Fragments of urban nature

Today, the act of cutting down trees in urban areas sparks massive protests among residents, expressing dissatisfaction with changes in their environment, quality of life, urban climate deterioration, and loss of historical memory. Furthermore, climate change is now evident, and with it the conditions for humans and the natural and inhabited environment. The position of architects plays a crucial role here. ‘It is impossible to ignore,’ says Jūratė Tutlytė, graduate in Arts and Philosophy, researcher in Art and History and Theory of Architecture, Commissioner of the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 2025 Architecture Biennale. Archi / Tree / tecture, the title/theme of the Lithuanian Pavilion, which occupies the monumental spaces of the Church of the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, provides a space for reflection and invites architects and visitors to explore the relationship between diverse architectures and urban natures.

A large tree root welcomes visitors to the Lithuanian Pavilion inside the Church of Ospedaletto. What significance does this have in the narrative of the project presented?
The monumental tree root installed at the threshold of the Lithuanian Pavilion acts as a symbolic rupture. Rather than a scenographic flourish, it operates as an exposed wound – a fragment of urban nature violently removed from its living context. Its uprooted form serves as a counter-monument, reminding visitors that contemporary cities are often built on the sediments of erased ecologies: felled trees, displaced soils, forgotten landscapes. In this sense, the root becomes an anti-architectural gesture. It destabilises the conventional expectations of an architectural exhibition, which typically begins with imagery, models or discursive framing. Here, the first encounter is tactile, corporeal and affective. It forces visitors to recognise that architecture is never autonomous: it is always implicated in cycles of extraction, displacement and transformation. Placed inside the Baroque Church of Santa Maria dei Derelitti, the root also works as a counter-monument. It introduces a different kind of “sacred object”: not an artwork or relic, but a fragment of urban nature that has been sacrificed to growth-driven planning. As one crosses this threshold, the pavilion’s broader narrative unfolds: a reflection on how the erasure of trees is inseparable from the erosion of collective memory, ecological intelligence and cultural identity.

How does “Archi / Tree / tecture” fit into the debate Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective?What is your specific contribution?
Carlo Ratti’s theme foregrounds an expanded ecology of intelligences – natural, artificial and collective – shaping the built environment. The Lithuanian Pavilion deepens this discourse by insisting that trees and ecosystems embody forms of intelligence that architecture must learn to engage with, not merely mitigate or aestheticise. Our contribution lies in widening the epistemic field of the Biennale. Architecture is not positioned as a disciplinary centre but as an interpreter of ecosystemic intelligence – the long-term spatial logics inscribed in soil, root systems, canopy structures and local climates. This perspective expands the idea of “natural intelligence” beyond biomimetic metaphors into a recognition of trees as agents that structure social life, spatial memory and microclimatic conditions. Simultaneously, the project challenges the instrumentalisation of “artificial intelligence” in architecture. Instead of presenting computation as a solutionist paradigm, the pavilion brings forward collective, situated forms of intelligence cultivated through dialogue, pedagogy and collaborative research, most clearly expressed in the “Archi / Tree / tecture” Symposium programme. In this way, reframes Ratti’s triad by adding a fourth vector: ecosystemic intelligence as a co-author of architectural thinking.

The Pavilion promotes multicultural dialogue between professionals, architects, researchers and creatives from around fifteen European universities. What role do you think architects and contemporary architecture play? Is the practice of architecture reflected in this Biennale and, if so, to what extent does this edition point to new and alternative paths?
The Lithuanian Pavilion acts as an active platform rather than a static exhibition, most evidently through the LABT (Laboratory for [Living] Tree [as] Architecture) a year long a trans-disciplinary student laboratory bringing together 16+ European institutions, ~400 students that culminated as “Archi / Tree / tecture” Symposium (22–28 September 2025) – a week-long programme gathering more than 80 students and mentors from over 16 European universities. Structured into three thematic strands – Trees as Architecture Allies; From Smart Cities to Living Ecosystems; Cosmologies of More-Than-Human Cohabitation – the symposium blends lectures, workshops, site-based research in Venice, and collective reflection. This setting positions architects not as isolated authors but as mediators moving across disciplines, species and temporal scales. The pavilion underscores that contemporary architectural practice is shifting from object-oriented production toward process-oriented inquiry – a trajectory echoed throughout this Biennale edition. What emerges is a broader recalibration of authorship. Methods of co-creation, ecological care and place-based knowledge supersede traditional notions of architectural mastery. The Biennale thus becomes a testbed for alternative futures in which architecture participates as a facilitator of relationships – between communities and ecosystems, between technology and lived experience, and between past landscapes and future imaginaries.

Tradition as responsibility and sustainable evolution. Which indigenous elements become current and sustainable architectural languages?
For us, “tradition” is not a nostalgic style but a responsibility to the ecological and cultural intelligence embedded in place. Lithuania’s pre-Christian worldview, where nature was seen as animate and trees were regarded as a kind of vertical axis connecting earth and sky, offers a powerful indigenous lens for contemporary design. This translates into several architectural “languages” that we highlight. One is the practice of designing around and with existing trees rather than in spite of them – treating mature trees as anchors of spatial organisation, not as obstacles to be removed. Many of the 20th–21st century projects shown in our models take the surrounding tree canopy as a primary generator of layout, form and microclimate, rather than an afterthought. Another element is the social and emotional culture of trees in Lithuanian cities: street oaks and lindens as meeting points, protectors of shade, and carriers of neighbourhood memory. Their cutting often triggers public protest, which we interpret as a contemporary continuation of older nature-respecting practices. By bringing these elements into an international architectural conversation, we are proposing a sustainable language rooted in reverence, long time-scales and a recognition of trees as co-authors of space.

Natural space and built space, an equation that needs to be redesigned. What new parameters are being considered?
The pavilion argues that the balance between natural and built space must be recalculated using parameters that architecture has traditionally marginalised. First, time: the life cycle of a building must be considered alongside the much longer life cycles of trees and ecosystems. The rapid transformation of neighbourhoods at the expense of century-old trees shows how short-term development logics can destroy resilience, memory and identity. Second, more-than-human well-being. Drawing on posthumanist thinking, our Symposium and research space emphasise that humans are only one actor in vast networks of species and agents. Designing cities that care for soil health, biodiversity and plant life – not just human comfort – becomes a central criterion for “good” architecture. Third, affective and cultural value: the emotional attachments and forms of protest that emerge when urban trees are cut tell us that natural elements hold symbolic weight comparable to monuments. Integrating this into planning means treating trees as heritage and social infrastructure, not just as greenery. Together, these parameters suggest a redesigned equation where natural and built spaces are not opposites, but co-evolving parts of one living system – and where architecture is judged by how gently and intelligently it intervenes in that system. The pavilion argues that the long-dominant dichotomy between the natural and the built is no longer tenable. What is needed is a re-calibration of the parameters through which cities are conceived. Several new principles arise: First, temporal asymmetry. Trees and ecosystems operate on timescales far exceeding those of contemporary construction cycles. Architecture must therefore adopt deep-time planning, where the lifespan of a tree or the recovery of soil is treated as an architectural constraint, not an afterthought. Second, systems-level thinking. Natural and built environments cannot be analysed as discrete components. Root systems, shadow patterns, soil moisture, and wind corridors form spatial networks that extend beyond property boundaries – demanding contextual, ecological modelling rather than parcel-scale design. Third, more-than-human ethics. Cities must be designed for the well-being of multiple species. This shifts architectural criteria toward supporting biodiversity, fostering microclimates, and enabling cohabitation. Architecture becomes an infrastructural support system for living environments, not merely their backdrop. Fourth, cultural and emotional value. Urban nature carries symbolic and mnemonic weight. Cutting a tree is rarely just a technical act – it is a cultural rupture. The pavilion foregrounds this emotional dimension, proposing that ecological assets be treated with the same sensitivity as historical monuments. In sum, these parameters redefine architecture not as a discipline that shapes objects, but as a field that mediates relationships among ecologies, communities and temporalities.

Featured image: © Gytis Dovydaitis