MIT brings planetary futures and post-crisis architecture to palazzo diedo for venice biennale

MIT architecture and antikythera’s exhibition at palazzo diedo

As part of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale’s official collateral events, The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology takes over Palazzo Diedo with a double-decker exhibition examining the intersection of architecture, ecology, and planetary systems (find designboom’s previous coverage here). Organized in the Berggruen Arts & Culture space, the exhibition runs until November 23, 2025. At its core is Climate Work: Un/Worlding the Planet, a major showcase of MIT Architecture’s ongoing faculty research, framed as the discipline’s response to ecological breakdown through the lens of design, computation, and material inquiry. Sharing the venue is a parallel contribution by Antikythera, adding a complementary cosmological perspective to the planetary themes explored throughout.

The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology takes over Palazzo Diedo | image by Joan Porcel

beyond climate crisis: MIT’s planetary prototypes

Together, Antikythera think tank and MIT’s contributions press architecture into a new register that’s capable of engaging with the cosmos, computation, and crisis on equal terms. The Next Earth asks how thought, form, and code might converge to invent them. 

Located on the lower floor of the newly restored Palazzo Diedo, Climate Work gathers 37 speculative projects from MIT Architecture faculty, challenging the discipline’s role in a world shaped by climate crisis. These works-in-progress imagine alternate presents and futures, with prototypes spanning embodied energy, decarbonized construction, regenerative material systems, and the use of machine learning in design. From deep-time geological thinking to speculative infrastructures, the projects unearth architecture’s complicity—buildings and construction are responsible for nearly 40% of global emissions—while proposing new modes of planetary engagement.

Far from treating climate as a fixed problem, Climate Work reframes it as a generative context. The exhibit invites visitors to see architecture as a world-building tool capable of reconfiguring how humans live, build, and think on Earth. 

the exhibition examines the intersection of architecture, ecology, and planetary systems | image by Joan Porcel

mapping cosmology and climate through parallel visions

On the upper floor, the Antikythera’s The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI takes visitors on a speculative voyage from the world’s first known computer to today’s global AI systems. Curated as both philosophical inquiry and architectural installation, the show centers around a monumental video monolith broadcasting ideas and short films that explore planetary computation as a vast, accidental infrastructure, a ‘megastructure’ rendering Earth’s molecular and atmospheric systems legible and increasingly programmable. Rare historical artifacts—tracing the legacy of philosophy, astronomy, and the evolution of intelligence—anchor the exhibition’s deeper currents, while Antikythera’s forthcoming book, Accept All Cookies, distills its research into a philosophical toolkit for navigating the age of planetary computation.

organized in the newly restored Berggruen Arts & Culture space | image by Joan Porcel

the show runs until November 23, 2025 | image by Joan Porcel

The Noocene takes visitors on a speculative voyage | image by Joan Porcel

Environment-Trouble by Mark Jarzombek | image courtesy of MIT Architecture

Overview | image courtesy of Antikythera

Variants of Unknowable Significance | image courtesy of Antikythera

Fulcrum House by Mark Goulthorpe | image courtesy of MIT Architecture

GoPro footage of a high-altitude helium balloon | image courtesy of Antikythera

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Calvin Zhong's Cooking Together | image courtesy of MIT Architecture

Brick x Brick: Drawing a Particular Survey by Carrie Norman | image courtesy of MIT Architecture

Les Norford + Eduardo Gascón Alvarez | image courtesy of MIT Architecture

Lily Structures | image courtesy of Antikythera

Tree Form | image courtesy of MIT Architecture

Xenoplex | image courtesy of Antikythera

project info:

name: The Next Earth: Computation, Crisis, Cosmology
research programs: The Noocene: Computation and Cosmology from Antikythera to AI, Climate Work: Un/Worlding the Planet
participants: Antikythera | @antikythera_xyz, MIT Architecture | @mitarchitecture 

location: Palazzo Diedo, Venezia, Italy

event: Collateral Event of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale Di Venezia | @labiennale
presented by: Palazzo Diedo – Berggruen Arts & Culture | @berggruendiedo
dates: May 10th – November 23rd, 2025