The pavilion “Domino 3.0/ Generated Living Structure,” in which our laboratory collaborated in terms of AI technology, was exhibited at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition (2025) at the Venice Biennale.
This pavilion was created at the Arsenale as a Special Project selected by the curators. It was designed in collaboration with SEKISUI HOUSE – KUMA LAB, the Matsuo and Iwasawa Laboratory of the University of Tokyo, Kengo Kuma & Associates, and Ejiri Architects & Engineers.
The overall theme of this exhibition is “Intelligence.
The first was to support the structural design to reuse irregular and unique natural materials such as fallen trees as building materials.
AI analyzes the shape data of wood acquired by 3D scanning and automatically proposes the optimal joint method and structural assembly for each piece of wood. We envision such a future.
The second point is design support that balances functionality and creativity.
In architecture, not only functionality, such as safety and durability, but also beauty of form and design are essential, and we aim for AI to understand the intentions of designers and past architectural examples, and make proposals that balance function and beauty.
In this pavilion, we explored a new way of architecture that effectively utilizes a variety of natural materials through an attempt to have AI capture the characteristics of various trees through image recognition and generate structures based on the properties of each tree.
The exhibition will be held locally in Venice from May 10 to November 23, 2025.
The “Domino 3.0 / Generated Living Structure” design team
Matsuo & Iwasawa Laboratory, The University of Tokyo
Yutaka Matsuo, Sota Matsuzawa, Takuma Nozawa, Naoto Oyama, Tomoki Murakami, Kazunari Wada
University of Tokyo General Project Organization SEKISUI HOUSE – KUMA LAB
Kengo Kuma, Toshiki Hirano, Ryo Saito, Jiro Akita, Nozomu Sudo, Shutaro Matsuura
Kengo Kuma & Associates
Minoru Yokoo, Ryo Saito
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Ejiri Architectural & Structural Design Office
Noriyasu Ejiri, Kaoru Fukaneharu
Photography: © Nils Koenning
Source: SEKISUI HOUSE – KUMA LAB’s YouTube
