Normally all projects are initially based on a place and a time. In this case, the fundamental thing is that it is based on two places and two times. The second place is the Giardini della Biennale as a space of intervention, and the first time is the hot and humid summer of Venice. The first place, however, is the Kumara Foundation in the southeast of India and the second time is some time in the Indian spring of 2026.
Project Name: Selgascano pavilion
Studio Name: Park Associati
If we start by talking about the second place, the one proposed by the Venice Biennale, this is an open space in the gardens of the Venice Biennale, with the Stirling Pavilion as a background, a clean space without protection from the weather and the high heat that will occur in summer in Venice.
For this reason, we proposed an experimental climatic cushion, a textile cloud, a cloud because it floats and because it is filled with soap foam to create a thermal protection that does not let the sun’s rays through. Below we simply placed a rented platform made with the supports and boards used for the “Aqua alta” in Venice. Between the planks we left some separations to fill them with a plantation of linear green walls, simple organic walls that structure the space in small rooms, creating different intimate and fresh environments.
But for us the real opportunity of this project, the most important part of the whole proposal, is the first place, where it all begins, which is due to the collaboration with the NGO Kumara and the Isabel Martin Foundation, a project to support and create jobs for women and girls in vulnerable situations, based on the possibility of using textile spares for the construction of architectural material.
The collaboration consists of looking for waste waterproof textiles and sewing them in a workshop in an inland area of southeastern India to create that first cloud there and start a recycled textile workshop-industry focused on the field of architecture. It will be the first commission of that workshop and the basis for continuing to work on it. After the Biennale is over, the second and final phase of the project will begin: the cloud will return to India where it will be used as an outdoor workshop for the foundation.
