Australian Architects Have Filled a Venice Pavilion with 10,000 Native Plants

For the next six months, a patch of rare Australian greenery is blooming on the other side of the world. As part of the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, more than 10,000 native grassland plants are currently sitting in and around the event's Australian Pavilion — not only highlighting the endangered nature of the species on display, but also showcasing the importance of architecture that integrates the natural with the man-made.

In what the artists have dubbed a "living installation", visitors wander past an array of plants before entering a room filled with them, with the field of vegetation appropriately titled Grasslands. It's comprised of 65 species of Victorian Western Plains grasslands, of which only one percent remains in Australia since European settlement.

As the exhibition's guiding forces — Melbourne architects Baracco+Wright (Louise Wright and Mauro Baracco) with collaborating artist Linda Tegg — explain, the plants on display are "smaller area than that of an average Australian family house. Such an area takes around an hour to bulldoze."

Their statement about the impact of urbanisation, agriculture, grazing and industrial land use on native Australian plant life forms one part of the overall exhibition, which also has a very fitting moniker: Repair. As presented by the Australian Institute of Architects, the showcase also includes a piece called Skylight, and it's practical as well as informative. The custom-designed lighting installation mimics the sun's 24-hour cycle in order to keep the plants alive — and its daily rotation is drawn from Australian time and sun patterns. For energy, Skylight takes its power from the Italian electricity grid, using 64 percent fossil, 21 percent hydro, nine percent wind and solar, five percent nuclear, and one percent geothermal sources.

The final aspect involves a video series titled Ground, as projected on five-metre by eight-metre screens throughout the pavilion — highlighting 15 architectural projects that embody different notions of the overall theme of repair.

The Venice Architecture Biennale runs from May 26 to November 25. For more information, visit the Australian Pavilion's website.

Images: Rory Gardiner