The Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 presents a prototype that integrates landscape architecture into architectural interiors. Designed by Bas Smets in collaboration with Stefano Mancuso, the exhibition transforms the pavilion into a microclimate modeled after the understory of a subtropical forest, creating an indoor jungle that actively regulates temperature and humidity. The curatorial concept, supported by the Flanders Architecture Institute and its director, Dennis Pohl, promotes landscape thinking as an active design force rather than exterior decoration. In this video interview from Venice, Bas Smets and Dennis Pohl explain to ArchDaily editors how the project positions architecture as a platform for climate resilience and proposes a shift in design paradigms, from static images to evolving, living processes.
In the interview, Bas Smets and Dennis Pohl emphasize the urgent need to reconnect architecture with nature amid the climate crisis. They discuss how architecture has become increasingly isolated from the biosphere and propose rethinking it through the lens of landscape architecture. Their project at the Belgian pavilion introduces natural intelligence as a core design element by transforming the building into a controlled ecosystem. The intention is not to dominate nature but to work with it, using technology that allows plants to communicate their needs, thereby reshaping the interior environment. The pavilion acts as a living system that responds dynamically to climate conditions, encouraging a new understanding of comfort, materials, and spatial use.
The installation includes 400 plants sourced from subtropical regions across the African, American, and Asian continents, selected for their ability to thrive in the bioclimatic conditions replicated inside the pavilion. Advanced environmental control systems developed in collaboration with the University of Ghent allow the plants to regulate their needs: they can signal when they require water, light, or ventilation. This interactive system uses new technology not to control the plants, but to listen to them, enabling a responsive and self-regulating ecosystem within the architectural space. The result is a space that purifies and cools the air while also demonstrating a functional integration of living systems within a built environment.
Landscape is essentially working with living material. Living material continues to grow and will die at some point. So we're used to not thinking of an image, but of a process. And what we're doing here is the same thing. We start a process that then produces its own reality. - Bas Smets, exhibition curator
The interview also highlights the challenges and opportunities presented by this experimental approach. Smets describes the logistical complexities of installing large trees in Venice and the hands-on process of building the indoor forest. More importantly, both interviewees stress the role of the Biennale as a testing ground for new ideas. They view the pavilion not as a finished product but as a living prototype that will evolve over the following 6 months, offering a real-time demonstration of how landscape thinking can transform architectural practice. Through this approach, they seek to provoke a broader conversation about how built environments can become adaptive, resilient, and symbiotic with the natural world.
Landscape thinking allows us to change our perspective on architecture. It allows us to question conventions of our materials, our typologies, and how we use buildings. Our very core idea of comfort that we have developed over the past 70 years. - Dennis Pohl, Flanders Architecture Institute Director
During the Biennale's opening week, ArchDaily editors had the chance to explore the 65 national exhibitions, meet several curators, and visit the extensive international exhibition. Interviewees include Carlo Ratti, the Biennale's curator, and Andrea Faraguna, curator of the Bahrain Pavilion, winner of this year's Golden Lion for Best National Participation. A special mention was also awarded to the British Pavilion, whose curator shared the ideas behind the exhibition in an interview with ArchDaily. Other interviews include Ma Yansong, founder of MAD Architects and curator of the Chinese Pavilion, and Søren Pihlmann, curator of the Danish Pavilion.
We invite you to check out ArchDaily's comprehensive coverage of the 2025 Venice Biennale.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on June 09, 2025.
