The  Scotland + Venice partnership is delighted to announce it has commissioned a creative team consisting of the Architecture Fringe, ism and /other to develop new work. Their initial proposal has been submitted as a proposed collateral event for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia at the Arsenale Docks, S. Pietro di Castello, Venice.

What if…?/Scotland responds to the Biennale’s theme How will we live together?, seeking to re-engage the civic role of architects and designers by asking citizens from across Scotland to share their hopes and dreams for the future of the places they call home. 7N paired 25 people from 5 places across Scotland with 25 designers, architects, and artists – to share their hopes and dreams for the future of the place where they live. The architects and designers then used these wishes to begin exploring imaginative ideas in response to the community challenges being faced.

Prospect North delivered an interactive exhibition exploring 15 community projects throughout Scotland and Scotland’s relationship with its northern neighbours with a focus on people and place. A micro to macro approach delivered a series of innovative mapping strategies, individual narratives, portraits and evocative imagery, highlighting Scotland’s place and identity within an economically emerging northern region. It then toured to three major venues in Scotland and to the Arctic Circle conference in Reykjavik. A smaller version was produced to tour to communities in Scotland.

Curated by Reiach and Hall, Past + Future saw four groups research modernity in Scotland. In response to the theme Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014, Scotland + Venice was concerned with undertaking fragments of research, aimed primarily at opening up debate within Scotland about what a modern architecture was and what it might be? A series of publication were distributed in Venice and Scotland. Past + Future continue the event-based approach that established itself as the hallmark of a distinctive Scottish presence in Venice during the Architecture Biennale.  A series of events were also run in Scotland on its return.

Curated by Jonathan Charlie, Critical Dialogues saw four Glasgow-based practices created a Scottish ‘studio’ in Venice to explore the social role of the architect and the creative boundaries of architecture. Organised as a week-long series of events that took place within the public realm, Critical Dialogues was planned as a sequence of actions that engaged with overlooked and marginalised places and social organisations. Each practice developed a methodological tool kit that was adaptable and playful, so that in principle any one of the projects could be transferred and repeated in other locations.

Sited outside the main railway station opposite the Grand Canal, the 7m-high wooden structure created from sustainable materials, including Scots larch, showcased Scottish design and construction. It provided a temporary public forum for debate and discussion and  invited visitors to sit, pause and contemplate, and from the top offered a new perspective on the city A Gathering Space was the focus of a number of debates including New Regionalism in Architecture, Architecture Beyond Building, Architecture and Landscape and Transforming the urban landscape.