Towards a regenerative approach to architecture

The spectre of climate change and its social, economic and ecological implications haunts the world. The energy issue, drought, floods and other climate disasters are confronting us with challenges of governance and, more specifically, those of architecture and land use planning. To try to change the course of this situation, any spatial intervention on our environment, whatever its scale, must no longer leave the challenges of environmental, societal and economic transition unanswered, but incorporate the public, collective and private dimensions.

The exhibition Towards a regenerative approach to architecture opens on Thursday, May 18,in Venice and marks the official release of Wallonia-Brussels Architecture Inventories 2020–2023. This bookhighlights around a hundred spatial approaches taken to this transition that were carried out in Wallonia and Brussels, Belgium, and abroad, between 2020 and 2023. Experts in the fields of architecture, urban planning, landscape and sociology have examined these approaches to identify a number of avenues for reflection following six themes: the new ruralism, frugality in construction methods, governance, re-appropriation, the role of open spaces and finally, changes in architectural practice that have accompanied the evolution of uses.

In addition to these reflections, the volume features artist Aurélie William Levaux's humorous takes on our current living environment, and the manifesto co-signed by the members of the editorial committee as a first step towards a regenerative architectural approach to this territory. In this exhibition, you will find the original embroideries ink-painted on cotton canvasses by Aurélie William Levaux exhibited alongside with the manifesto and the presentation of the book.

On Saturday, May 20, from 3–4pm, a debate will be held in front of the Belgian pavilion.It will putin dialogue severals curators of theVenice Architecture Biennale 2023 (Belgium, Canada, France,Luxembourg) onone theme of this exhibition: building alternatives from living materials.

An initiative of the Architecture Unit of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, under the lead of the Cultural Institute of Architecture Wallonia-Brussels (ICA), in partnership with Wallonia-Brussels Architectures.