With pasta as an exception, coffee is another icon of Italy's culinary heritage. And Italians, as is often the case everywhere, are very critical when they travel and find their products are treated poorly abroad. Now they don't need to leave home to face a good challenge: would they be able to drink coffee made with water from a canal? Now it's possible, and this Saturday the project Café Channel has received the Golden Lion for best entry at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale. After nearly twenty years, architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, along with Natural Systems Utilities, SODAI, Aaron Betsky, and Davide Oldani, have successfully created an "eco-machine" that combines natural and artificial processes to make canal water drinkable.

One of the most striking installations of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 is The Elephant Chapel, by Thai architect Boonserm Premthada, who received a special mention this Saturday in the awards given out by the biennial each year. The chapel consists of a succession of catenary arches made from elephant dung. These arches recall structures by Antoni Gaudí, such as those in the attic of La Pedrera. What's most surprising is that Gaudí, among hundreds of architects of recent decades, is also one of the creators represented in the central exhibition. This is thanks to a study by New Zealand architect Mark Burry, who considers Gaudí a precursor to "the circular economy" through "biomimicry," that is, the study of the structures of biological systems.

One of the most striking installations of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 is The Elephant Chapel, by Thai architect Boonserm Premthada, who received a special mention this Saturday in the awards given out by the biennial each year. The chapel consists of a succession of catenary arches made from elephant dung. These arches recall structures by Antoni Gaudí, such as those in the attic of La Pedrera. What's most surprising is that Gaudí, among hundreds of architects of recent decades, is also one of the creators represented in the central exhibition. This is thanks to a study by New Zealand architect Mark Burry, who considers Gaudí a precursor to "the circular economy" through "biomimicry," that is, the study of the structures of biological systems.

The Water parliaments with which Catalonia participates in the Venice Architecture Biennale are quite an experience. The curators, Eva Franch and the founders of the Takk studio, Mireia Luzárraga and Alejandro Muiño, have created a friendly and colorful space in the nautical warehouses that are the usual headquarters of the Catalan delegation promoted by the Institut Ramon Llull in Venice. One might think they are inside a drop of water, on the surface of a river, or at the bottom of the sea. The installation is moving and provides a moment of calm amid the noise of the Biennial, but this does not detract from the forcefulness with which the curators raise the need for a new relationship with water. Instead of seeing water solely as a resource, for Franch, it is about approaching it as "a material to be built, cared for, and researched."

Climate change poses increasingly demanding challenges for architects. Construction is one of the most polluting sectors on the planet: according to the UN, it consumes 32% of the world's energy and produces 34% of greenhouse gas emissions. The sector responded to these figures with strategies to reduce emissions, with last year being the first year since 2020 in which emissions stopped growing. But now we must take a step forward, and architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, director of the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale, argues that it is no longer enough for architecture to contribute to the "mitigation" of emissions; he is now talking about "adaptation," that is, "helping our built environments."

In the city of Barcelona, there are more than 2,000 fountains, both ornamental and drinking water. Many of the ornamental fountains do not operate with water suitable for consumption, but even so, during times of drought, the City Council closed them to raise awareness of the seriousness of the situation. Now, the curators of the Catalan pavilion at the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale, architects Mireia Luzárraga and Alejandro Muiño (Takk) and Eva Franch, propose, as part of their project, Water parliaments, create a "data source," that is, "an urban instrument that helps us understand when we are in a water crisis situation," as Eva Franch explains.