Liquid Glass – the tech world’s abuzz with this new term from Apple’s design playbook following their reveal of the new slew of operating systems at WWDC 2025. What is liquid glass? Well, it’s a multi-tier strategy on Apple’s part to redefine interfaces, moving away from the minimalist interfaces to introduce gorgeously refractive glass-like interfaces instead. These glass elements interact with screen elements by bending light like real glass would. Think of holding a magnifying glass to a newspaper to watch the text around the edges warp while the center stays clear. There’s speculation that this move towards glass-based interfaces was a conscious effort to further Apple’s spatial interface goals… but to be honest, we were in love with Liquid Glass back as early as 2021. What do I mean? Well, I’m talking about the NightWatch, an Apple Watch dock from 4 years ago that did exactly what Liquid Glass did, amplify the watch’s screen into a gorgeous liquid orb while your watch was charging! Designer: NightWatch Click Here to Buy Now The NightWatch, as its name so succinctly implies, is a dock for your watch while it charges overnight. Shaped like a massive orb, this dock turns your watch’s night-time charging face into a massive, magnified alarm clock that’s easier to see. Moreover, the dock amplifies the watch’s audio too (through clever design details), transforming your Watch into a makeshift alarm clock that works remarkably well. There’s no hidden components, no inner trickery – the entire NightWatch is a cleverly designed, solid piece of lucite that does three things remarkably well. First, it docks the Apple Watch and charger inside it, magnifying the watch screen so the numbers are clearly legible even from a couple of feet away. Secondly, channels located strategically under the Watch’s speaker units amplify the sound (sort of like how your voice is louder when you cup your hands around your mouth) so your alarm rings louder. Thirdly (and this might be the best feature yet), the lucite orb is touch-sensitive. Which means a mere tap on the surface causes your Watch screen to wake so you can see the time! The dock may have been designed in 2021, but its design philosophies align with Apple’s Liquid Glass push brilliantly. Liquid Glass is all about mimicking real-world materials, bringing physicality to the digital world while still maintaining a pristine aesthetic that boosts focus and highlights important elements. That’s exactly what the NightWatch does too – it takes the Watch’s flat digital interface and brings real-world physicality to it through the refraction and magnification of the clear lucite. It also helps easily highlight important elements by enlarging your watch face for clearer timekeeping. The NightWatch is compatible with all Apple Watch series (as long as your watch doesn’t have a case on it). Click Here to Buy NowThe post ‘Liquid Glass’ Apple Watch Dock might be the Coolest Smartwatch Accessory of the Season first appeared on Yanko Design.

Hello I’m trying to get substrate refraction to work, so far it’s going well and it’s working the only issue I’m having I can’t get zero refraction. If you have a black and white mask and you want refraction only in the white parts how can I zero refraction wherever there’s black in the mask? For me it’s leaving behind a very subtle dark tint What I’ve done is, I have a Substrate Slab BSDF - Simple. In Roughness I have 0, in SSS MFP I have 1, in Normal I have a Normal map, in Refraction I have a Lerp A is 1, B is 0 and Alpha is a mask texture. However there’s a subtle very subtle black tint where the black of the mask is in, I don’t know how to completely remove that dark tint, it’s very subtle but it’s visible nonetheless.

Dive into the world of refraction with this quick tutorial! Learn how to manipulate dynamic parameters and create stunning visual effects using Niagara in Unreal Engine 5.4. Perfect for game developers looking to enhance their VFX skills!#UnrealEngine #VFX #Niagara #GameDev #Tutorial

NimueIntroductionFor three semesters, our student team has been hard at work on the prototype for Nimue, a 3D platformer in which you play an enchanted princess who lost her memories. She needs to find her way through the castle ruins on a misty lake to uncover her past. Water is a visual core element of this game prototype, so we took extra care in its development. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at the design and technical implementation of a lake water material.The first prototype of Nimue can be played on itch.io soon. A link to our shader for use in your own projects can be found at the end of this article.Taxonomy of WaterBefore we dive into the design decisions and technical implementation, we present a simplified taxonomy of visual water components to better understand the requirements of its representation:RiMEWind WavesWaves generated by wind, which form on an open water surface, can be divided into capillary waves and gravity waves. Capillary waves, or ripples, are small, short-wavelength waves caused by weak winds affecting surface tension in calm water. They can overlap longer and larger gravity waves. How these physically complex wave types are represented in stylized video games varies depending on the respective style. Both types are usually heavily simplified in form and motion, and capillary waves are sometimes omitted entirely to reduce detail.Sea of ThievesFoam PatternsFoam patterns refer to white foam crests that form on a water surface without breaking against an obstacle or shoreline. In reality, this effect occurs when different water layers collide, and waves become steeper until their peaks collapse, and the resulting bubbles and drops scatter the sunlight. Stylized foam patterns can be found in many video game water representations and can easily be abstracted into patterns. Such patterns contribute to a cartoon look and can sometimes even replace waveforms entirely.The Legend of Zelda: The Wind WakerFoam LinesFoam lines are a very common water element in video games, represented as white graphical lines surrounding shorelines and obstacles like rocks. They typically reference two different water phenomena: foam forming around obstacles due to wave breaking, and foam along shorelines, resulting from wave breaking and the mixing of algaes with organic and artificial substances.Foam lines can have different visual appearances depending on the surface angle: The shallower the angle, the wider the foam effect. Due to the weaker waves, distinctive foam lines are rarely observed on natural lakes, but they can be included in a stylization for aesthetic purposes. Animal Crossing: New HorizonsReflectionsWhen light hits a water surface, it can either be reflected (specular reflection) or transmitted into the water, where it may be absorbed, scattered, or reflected back through the surface. The Fresnel effect describes the perceived balance between reflection and transmission: at steep angles, more transmitted light reaches the eye, making the water appear more translucent, while at shallow angles, increased reflection makes it appear more opaqueIn stylized video games, implementations of water reflections vary: RiME, for example, imitates the Fresnel effect but does not reflect the environment at all, only a simple, otherwise invisible cube map. Wind Waker, on the other hand, completely foregoes reflection calculations and renders a flat-shaded water surface.RiMETranslucencyAs an inhomogeneous medium, water scatters some of the transmitted light before it can be reflected back to the surface. This is why water is described as translucent rather than transparent. Some scattered light is not reflected back but absorbed, reducing intensity and shifting color toward the least absorbed wavelengths, typically blue, blue-green, or turquoise. Increased distance amplifies scattering and absorption, altering color perception. Modern real-time engines simulate these effects, including absorption-based color variation with depth. However, stylized games often simplify or omit transmission entirely, rendering water as an opaque surface.RiMERefractionAn additional aspect of water transmission is refraction, the bending of light as it transitions between air and water due to their differing densities. This causes light to bend toward the normal upon entering the water, creating the apparent distortion of submerged objects. Refraction effects also commonly appear in stylized water rendering. Kirby's Forgotten Land, for example, showcases two key visual characteristics of refraction: distortion increases with steeper viewing angles and is amplified by ripples on the water's surface.Kirby and the Forgotten LandCausticsCaustic patterns form when light rays are focused by a curved water surface (caused by waves and ripples), projecting bundled light patterns onto underwater surfaces or even back to surfaces above water. These patterns are influenced by the clarity of the water, the depth of the water, and the strength of the light source. They contribute greatly to the atmosphere of virtual worlds and are often found in stylized games, although only as simplistic representations.The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3DDesign DecisionsDue to the fact that the setting of Nimue is a lake with a calm overall atmosphere, the decision was made to use very reduced gravity waves, as a calm water surface underlines this atmosphere. Capillary waves have too high a level of detail for the stylistic requirements of Nimue and were, therefore, not implemented.NimueShapesThe mood in Nimue can be summarized as calm and mystical. The design language of Nimue is graphic, rounded, and elegant. Shapes are vertically elongated and highly abstracted. Convex corners are always rounded or have a strong bevel, while concave corners are pointed to prevent the overall mass of objects from becoming too rounded.ColorsNimue uses mostly broken colors and pastels to create a serene, reflective mood and highlight the player's character with her saturated blue tones. Platforms and obstacles are depicted with a lower tonal value (darker) to increase their visibility. Overall, the game world is kept in very unsaturated shades of blue, with the atmospheric depth, i.e., the sky and objects in the distance, falling into the complementary orange range. Shades of green and yellow are either completely avoided or extremely desaturated. The resulting reduced color palette additionally supports the atmosphere and makes it appear more harmonious.Color gamut & value/tone tests Hue, Tone & SaturationSince the color of the water, with its hue, tone, and saturation, is technically achieved by several components, a 2D mockup was first designed to more easily compare different colors in the environment. Here it could be observed that both the low and the high tonal value formed too great a contrast to the rest of the environment and thus placed an undesirable focus on the water. Therefore, the medium tone value was chosen.The hue and saturation were tested in relativity to the sky, the player character, and the background. Here, too, the color variant that harmonizes the most with the rest of the environment and contrasts the least was chosen.Foam LinesFor the design of the foam lines, we proceeded in the same way as for the color selection: In this case, a screenshot of the test scene was used as the basis for three overpaints to try out different foam lines on the stones in the scene. Version 3 offers the greatest scope in terms of movement within the patterns. Due to this, and because of the greater visual interest, we opted for variant 3. Following the mockup, the texture was prepared so that it could be technically implemented.ReflectionThe reflection of the water surface contributes to how realistic the water looks, as one would always expect a reflection with natural water, depending on the angle. However, a reflection could also contribute to the overall appearance of the water becoming less calm. The romantic character created by the reflection of diffuse light on water is more present in version 1.In addition, the soft, wafting shapes created by the reflection fit in well with the art style. A reflection is desirable, but the reflections must not take up too much focus. Ideally, the water should be lighter in tone, and the reflections should be present but less pronounced. Reflection intensityRefraction & CausticsEven though most light in our water gets absorbed, we noticed an improvement in the believability of the ground right underneath the water's surface when utilizing refraction together with the waveforms. When it comes to caustics, the diffuse lighting conditions of our scene would make visible caustic patterns physically implausible, but it felt right aesthetically, which is why we included it anyway (not being bound to physical plausibility is one of the perks of stylized graphics).Technical Realization in Unreal Engine 5When building a water material in Unreal, choosing the right shading model and blend mode is crucial. While a Default Lit Translucent material with Surface Forward Shading offers the most control, it is very costly to render. The more efficient choice is the Single Layer Water shading model introduced in Unreal 4.27, which supports light absorption, scattering, reflection, refraction, and shadowing at a lower instruction count. However, there are some downsides. For example, as it only uses a single depth layer, it lacks back-face rendering, making it less suitable for underwater views. And while still quite expensive by itself, its benefits outweigh the drawbacks of our stylized water material.WaveformsStarting with the waveforms, we used panning normal maps to simulate the rather calm low-altitude gravity waves. The approach here is simple: create a wave normal map in Substance 3D Designer, sample it twice, and continuously offset the samples' UV coordinates in opposing directions at different speeds. Give one of the two samples a higher speed and normal intensity to create a sense of wind direction. This panning operation does not need to run in the fragment shader, you can move it to the vertex shader through the Vertex Interpolator without quality loss and thereby reduce the instruction count.Texture RepetitionTo reduce visible tiling, we used three simple and fairly efficient tricks. First, we offset the UVs of the Wave Samplers with a large panning noise texture to dynamically distort the wave patterns. Second, we used another sampler of that noise texture with different tiling, speed, and direction to modulate the strength of the normal maps across the surface. We sampled this noise texture four times with different variables in the material, which is a lot, but we reused them many times for most of the visual features of our water. Third, we sampled the pixel depth of the surface to mask out the waves that were far from the camera so that there were no waves in the far distance.Vertex DisplacementWhile these normal waves are enough to create the illusion of altitude on the water surface itself, they are lacking when it comes to the intersections around objects in the water, as these intersections are static without any actual vertex displacement. To fix that, two very simple sine operations (one along the X-axis and the other on the Y-axis) were added to drive the World Position Offset of the water mesh on the Z-axis. To keep the polycounts in check, we built a simple blueprint grid system that spawns high-res plane meshes at the center in a variable radius, and low-res plane meshes around that. This enables the culling of non-visible planes and the use of a less complex version of the water material for distant planes, where features like WPO are not needed.ColorThe general transmission amount is controlled by the opacity input of the material output, but scattering and absorption are defined via the Single Layer Water material output. The inputs Scattering Coefficients and Absorption Coefficients, which are responsible for reproducing how and how far different wavelengths travel through water, are decisive here. We use two scattering colors as parameters, which are interpolated depending on the camera distance. Close to the camera, the blue scattering color (ScatteringColorNear) dominates, while at a distance, the orange scattering color (ScatteringColorFar) takes over. The advantage is a separation of the water's color from the sky's color and, thus, higher artistic control.Reflections & RefractionReflections in the Single Layer Water shading model are as usual determined by the inputs for Specular (reflection intensity) and Roughness (reflection diffusion). In our case, however, we use Lumen reflections for their accuracy and quality, and as of Unreal 5.4, the Single Layer Water model’s roughness calculation does not work with Lumen reflections. It forces mirror reflections (Roughness = 0), no matter the value input, leaving the specular lobe unaffected. Instead, it only offsets the reflection brightness, as the specular input does.For our artistic purposes, this is fine, and we do use the roughness input to fine-tune the specular level while having the specular input as the base level. A very low value was set for the specular value to keep the reflection brightness low. We further stylized the reflections by decreasing this brightness near the camera by using the already mentioned masking method via camera to interpolate between two values (RoughnessNear and RoughnessFar). For refraction, the Pixel Normal Offset mode was used, and a scalar parameter interpolates between the base refraction and the output of the normal waves.CausticsFor the caustic effect, we created a Voronoi noise pattern by using Unreal's Noise node and exporting it with a render target. In Photoshop, the pattern was duplicated twice, rotated each, colored, and blended. This texture is then projected on the objects below by using the ColorScaleBehindWater input of the Single Layer Water Material output. The pattern is dynamically distorted by adding one of the aforementioned panning noise textures to the UV coordinates.FoamlinesWe started by creating custom meshes for foam lines and applied the earlier texture pattern, but quickly realized that such a workflow would be too cumbersome and inflexible for even a small scene, so we decided to do it procedurally. Two common methods for generating intersection masks on a plane are Depth Sampling and Distance Fields. The first works by subtracting the camera's distance to the water surface at the current pixel (i.e., the "PixelDepth") from the camera's distance to the closest scene object at that pixel (i.e., the "SceneDepth"). The second method is to use the node "DistanceToNearestSurface" which calculates the shortest distance between a point on the water surface and the nearest object by referencing the scene's global distance field. We used both methods to control the mask width, as each alone varies with the object's surface slope, causing undesirable variations. Combining them allowed us to switch between two different mask widths, turning off "Affect Distance Field Lighting" for shallow slopes where narrower lines are wanted.The added mask of all intersections is then used for two effects to create the foam lines: "edge foam" (that does not depart from the intersection) and "edge waves" (which go outwards from the edge foam). Both are shaped with the noise samplers shown above to approximate the hand-drawn foam line texture.Foam PatternsThe same noise samplers are also used to create a sparkling foam effect, loosely imitating whitecaps/foam crests to add more visual interest to the water surface. Since it only reuses operations, this effect is very cheap. Similarly, the wave normals are used to create something like fake subsurface scattering to further distinguish the moving water surface. Interactive RipplesA third type of foam is added as interactive waves that ripple around the player character when walking through shallow water. This is done through a Render Target and particles, as demonstrated in this Unity tutorial by Minions Art. The steps described there are all easily applicable in Unreal with a Niagara System, a little Blueprint work, and common material nodes. We added a Height to Normal conversion for better visual integration into our existing wave setup. Finally, here are all those operations combined for the material inputs:NimueBest PracticesUse Single Layer Water for efficient translucency, but note it lacks back-face rendering and forces mirror reflections with Lumen;For simple low-altitude waves, pan two offset samples of a normal map at different speeds; move panning to Vertex Shader for better performance;Break up texture tiling efficiently by offsetting UVs with a large panning noise, modulating normal strength, and fading distant waves using pixel depth;Sampling one small noise texture at different scales can power this and many other features of a water shader efficiently;If high-altitude waves aren't needed, a simple sine-based WPO can suffice for vertex displacement; implement a grid system for LODs and culling of subdivided water meshes;Blend two scattering colors by camera distance for artistic watercolor control and separation from sky reflections;Combining depth sampling and distance fields to derive the foam lines allows for more flexible intersection widths but comes at a higher cost. Further ResourcesHere are some resources that helped us in the shader creation process:General shader theory and creation: tharlevfx, Ben Cloward;Interactive water in Unity: Minions Art;Another free stylized water material in Unreal by Fabian Lopez Arosa;Technical art wizardry: Ghislain Girardot.ConclusionWe hope this breakdown of our water material creation process will help you in your projects.If you want to take a look at our shader yourself or even use it for your own game projects, you can download the complete setup on Gumroad. We look forward to seeing your water shaders and exchanging ideas. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or want to connect.Kolja Bopp, Academic SupervisorLeanna Geideck, Concept ArtistStephan zu Münster, Technical Artist

Editor’s note: As of June 1, 2023, the Unity 2022 LTS is now available.When I talk to our partners, customers, and those of you who work day to day with Unity’s Editor and runtime, one thing that keeps popping up is the desire to be more ambitious with your game design. You want tools that enable you to create with fewer constraints, delivering player experiences that wow and cause wonder.Unity 2022 LTS is designed to give you that power. You’ll discover that you can rely on the new LTS release to create sophisticated DOTS-powered games, multiplayer experiences, immersive HD environments, and visuals that perform great on any platform you target. And we remain committed to ensuring you have wide platform support with amazing tools for any device in this release.So, I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you about the Unity 2022 LTS release, which is just around the corner.On June 22, 2023, we’ll host a multi-hour livestream diving into some of our favorite features, so be sure to join us then by signing up to get notified. But if you’re like me and are waiting with bated breath to hear about the new features, I’ve got some inside knowledge for you right here.Let’s dive into some of the highlights from this release that I’m particularly excited about.Yes, DOTS is here! The team, led by Laurent Gibert and Joe Valenzuela, has delivered the first fully supported-for-production version of our Entity Component System (ECS), so you can now build with the full Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) solution – Burst compiler, C# Jobs System, and now ECS for Unity.Your most challenging projects require a game engine that provides power and flexibility. ECS for Unity offers the ability to gain greater control and determinism over data in memory and better runtime process scheduling. ECS is integrated into the Editor, so you can leverage your existing GameObject-based experience and use the power of Entities-based code when it’s beneficial.We’ll have more information about how you can harness the power of DOTS when Unity 2022 LTS is released, but you can engage with the team who actively participate in our forums here.With Unity 2022 LTS, we’re excited to support multiplayer games with a rapidly growing end-to-end ecosystem of creation workflows and cloud services. This is possible by tight integration between the Unity game engine and multiplayer services provided through Unity Gaming Services (UGS).We’re shipping the Netcode for Entities package with Unity 2022 LTS, fully supported for production. Netcode for Entities is a powerful networking feature to boost a game’s performance and capabilities. You’ll be able to increase the number of players, interactable objects, and backend server-side entities in competitive action games like first-person shooters and massive multiplayer online games.More than any other genre, multiplayer games rely on successful ongoing operations for live titles. That’s why we have a suite of multiplayer-specific services as part of UGS. Matchmaker, Friends, Leaderboards, and User-Generated Content are designed to simplify the implementation of multiplayer capabilities, while services like Relay, Lobby, Game Server Hosting (Multiplay), and Voice and Text Chat (Vivox) round out capabilities for your live game.To see our multiplayer functionality in action, we will also be releasing our new Megacity multiplayer sample in June, which is built on ECS for Unity and features UGS tools for hosting, matchmaking, authentication, and voice chat between players. This demo demonstrates how you can bring our powerful tools together in a fast-paced, competitive, third-person shooter that supports 64+ players.Immerse your players in beautiful, physically based environments with High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP). Unity LTS 2022 includes numerous features to enhance your game worlds for an even richer player experience.Introduce advanced procedural fog and volumetric effects using Volumetric Materials and Shader Graph to create atmospheric game environments such as haunted forests, desolate landscapes, or misty valleys.The new Water System enables you to add oceans, rivers, and underwater effects to your game environments. You can create realistic waves, ripples, foam, and more, as well as simulate underwater environments with advanced caustics, refraction, and reflection effects.Improvements to Cloud Layers with dynamic lighting and Volumetric clouds allow you to create even more realistic skies with clouds that change and move based on weather conditions, simply blending between different weather effects such as sunny and cloudy skies.A new update to the Spline package helps you procedurally generate paths, roads, or fences in your environments with greater precision for more organic and varied game environments with less manual work.The Universal Render Pipeline (URP) provides a scalable solution for high-quality graphics across platforms. Upgrades in this release allow you to create more realistic lighting in your scenes and achieve higher-quality visuals that scale across devices.Forward+ Rendering eliminates the light limit count so you can use more lights in a scene while maintaining performance. This feature is particularly useful if you want to achieve high-quality real-time lighting in your scenes.LOD crossfade which produces smoother graphic transitions as objects move closer or further away from the camera. Temporal Anti-aliasing (TAA) reduces aliasing problems such as pixelated and flickering edges to improve the overall visual quality of game scenes.Decal Layers allow you to add extra texture details in your scenes with control. You can use Decal Layers to filter and configure how different objects get affected by different Decal Projectors in a Scene.Customize your rendering experience with features like Shader Graph Full Screen Master Node and custom screen space effects. These allow you to create unique visual effects in games such as distortion or other types of post-processing, and they’re available in both URP and HDRP.Shader Variant Prefiltering significantly improves build time and memory optimization, reducing the build time and improving games’ overall performance.Finally, the Built-in Converter helps you to move existing projects from the Built-in Render Pipeline to URP, making it easier for you to take advantage of URP’s performance and scalability benefits.With Unity 2022 LTS, you can optimize your games for the latest platforms across mobile, console, desktop, and XR, with added performance and stability for key features.Maximize platform potential with increased performance and stability using the DirectX 12 graphics API on Windows and Xbox®. You can also experiment with the latest ray tracing support for Xbox® Series X|S and PlayStation®5, which allows for more realistic real-time lighting and reflections in game scenes.Iterate faster with the latest incremental player build process for Xbox®, iOS, PlayStation®5, and Nintendo Switch™*, which improves deployment efficiency, reducing time to market and improving overall game quality.Dig deeper into the performance of Android games with access to low-level data through the System Metrics Mali package from ARM. Games on Samsung devices can now take advantage of Adaptive Performance 4.0 with support for visual scripting. Better manage WebGL memory usage and gain native C++ multithreading along with support for touch controls and texture compression on web builds for mobile devices.Unity 2022 LTS expands your reach in XR with an updated XR Interaction toolkit (XRI) to enhance build times for PlayStation®VR2 and Meta Quest 2. Ensure your VR games run well across a variety of performant devices with late latching and motion vectors and improved graphics performance for games using Vulkan. These updated tools enable you to build immersive, high-fidelity XR experiences that can be deployed across multiple platforms.With a minimum of two years development and testing, Unity 2022 LTS has relied on user feedback and testing. Many of you have joined us on the journey through beta and Tech Stream releases, and I want to personally thank you for partnering with us to deliver the most stable Unity release in the 2022 cycle. And remember, LTS releases are supported for at least two years through biweekly updates, so we have you covered.Learn more about our 2022 LTS and the 2023.1 Tech Stream release in our GDC 2023 roadmap session.Wherever you are in your production process, Unity 2022 LTS offers resources to help you bring your project to the finish line and beyond. Get notified when LTS 2022 is available on release day by signing up for email updates.We hope this overview of the Unity 2022 LTS has given you a good idea of the powerful features and tools available in this release. We’re always eager to hear your feedback, questions, and ideas, so please keep the conversation going.Interact with other Unity creators and experts in our forums or directly through our platform roadmap. Catch our live streams on Twitch, and be sure to follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements. We look forward to hearing what you think.*Nintendo Switch is a registered trademark of Nintendo.

New this year from Austrian designer Laurids Gallée: This Tralucid Stool, which embodies the designer's fascination with crisp objects that contain blurriness. "This piece focuses on internal geometry. The matte surface on top ensures usability, while the sides, through refraction, create an illusion where the internal legs seem to reflect outward, appearing projected onto the stool's outer walls." "The structure consists of four solid blocks that are visible from within, yet from the outside, they dissolve into negative space."The Tralucid Stool is in (limited edition) production by Italian design platform Delvis Unlimited.

The International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia,  has returned, with its grand opening held in early May. The exhibition runs until November 23, 2025 The Canada Council for the Arts, Commissioner of Canada’s official participation in the International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, administers the selection process and oversees the exhibition at the Canada Pavilion. But in addition to the Canada Pavilion, Canadian architects and designers have a presence in several other exhibitions that are part of this year’s festival. Here’s a round-up of the Canadian work in Venice. Picoplanktonics. Photo credit: Valentina Mori Picoplanktonics led by Living Room Collective Canada’s official entry to the Biennale is Picoplanktonics, a 3D-printed living artwork incorporating cyanobacteria—a global first at the intersection of architecture, biotechnology, and art. The exhibition, developed by the Living Room Collective, showcases the potential for collaboration between humans and nature. Picoplanktonics is an exploration of the potential to co-operate with living systems by co-constructing spaces that “remediate the planet rather than exploit it.” The installation transforms the Canada Pavilion into an aquatic micro-ecosystem, where architectural structures grow, evolve, and naturally degrade alongside their living components. It was designed according to regenerative architecture principles, and is not only a built object, but also a breathing organism interacting with its environment, which prompts reflection on potential futures of the built environment. The creative team is led by bio-designer Andrea Shin Ling, alongside core team members Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui and Clayton Lee. Etude Ile Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault. Photo credit Alex Lesage Les boucaneries de l’île Verte by Atelier Pierre Thibault Atelier Pierre Thibault has been invited to participate in this year’s Venice Biennale as the only team from Québec. His project is inspired by the old fish smokehouses, or boucaneries, of Île Verte. With the support of the fifty permanent residents of Île Verte, Atelier Pierre Thibault has designed a participatory architectural project that aims to reinterpret the boucaneries as creative canvases to imagine new uses to strengthen Île Verte’s autonomy. This includes community greenhouses, artist studios, and gathering places. The exhibition aims to highlight, as Thibault puts it, “the strength of a sensitive and collective gesture in response to the erosion of traditional buildings and the major climate challenges faced by inhabitants living year-round in an isolated island environment.” The construction of the installations, along with the exchanges sparked with the community, was documented through photography and video, and captures both the process and the spirit of collaboration that defined the project. Celebrating the Verdoyants’ collective intelligence and inviting reflection on the future of the boucaneries, this participatory project highlights the exemplary and internationally resonant nature of this approach. The Atelier Pierre Thibault project will be on view at the Corderie dell’Arsenale. The pavilion itself will take the form of a temporary, lightweight structure constructed from reused materials, situated on the grounds of the French Pavilion, which is currently undergoing renovation. The curators have selected 50 projects to be featured across six thematic sections: Living With the Existing, the Immediate, the Broken, Vulnerabilities, Nature, and Combined Intelligences. Image courtesy of WZMH Architects Speedstac by WZMH Architects as part of Living With…Combined Intelligences  As part of the exhibition “Living With… Combined Intelligences,” WZMH Architects presents Speedstac, a prefabricated modular precast solution that aims to reimagine how urban areas devastated by war can be rebuilt. Originally designed to accelerate housing construction in Canada, Speedstac took on urgent new relevance following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. With more than 170,000 buildings damaged or destroyed and millions displaced, WZMH’s innovation, developed through its R&D lab, sparkbird, aims to offer a scalable solution: self-contained, plug-and-play building modules with integrated electrical and plumbing systems that can be seamlessly inserted into existing structures. The use of modern materials such as high-performance concrete can reduce the weight of the modules, making them easier to lift and move using conventional crane equipment. Using a robust locking mechanism, several modules can be securely fastened and unfastened as needed, to produce an adaptive modular housing solution. The Speedstac system aims to offer a solution to the challenges of traditional construction methods, enabling faster, more flexible, and more sustainable building projects. The Vivre Avec / Living With exhibition is hosted in the French Pavilion. Presentation, Northern Horizons. Photo credit: Blouin Orzes architectes Northern Horizons by Blouin Orzes architectes as part of Time Space Existence  Through a wide selection of projects—ranging from conceptual works, models and photographs to videos, sculptures and site-specific installations—the exhibition Time Space Existence, hosted by the European Cultural Centre, aims to provoke participants to question their relationship with space and time, re-envisioning new ways of living and rethinking architecture through a larger lens. Quebec firm Blouin Orzes’ participation revolves around their first-hand understanding of Inuit territories, where they have been working since 2000. Their contribution is based on their  recent publication, Northern Journeys. Blouin Orzes’ contribution in on display at the Palazzo Mora, and additional contributions to Time Space Existence are on view at the Palazzo Bembo and Marinaressa Gardens. View of Commercial and Residential Towers from Seymour and West Georgia Streets. Image credit: Henriquez Partners Studio BC Glass Sea Sponge Another contribution to Time Space Existence is the work of Henriquez Partners Studio. The transformative mixed-use development which they are presenting merges architectural innovation, social responsibility and urban revitalization, and has recently been submitted to the City of Vancouver. The project is about ambitious city-building, and aims to unlock public benefits on currently underutilized land in a way that supports some of the city’s most urgent needs, while contributing bold architecture to the city skyline. Four towers, designed by Henriquez, draw inspiration from rare and ancient glass sea sponge reefs, whose ecological strength and resilience have shaped both form and structure. These living marine organisms, which are unique to the Pacific Northwest, aim to serve as a metaphor for regeneration and adaptation. This concept is translated through the architectural language of the towers: silhouettes, sculptural forms, and sustainable performance. The tallest tower, a stand-alone hotel, proposed at 1,033 feet, is shaped by a structural diagrid exoskeleton that allows for column-free interiors while maximizing strength and minimizing material use. Developed in collaboration with Arup, the structural system references the skeletal lattice of sea sponges; a concept researched at Harvard for its groundbreaking structural efficiency. Henriquez Partners’  contribution is on display at Palazzo Bembo. Renewal Development Shishalh Project Duplex Renderings – Image credit: Renewal Development Shíshálh Nation: Ten Home Rescue Project as part of theLiving With / Vivre avec exhibition Vancouver-based company Renewal Development has been selected to appear as part of the French Pavilion’s exhibition on housing innovation. In 2024, Renewal Development partnered with developer Wesgroup and the shíshálh Nation to relocate ten high value Port Moody homes set for demolition to the shíshálh Nation on the Sunshine Coast. The Nation has been experiencing an acute housing shortage with 900 Nation members currently on a waitlist for housing. Renewal Development says that this initiative reflects its “deeply held values of sustainability, and reconciliation” and its “work to offer real-world solutions to waste and housing shortages by reimagining what already exists.” The project will be on display in the French Pavilion. The following is a list of other Canadian groups and individuals contributing to this year’s Venice Biennale: On Storage Brendan Cormier is a Canadian writer, curator, and urban designer based in London. He is currently the lead curator of 20th and 21st Century Design for the Shekou Partnership at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Prior to this he served as the managing editor of Volume Magazine. La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London present for the ninth consecutive year the Applied Arts Pavilion Special Project titled On Storage, curated by Brendan Cormier, in collaboration with Diller, Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). It explores the global architecture of storage in service of the circulation of things, and features a newly commissioned six-channel film directed by DS+R. From Liquid to Stone: A Reconfigurable Concrete Tectonic Against Obsolescence Inge Donovan, based in Boston, achieved her Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Design and Architectural History, Theory and Criticism from the Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto in 2019 after growing up in Nova Scotia, Canada. The Curse of Dimensionality Adeline Chum is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for Spatial Research and third-year student in the MArch Program at GSAPP. She has received her Bachelor of Architectural Studies from the University of Waterloo, Canada and has worked in small and medium-sized architecture firms in Toronto, New York, and London. Oceanic Refractions Elise Misao Hunchuck, born in Toronto and currently based Berlin and Milan, is a transdisciplinary researcher, editor, writer, and educator. Her practice brings together architecture, landscape architecture, and media studies to research sites in Canada, Japan, China, and Ukraine, employing text, images, and cartographies to document, explore, and archive the co-constitutive relationships between plants, animals, and minerals—in all of their forms. SpaceSuits.Us: A Case for Ultra Thin Adjustments Charles Kim is a designer currently based in Boston. Stemming from his background in architecture, he is interested in materials, DIY, and the aesthetics of affordability. Since graduating from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2022, he has been working as an architectural designer at Utile. Uncommon Knowledge: Plants as Sensors Sonia Sobrino Ralston is a designer, researcher, and educator, and is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor in Landscape Architecture and Art + Design at Northeastern University in the College of Arts, Media, and Design. She is interested in the intersections between landscape, architecture, and the history of technology. Doxiadis’ Informational Modernism Mark Wasiuta is Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Columbia GSAPP and Co-Director of the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program. Wasiuta is recipient of recent grants from the Onassis Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, NYSCA, and the Graham Foundation, where he was an inaugural Graham Foundation Fellow. Blue Garden: The Architecture of Emergence Tanvi Khurmi, based in London, UK, is a multidisciplinary designer and artist. Her practice is focused on addressing and combatting issues surrounding the climate crisis. After receiving a Bachelor’s in Architecture with a minor in Environmental Studies from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto, she earned a Masters of Architecture in Bio-Integrated Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London. Design as an Astronaut Dr. Cody Paige is the Director of the Space Exploration Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, a team of 50+ students, faculty, and staff building and flying advanced technology for space exploration. The Initiative focuses on helping students take their research into space. The pipeline developed to achieve this works with students from across the Media Lab and the MIT community to prototype space-related research in the lab, fly and test them in microgravity on parabolic and suborbital flights, and finally to take them to the International Space Station or on to the Moon. Cody also has a background in geology, specifically quaternary geochronology, and completed her Master of Applied Science at the University of Toronto in Aerospace Engineering and her Bachelor of Applied Science from Queen’s University in Engineering Physics.   The post Round-up: Canadian-led exhibitions at the 2025 Venice Biennale appeared first on Canadian Architect.