Externalities

2023

Everlasting Plastics, US Pavilion, 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, IT. Curated by Tizziana Baldenebro, Lauren Leving and Paula Volpato.

Site-specific Installation

Externalities is a site-specific installation for the United States Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale that investigates the role of expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam in shaping contemporary building practices and spatial imaginaries. The piece aims to unsettle the illusion of weightlessness often associated with petroleum-based building materials through a direct material confrontation: a 33-foot wall filled with densified EPS scrap diverted from plastic recycling networks in the United States. Through an improvised architecture of accumulation, the project presents audiences with multiple readings of this human-made material: as an inventory system, as a monument to a bygone era, and as a layer in formation within our shared geological record. 

Project Team: Isabella Greco, Noelle Burke.

Material Suppliers: Save That Stuff, Nationwide Foam.

Fabrication: Apice, MS Fabrication, Foam Factory, WireCrafters..

Photography: Andrea Ferro, Jane Messinger.