- ROLE

Architect in partnership with Ifat Finkelman

- FOR

La Biennale di Venezia

- DATE

May 2021 – November 2021

Architectural Installation in Forte Marghera, a venue of the Venice Biennale.
This venue is located in the mainland of Venice, between Via della Libertà and Parco San Giuliano. It was a historic fort now used as an exhibition space with large green outdoor areas that serve as a meeting place for Mestrini and Venetians.
Titled “Level -313.9”, this installation is testing a state of balance between between human and nature, between landscape and architecture. The project seeks to produce a new reference plane raised above the existing ground to a new ground zero. Thus, a simple structure, which gives the concept of a chair a unique interpretation, is placed carefully in the park, in between the trees and next to the old gun-powder building. It is based on a new standard: not the industry standard of a seat at a height of 45 centimetres which uses the ground of the built environment as reference point, but rather the 350 centimetres height that refer to landscape (level -313.9). Just in front of it, on the uplifted embankment surrounding the historic water fort, is located another bench. Facing each other, the act of sitting takes place within the new datum of the adjacent canopies.
Research has already shown that beneath every forest and wood there is a complex underground web of roots, fungi, and bacteria that connects trees and plants to one another. With respect to this underground network, the programme of the playground is defined by experiencing the surroundings from a new point of view combining both humans and trees, and from the collective effort of getting back to a new equilibrium.