry into and exit from the experience. Provide a clear motivation to transition from their physical world to your virtual one.

• Not everyone is a gamer; ensure game experiences are intuitive to engage with, and make sense in the physical context.

• Haptic experiences are compelling when visitors can be encouraged to engage in them, so use them to add dimensionality.

A final thought is around localized audio experiences, some of which required headsets connected to screens. I have been pondering whether it makes more sense to ask the user to connect to a YouTube or Spotify channel instead. This mitigates sanitation worries for some, and queuing issues for others. It also makes the content re-accessible.

An objective of the Architecture Biennial is to leave the visitor with a ponderable topic, and a takeaway action. "How Will We Live Together?" is an excellent provocation and particularly apt for Experience Design. I hope this topic inspires more engaged modalities of interaction.

What do you think? Please share your insights in the comments.

—Sundar Raman