Designboom_ Interdisciplinary studio UNA/UNLESS has created a vibrant blue pavilion as a collateral event for the 60th Venice Art Biennale. This triangular blue prism appears as if it has fallen from space into the Renaissance courtyard of Venice’s Accademia di Belle Arti. Designed as a temporary extension of the building, it hosts Swell of Spæcies, a politically charged, high-tech installation by Cameroon-French artist Josèfa Ntjam, commissioned by LAS Art Foundation.

The pavilion’s symmetrical, reflective surfaces create a nighttime optical illusion, making it seem to disappear, revealing the courtyard’s hidden fourth loggia. This design engages with the 16th-century setting, visually challenging the city’s strict conservation rules. To spark long-overdue connections between the Venice Biennale and the local art community, the pavilion opens toward the loggias of the Accademia’s sculpture studios while remaining closed off from the courtyard.

Inside the pavilion by UNA/UNLESS, a soft convex curtain evokes the footprint of a stone church once designed by Jacopo Sansovino, which stood on the site from 1565 to 1831. This area, formerly the altar, now features a curved LED wall displaying Josèfa Ntjam’s AI-generated animations that challenge established histories of creation and the African diaspora. Fatima al Qadiri’s soundscape, combined with Ntjam’s sonic sculptures, replaces the music once performed by syphilis patients from the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Sansovino’s church.

The pavilion points toward the Venetian Lagoon, symbolizing the urgent need for the arts to address global environmental crises. Its striking blue, wave-like cladding highlights the ocean’s importance to the ecosystem and connects with Ntjam’s work. This experimental material, used for the first time at this scale, also reflects the liquid themes in the exhibition’s satellite space at the CNR-ISMAR marine research center, where visitors create AI plankton avatars.

UNA/UNLESS combines cultural architectural projects with a focus on preservation, reuse, and interdisciplinary research promoting intergenerational justice. Environmental sustainability drives the design, with materials chosen for maximum reuse. The pavilion’s timber frame is locally sourced and designed for disassembly and recycling. While students have requested it be repurposed as communal space, all fixtures—interior and exterior—will be donated for reuse once the pavilion’s temporary existence ends.