The Danish pavilion explores unconventional ways of repurposing surplus construction materials hyper-locally at the Venice Biennale this year. In other words, Denmark develops a metabolism at the Venice Biennale 2025.
Under the headline Build of Site, the Danish contribution to the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2025 explores how rethinking and reusing existing buildings and resources can address some of architecture’s most pressing challenges.
It is no secret that new construction is a significant source of carbon emissions. It’s appropriate, then, that the Danish Pavilion, which is currently undergoing renovation, is looking for ways to address the issue.
Rather than allocating funds and time to a temporary exhibition, the project redirects these resources into lasting improvements. The elements presented within the pavilion originate from its restoration.
The exhibition is curated by architect Søren Pihlmann, who, building on the overarching theme of the Biennale Architettura 2025, “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”, explores how we can discover new value in existing buildings. The exhibition in the Danish pavilion exhibits hands-on maintenance of the building that reuses the resources already present in the building. Søren Pihlmann demonstrates hyper-local methods for reclaiming building materials, and the exhibition is framed as a technical, aesthetic communication of an ongoing process – as a work in progress.
For the duration of the biennale, the space will become a paused construction site, with its displaced materials used to provide temporary walls, furniture, and flooring in the pavilion.
What would typically be discarded as construction waste is reimagined in collaboration with experts across disciplines, integrating bio-based, high-tech, and recycled features, prioritizing structural potential over preconceptions of value.
As part of his curation, Søren Pihlmann has conducted a comprehensive study of the Danish pavilion to increase the usability of materials already present in the building. By combining existing building materials with unconventional bio-based binders, the exhibition demonstrates how advanced technology can promote methods that use bio-based and recycled building materials. This approach highlights the potential in surplus materials previously considered waste, establishing a new architectural practice that uses and draws inspiration from existing on-site materials.
“I think there’s a future where buildings start to reconfigure themselves in a metabolic process, using their materials for renovations,” says Pihlmann.
Venice Biennale runs through November 23, 2025.
Denmark Develops a Metabolism at the Venice Biennale 2025, Tor Kjolberg reporting.
Feature image (top) © Pihlman Architects.