“Exquisite Porch” on display at the 19th International Biennale Architettura of La Biennale di Venezia.
DBA is an invited exhibitor in the U.S. Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Themed “PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity”, the pavilion features more than 54 riffs on the concept of the porch—including ours.
Our interactive installation—“Exquisite Porch”—was inspired by the broad social porches we designed for Williams Terrace, a gracious senior housing community in downtown Charleston, S.C.
As a designer at DBA, I was a key part of the team that translated the idea of these wide shared porches, which have been colorfully and wonderfully personalized by the residents, into a hands-on model. Our team, which included DBA Principals and the fabricators from our in-house DBA_Workshop, drew on the idea of the surrealist parlor game “exquisite corpse”, in which multiple people contribute a section of a picture without seeing the other parts.
With our “Exquisite Porch”—built from Baltic birch plywood, anodized aluminum columns, 3D printed screens, and acrylic panels—viewers add layers to an aggregated porch scene by selecting from our range of transparent “entourage” cards. Each person’s porch contribution is independent from the others, so as porch scenes are arrayed across the model, unique and unplanned adjacencies and intersections occur. Think 4th of July decor and summer barbeque setups alongside a neighbor’s forgotten Christmas lights. These are the rich, personal contributions of residents that give life and vibrancy to a building and community.
“Exquisite Porch” is an earnest attempt to give Biennale-goers agency to personalize and interact, with the architecture serving as a framework to facilitate collective character.
We shipped the model to Venice in March, and in June I followed along, visiting the Biennale to check on the installation (and do a little maintenance), get a sense of how people were engaging with the porches, document the interactions in situ—and even give a lecture on our work philosophy to a university study abroad program.
Day 1—Getting Oriented
With the Biennale closed on Mondays, I spent my first day in Venice as a tourist hitting the popular spots—Piazza San Marco, Palazzo Ducale, Rialto, some notable churches—and checking out the many Venetian palazzos that have been turned into museums and galleries. And eating gelato of course.
The highlight of this day was taking the vaporetto (the Venetian public water bus) to San Giorgio Maggiore, a Palladian church located on a small island of the same name. Take the elevator up the campanile and you get panoramic views of all of Venice, particularly of Piazza San Marco and the start of the Canal Grande. This felt like the best way to get oriented and view Venice, with San Marco straight on, similar to the way boats approached the historic trading city hundreds of years ago.
Day 2—Porch Time
On Tuesday morning I grabbed my camera and my modeling supplies, stopped for an espresso and pastry, and made my way to the Giardini. While so much of Venice is defined by the crowded tourist centers like San Marco and Rialto, the walk from Cannaregio to the Giardini in Castello felt like a different Venice. It’s quiet and less trafficked—just some kids playing soccer in a campo and local Venetians towing their carts of groceries home along the cobblestone streets.
I entered the Giardini right as it opened, beelining for the U.S. Pavilion to make some small fixes on our model before visitors started to trickle in. We learned that Venice is very humid—it’s a lagoon!—and some of the plywood was swelling more than our tolerances anticipated. I did a general tune-up, such as some light sanding in the grooves where the cards were stored to keep them from getting stuck. Our original basswood screens, which represent the movable sunshades at Williams Terrace, were showing some wear, so I swapped those out for more durable 3D printed versions.
I finished just as people started entering the pavilion and then kept an eye on the exhibit to get a sense of how visitors engaged with the model. It was really wonderful to see so many people go up to it, figure out what it was about, and start sliding cards in and out, creating their own porch scene. Kids especially enjoyed playing with the model, even if it was just pulling the cards out of the storage library to get a look at all the different scenes.
The Pavilion has a contemporary porch installation out front, and I took some time sitting out there watching people go in and out, viewing all of the installations. With pillows, blankets, and furniture sprinkled across it, the Pavilion porch felt like a true hangout spot where people were relaxing, doing work on their laptops, eating—fully embodying the spirit of “porchness.”
Day 3—Keeping Cool
The next day was spent wrapping up viewing some of the pavilions in the Giardini and then making my way to the Arsenale. Climate change and urban heat island effect were a common thread amongst the pavilions I visited. A highlight was the Bahrain Pavilion installation, named "Heatwave," which reimagined passive cooling techniques. After a hot, humid day of walking around Venice and exploring pavilions, it was incredible how cool it felt in this pavilion.
Day 4—Full Circle
On my final day at the Biennale, I was able to give a “DBA + Porch” talk to a class from the University of Virginia’s summer-abroad program. The annual summer Vicenza program is primarily a drawing course where students travel across the Veneto region, documenting their observations through sketching and analytical drawing. During my time at UVA as an undergrad student, I participated in the Venice semester-long program, so this was a very cool, full circle moment to be back in Venice for the Biennale and to present DBA’s work to students participating in a similar program.
The students gathered at the U.S. Pavilion, seeking shade under the traditional low-country haint blue ceiling of the contemporary mass timber porch. I shared about DBA, our work and philosophy, and did a deep dive into the Williams Terrace project to prime them for entering the Pavilion. The students played with the model, created their porch scenes, and asked some fabrication questions to get some pointers for future studio models.
After they played with the model and walked through the rest of the Pavilion, they dispersed for their drawing exercise—sketching a pavilion of their choosing in the Giardini.
Reflection
It was truly a once in a lifetime experience to see something that we created at the Venice Biennale. Seeing the joy and curiosity of viewers who stopped to play with and ponder our model for a moment or two was a reminder that our approach to this installation parallels the way we conceive and think about architecture at DBA—putting people first. We do this work—designing communities with care for people we may never meet—for the experience that it offers to the people who engage with it.
Ciao!
The Venice Biennale is open through November 23, 2025. There’s still time to stop by the U.S. Pavilion to get a look at our “Exquisite Porch.”
Carley Leckie is a Designer at DBA, based in our San Francisco studio.